Tricolor Rule of Thirds – Sunset, Thursday, 15 January 2015

William Van Doren, TRICOLOR RULE OF THIRDS. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on canvas, 24 x 30.

“What’s with all the straight lines/boxes in your recent paintings?”

That was a question posed today by someone who follows the Very Rich Hours page on Facebbok.

I replied as follows:

“I probably don’t know the entire reason for the lines/designs, because part of it is a mystery, just as the process of making art involves exploring a mystery. To the extent that I can explain it, I believe that what we experience when we see something like a sunset can’t be expressed by what we see, by simply reproducing the elements of what’s in our visual field. Especially at sunset, a larger world is present.

“Do I think that the larger world is described by lines like the ones in my paintings? Not really. But when I seem to have finished the usual pictorial aspects of a sunset, first of all, I know or I feel without a doubt that it isn’t done, it isn’t right. I’m following an intuition or an impulse wherever it goes, knowing full well that it may not work. The intention or hope behind the lines and diagrams is that it will create another plane that distracts you from the picture plane; in a sense it’s a deliberate messing up of the painting, but with the hope that when you try to hold both the normal image and the other elements in your vision at the same time, a third reality can emerge, as a sense or a feeling of something greater. That's why I titled this painting Larger Than Life.

“I realize that for some viewers, perhaps for many, it doesn’t work. For a few, it may have worked immediately. And I also have to say that tomorrow I could move on to a different way of achieving this same goal. Perhaps the best way to illustrate what this is all about is through the Solar Panel canvases I started doing in March. The paintings were of the sun, but they weren’t done, for me, until I had added enough lines, areas of deep and bright color, interlacing patterns, etc., to create a sense of a bigger experience.

William Van Doren, SOLAR PANEL #1. Oil on canvas, 30 x 30.

“In a sense I’m using visual elements to reproduce, or stand in for, something that was never just visual in the first place. Even though it can look geometric, the intention is basically spiritual, although that word could be easily misunderstood. I do believe that there are spirit worlds that are always with us, and I am trying to go beyond the visual world, but, again, by using visual elements — tricks, almost. I hope you'll hang with me while I try to work it out. It may be that at some point it will seem more integrated, and in some cases I think it does work that way.”

“Kick Off Your Summer of Cosmic Sunsets”

This segment on NPR by blogger and astrophysicist Adam Frank expresses much of what The Very Rich Hours is all about. Thanks to Aime Ballard-Wood for letting me know about this wonderful story.

If Tony Ruled the World – Sunset, Tuesday, 22 October 2013

William Van Doren, IF TONY RULED THE WORLD. Sunset from Hollymead, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.

This was a “driveway moment,” except the driveway I stopped in wasn't mine! I was driving up U.S. 29 to get home for the sunset, but about four miles from my destination I could see in my driver’s side mirror that something amazing was already happening. I turned up to the top of a ridge between a condo complex and a shopping center, where there’s a dead end lane into some space cleared for future construction. While I sketched, people in five other cars came up and pulled over just to see the sunset. It was kind of wonderful. From a car radio I heard the great Tony Bennett (who could just as well paint this himself) singing “If I Ruled the World” ... “Every head would be held up high/ There'd be sunshine in everyone's sky/ If the day ever dawned when I ruled the world.”

Open Late – Sunset, Wednesday, 19 June 2013

William Van Doren, OPEN LATE. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.

The difference between 8:37 and 8:41 p.m. was remarkable, as the sky opened up, although the mountains were still mostly covered. This was a case where the practice of doing a smaller oil sketch at sunset and letting the experience of both the sunset and the first painting sort of ferment helped create something that felt both more conscious and more spontaneous.

Open Late (Oil Sketch) – Sunset, Wednesday, 19 June 2013

William Van Doren, OPEN LATE (SKETCH). Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 11 x 15.

A first oil sketch for a painting that will post tomorrow. Wanted a title for James Gandolfini, but the only Tony S. thing I could think to say is that I “dweigned” to paint this.