Rewarding Insights About "Seeing" from a Dialogue at the Great Lakes Academy of Fine Art

While preparing for a new season, Duluth's Great Lakes Academy (GLA) opened its studio for a special week of classes led by an instructor from the Grand Central Atelier in New York, Devin Cecil-Wishing. The guest artist's workshop this past week was titled Cast Drawing and the Mechanics of Light. Ryan Swanson, who is assembling a story on Plein Air painting that will include portions about GLA, invited me to join him Tuesday when he dropped in to gather info for his story.

The guest instructor's workshop came about like this. One of GLA's first year students, took time off from his summer to attend a workshop at GCA in New York. Through Alex, Devin Cecil-Wishing was introduced to Brock Larson, co-founder of the Duluth school which also specializes in the Atelier method.

On Tuesday Jeffrey Larson led Mr. Swanson and myself on a tour of the various rooms in the former Catholic church building on Third Street to see the progress that has taken place this summer. "The church has a lot of emotional value to the community," Larson noted. "Community support has been strong. The people have been wonderful."

(L to R) Devin Cecil Wishing, Jeffrey Larson and Ryan Swanson.

After the tour we settled downstairs and talked about art, painting and the creative process. The couch and chairs happened to be in front and beneath a study for a painting that Larson was commissioned to do for the Cathedral School titled, Mary Appearing to the Children of Duluth. Larson found the commission interesting as he strives to work out a way to depict his subject with two light sources, outdoor light and the light radiating from within Mary. "This is a study to work out values and shapes." It made for an interesting setting for our dialogue with Devin on the left, Jeffrey and Ryan on the right.

The artist's subject matter is as interesting as his interpretation.

DIFFERENT WAYS OF DEPICTING NATURE

The much respected artist from Queens.

All painters who do representational work encounter the same problem. "There's a 3-dimensional world we're trying to depict. There are multiple ways to depict that world," Devin said. "At GCA we're trying to model 3-D form into the picture frame. What you can do with paint is never adequate for perfectly depicting reality."

He explained the limitations of pigment and color like this. "It's like maps depicting the globe." In other words, a two-dimensional map will always only be an interpretation. Here's a page showing varieties of solutions to map-making efforts.

"100 artists will give 100 different interpretations (of a scene). We are always editing, always throwing out. The language is very inadequate. How can we convey what we so like?

COMPETING WITH A "NOW" ORIENTED SOCIETY
The studio painting that takes place here demands a slower pace than modern people are accustomed to. "To create it takes days, weeks, months or years," Jeffrey said. "We're not old-fashioned painters. We're aiming to be cutting edge artists."

"For me," Devin said, "I relish the fact that it's a little slow. There is a meditative quality to it. It makes the viewer want to slow dow, to see things with fresh eyes."

Jeffrey added, "Most people use their eyes for navigational purposes. Here at the school we train ourselves to see truthfully."

PLEIN AIR PAINTING CHALENGES
In recent years we've seen a growing appreciation for and participation in plein air painting, which is painting outdoors. Later this month, for example, there will be an major exhibition of plein air work titled Industrial Landscape. Painting outdoors has special challenges of its own.

"You're still breaking nature into components. The sunlight is moving, so you paint fast," Jeffrey said. He then compared it to the final two minutes of a football game. "Two minutes left and you're seven points behind. You start throwing Hail Mary's. You're just attacking it and you get it or you miss. When it comes together it's magical fun."

* * * *

Photo of Devin (above) and this one courtesy Ryan Swanson

The weeklong workshop now complete, Devin Cecil-Wishing will return to his teaching at Grand Central Atelier in the Queens, New York. The instructor's motivation for getting involved with the Atelier school was in part to help young artists move from the academic world to the professional world. "The transition from student to professional is usually rocky," he affirmed.

The weeklong workshop, for those interested, cost $475. Now that the week is done, I saw this post on Facebook: "We've had such a fantastic week learning from Devin and we're hoping he'll be coming back to Duluth someday soon."

The Larsons have indicated that they will indeed be inviting other painting instructors to come to Duluth to conduct workshops. Just like the various ways map-makers depict the world, painters take different approaches to depict reality.

As the new art school enters its second year, there is palpable excitement building for what's to come.

* * * *
More links of interest to this story.
Devin's profile at Rehs Contemporary Galleries, Inc.
Grand Central Atelier
The Devin Cecil-Wishing website.