Welcome to my Blog.

I intend to post information and ideas that will help clarify where I am coming from along my never ending and ever changing adventure of the creative process.

Where I am going is yet to be seen.

An artist that I have studied with and that has influenced me the most was Dale Chisman.

History

Paintings by Dale Chisman

Fall

We had a student teacher relationship as well as one that was friend to friend.

Over the last few years that he was with us I would take lunch to his home/studio about once a month. We would have marvelous talks about art and (interestingly) metaphysics. We also talked on the phone when there were more things we wanted to share.

Dale was such an inspiration not only for me but for countless students and friends that had the privilege of knowing him.

The following is my tribute to Dale Chisman.

Dale Chisman, teacher by Jane Denison, student

I first met Dale when I was a student in his Master Class at the Denver Art Students League.

I had the privilege of being one of his students for several years. A Master Class means that the artist already knows how to paint but wants individual guidance from an instructor.

Dale’s class filled two rooms. You had to sign up months in advance and there was always a waiting list. In the 2007 Art Students League Exhibit of the Students of Dale Chisman it was very obvious, because of the variety of techniques, that each student had been allowed to maintain and develop his/her own style of painting. This creative freedom was the primary attraction to his classes.

Dale had the uncanny ability to reach students where they were in their development, see their potential and nurture this creativity all within his own good humored manner. He had a vast knowledge of the works of other artists around the world and would recommend to a student just the right ones to study and research to better enhance the direction of their own styles.

Through this exposure I am developing my own library of artists who continue to influence and inspire my creative curiosity. You would not only learn from his comments to you but from his conversations with other students as well. He was teaching us how to better critique our own work which is an art in itself.

From time to time his students had the rare privilege of going on gallery or museum tours with him and listening to his explanations of Contemporary Art. I told him that some day I hoped to be able to understand his style of painting. He explained this would come from an appreciation of what he called “High Art”.

When I heard him expound with delight the nuances of a huge painting in the Museum of Contemporary Art I began to understand where he was coming from.

He saw the entire canvas as an exciting arena full of colors, tension, harmony, shapes, relationships, layers, etc. all playing off each other in endless activity. Each form and color in the painting was appreciated for itself. By the very nature of the boundaries of a canvas a painting can seem restricted. A contemporary abstract painting has a sense of expanding forever because shapes and colors seem to extend beyond the canvas. This was a style used by Dale in all of his painting. From his urging I learned to try not to have shapes look like they represented a thing or a familiar object. These would be intrusions stopping the eye and demanding the mind’s attention. The viewer would then lose the flow and entertainment factor so essential in abstract painting.

Dale expressed his ideas in a variety of sizes but most enjoyed painting on very large canvasses working on several at the same time in his big studio. He always encouraged his students to expand their paintings to larger and larger canvasses. As Dale would talk about his own work you had the sense that he was entering into the canvas and surrounding himself with the ideas he was painting. He gave each piece a lot of thinking time as well as painting time. He no longer did sketches of what he wanted to paint but let the painting itself develop as he worked on it. It was in constant flux until he felt it was a finished piece. Sometimes you could see an under painting of shapes he had covered over as the painting developed. If there happened to be a drip or a dribble of paint he would leave it alone. I learned that those techniques showed the hand of the artist and gave the painting depth so was left with purpose.

An example of his interest in his students was when last year Dale came with me to The Great Western Art Gallery to see my paintings and check out the gallery. He enjoyed seeing my work displayed and commented on each piece with great insight and enthusiasm. That experience was an art students dream come true.

2008

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 29th, 2009 at 10:46 am and is filed under About the Artist. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.