Frederick Heidel's "Garden Around Four" - a political vision?

Between 1962 -1965 Frederick Heidel was my painting instructor at Portland State College and again for a summer watercolor figure painting class in 1976. The gist of his instruction was learning the language of large color areas and sensitive line. He questioned us on how much the subject should be the concern in our painting or just a beginning to explore paint - a question for each student to answer themselves.

Around 1885, "Garden Around Four", 63 x50 1/2" was one of his acrylic paintings in an exhibit presented by the Fountain Gallery of Portland now known as the Laura Russo Gallery. http://www.laurarusso.com/

This painting made me feel happy and reminded me of weaving and mosaics - two interests I share with Heidel. It makes me want to play with color. For years I thought of his painting as being primarily about paint and did not read much meaning into it other than there were two women at tea in the garden. When studying under Heidel, I had a theory of how broken glass and ceramic shapes could be arranged on a tinted cement background. In Heidel's painting he organized natural shaped brush strokes using extra long, filbert brushes. In a painting with the colors so separated by the ground, my impression is that the subject is in the process of coming apart. In a mosaic the pieces are obviously from something broken and they are being put together.

A painting of depth invites interpretation beyond the intentions of the painter.

Politics today has woken me to further musing. Now I see "Garden at Four" as a vision of the female aspects of politics. The "Garden" refers to World War II freedom gardens. The figure to the right is like Sarah Palin wearing a buccaneer's shirt and a Peter Pan's hat. On the left is a female in a blue striped dress. Her hand has just tipped the full glass of pink lemonade. Her breasts shoot blood towards two hot peppers like two wars on the table. Where her head should be there is nothing but above towards the right is an enlarged donkey's head broken by cross hatches. On the arbor above the donkey party head is zigzagging lines talking at Sarah Palin on the right who is throwing cold water on the table.

The painting of the "Garden at Four" remains relevant although it is a comment on the Regan Administration. In 1984 Regan was reelected and he declared us to be at the "Morning in America". The two hot peppers on the table were Grenada and Libya. Just why Heidel represented the Democrat and the Republican parties as women is interesting to speculate. Possibly because the arguments between them were strident voices of women -- a negative attribute of women.

I am amused by another aspect of this painting. The brush strokes suggest the fraying and the coming apart of the fabric of culture. Heidel did not give me an A for one painting credit because I painted the dissolving and destruction of an urban renewal project that bulldozed a predominately Jewish district adjacent to Portland State College. In 1965 he said picturing destruction is anti-art. Twenty years later he might have changed his mind in his painting of a very incredible vision of America that is a standing example of the beauty of the American political system always looking shaky but still here. It is hard to say if he meant four in the morning or four in the afternoon at tea party time.

Can a vase save the world?

In our present day world a vase alone cannot magically save us from nuclear extinction. In prehistoric times clay vessels did save lives. A rounded clay vessel was technology which was so miraculous that it could be seen as magic. Dust mixed with water and shaped into a pot could be transformed by fire into a hardened vessel that holds water vital to life. Rounded clay vessels were associated with the continuation of life because they were round and full like a healthy pregnant woman.

In a previous post to this blog I outlined briefly the history of the use of clay vessels as a symbol that changed the way we treated one another. Other art forms like books, carpets, and paintings have symbolic histories as well that have brought about changes in social interactions between differing and competitive peoples. I do agree about their vital rolls in our history. The vase I purpose has some unique symbolism that might be useful as a tool to educate the giver being The United States at the same time as giving the receiver a sense of equality and shared responsibility.

Antonia Acock’s Red Cedar porcelain vase could have a particular relevance to our relationship to third world countries who we see as nuclear threats. Her vase was painted to commemorate the thirty acres of red cedar forest clear cut on the Oregon coastal range during the Bush administration trying to keep the economy going at all costs to our resources sustaining life when we were waging war against a supposed nuclear threat of Iraq. Acock wanted to commemorate the little contested loss of a treasure valued by her Native American ancestors. She knows it is important to paint on archival porcelain that will outlast fiber and even hot fires.

The symbolism in the Red Cedar vase could encompass more than her sensitive use of the materials. New symbolism could be added to all the other points in history where societies became more civil such as replacing human and animal sacrifices with pottery vessels. New symbolism could be added to bring about equality of rich and poor like when pots were first used in death rituals. Other grand purposes could be added to women’s rights like when vases instead of trading wives was a ritual of observing equality between nations.

The shape of porcelain vases like the Red Cedar vase symbolizes life universally understood. To me the vase also symbolizes our shame and fear. The vase reminds me of the ceramic shell of the Atomic bombs unnecessarily dropped on innocent civilians in Japan after what could have been the end of the war. The vase’s shape is our humiliating past and symbolizes our fear that other nations will be equally irresponsible. Our arrogance that we can police the world in preventing nuclear energy’s misuse is not sustainable. We will not have red cedar forests anymore to sustain us.

On the positive side of giving a vase of Red Cedars as a gift to begin real talks with competitive nations is that we can say we all have failings and we can start to work together as equals.

Women Following Their Passion

She Goes Painting in a Red Rain Coat, 1990, Gouache, 19" x 25", $150

Bouquet for Baby Buggie Blues, Stavanger, Norway, March 1994, 10" x 14", $90

Fisher woman in Pink, 10" x 14", $90

Here are some of the results from painting with rejuvenated watercolors and gouache kept in small jars. It is time not only to start new work but also look at older pieces that might be enhanced by a touch of juicy paint. Reviewing my work, I found three that I could put up for sale.

I still will post the mineral painted plate but I couldn't go to class yesterday because the car battery was dead and it took to long to fix.