Hello again and welcome back to SR perspectives
a show about by elders here on the north coast. Brought to you by the
redwood Coast Senior Center I'm Charles Bush I'll be your host tonight and I will
very special guest tonight David Jenks and you're already slightly acquainted with
him even if you've never been to the senior center because those were his paintings
those were portraits of folks in our community that went flying across your screen
at the beginning of the program David welcome it's
a delight to have you here. Thank you tell me about that all those paintings when I
first came into the senior center while they were all up and down the hall how did
that get going how many and just tell me about tell me the story of the paintings
actually it is an interesting story because. Print paint portraits is one of my
favorite things to do and. On the other hand it's very hard to get people to come
and sit for you. And I ran into an opera who came to my
studio she set for me one day and I was complaining about how difficult it was to
get people to sit so she said I know a place where there's
a lot of interesting people that you might like to paint so he spoke to Joe
Curran and. I went that was it I went to the senior center and it's been seven
years I think is if I was that's what I was going to say how long they're going to
have here is right and do you know how many paintings there are up there on those
walls No I think at least a hundred at least
a hundred Yeah they're beautiful you know when when I meet new folks who come from
other places and are visiting this the Center for the first time we walk down that
hall I have to say the usual response is often they just can't believe that someone
has done that and that we've captured all of those souls and have them hanging up
on our wall that they're at the Senior Center What an extraordinary thing having
gone through the process with you it's
a fairly intimate exchange and I suspect way more intimate on your part because
you're seeing so intently I was just sitting there but you were doing something
altogether different What's it like to paint
a portrait. It's very hard work actually as much as I enjoy it takes tremendous
concentration over
a few hours that can can really drain you but. There's something about.
Bringing. A person to life in two dimensions. Very satisfying if
you know if it works succeeds or some better than others and your to your
sensibilities definitely I like about maybe five percent of the One is that right
really I want
a bar I mean I think they're glorious but I it would seem that some would you
sometimes you feel like you capture it and then sometimes not so much or what makes
it good what makes
a portrait really please you well it's interesting I think. Everybody likes the
paintings on the wall but they don't like their own. And I think. Which is
kind of interesting in
a way I guess people don't really see themselves from the angle other than looking
head on of themselves in the mirror right but. I think for me
it has to be a good painting. As well as
a good likeness and. That something that's. Even more
elusive than a good likeness
a good likeness you get by drawing drawing very carefully measuring very carefully
so the proportions are all and that's where the progress in tracing comes in but
the handling of paint is what I really care about and some of them have that as
well and some but then there's the proportions but then and I know I will get into
this
a little bit later because I you know your paintings are so beautiful and you paint
like you you you capture this theory of thing called light and I see that in the
portraits too that must be interesting to again it's not just the proportion this
but but there's something else magical and alive that you're trying to capture
or you talk about the light in the person Yeah well and and the light of the skin
and the way the wrinkles and the curves and the contours of the face so delicate
and so intricate that's probably because of the set up and you know I close all
other forms of other sources of light off from the sitter and just have one one big
light that's lighting both the siddur and in my canvas right and. That's.
If that happens it's because I'm painting I guess painting light is really what
it's all about right right because that's how we were able to see and distinguish
between form and one form and another when I spent some years
in Northern New Mexico and the painters there I think are all obsessed with light
because in
a certain sense the landscape although there are mountains the landscapes pretty
flat light is mostly what it is and I came to love. The physical presence of light
is that tower in Toph's right exactly you you paint the ocean and the
sky and where we live in such an expansive and very exquisite
way can we talk
a little bit about that because I think that your work is extraordinary and and
just exquisite and luminous How do you do that what is it that you're capturing.
Well. I had two different ways going about it and. One
is actually sketching outdoors. Which is very tricky.
Procedure because the light is constantly changing so one either has to get
a quick impression or use
a good camera lens like I do. That's an interesting question because you don't do
portrait work that way very much do you know right but you do do you take like
a series of photographs or is it
a photograph that you then paint from how does the camera how does it participate
in that creative process of capturing the world and putting it on
a canvas and we have one of the oh sure let's take
a look you got some stuff to show us which is by far the best way to to get at this
the best way to talk about OK. So this is
a painting these are paintings this is an outdoor spit carry.
Which is
a very quick study from the headlines and Mendocino late afternoon in
September. And. The trick is
to. Somehow I think the inspiration for me was the light shining off the water and
the house somehow the rock seemed purple in the shadows. So this
was May be this took maybe forty five minutes or so and then
I took I took transparencies thirty five millimeter transparencies at the same time
. And back in the studio I used those to touch it up and put it all
together. And then I used this as a. As
a study for a much larger finished piece which I did by actually projecting
a transparent transparency onto the canvas in order to get the drawing in and then
I use this for color wow. And this is this is
a critic now this now this is the oil painting oil only now how do you and you do
something at one point you worked
a lot in acrylic. You know before I put in oils I started painting oils and but one
thousand nine hundred seven but before that it didn't acrylic for years and years
and years and when I moved to the southwest I decided to try oil the trials partly
because acrylics are very hard to keep moist in and that he was in the right time
and right so I paid in both mediums for
a while and then finally switched oils just because it seemed to be. Does I know
this is
a little technical question but but you know we have an audience that has four
artisan does the oil capture light differently does it does it does it work
differently then then acrylic is there
a difference between those two media and what you can make the canvas give back to
us. Well acrylic can be very sort of
opaque flat kind of medium. But I used it with
a lot of. Transparent acrylic medium in the paint to
kind of like water color to you can switch that down actually if you want OK. I
brought another one you know good let me just set the stone over here OK great and
we can switch to the next one here. This one is actually.
OK let's see here and there we go. This is this is the
kind of work that I do I paid
a lot of sunsets over the ocean. Course the sunset is something that's very
ephemeral and very transitory and it's gone in
a flash so these I do strictly from photographs OK And I
actually project the photograph on the canvas and trace in the composition and then
. Look taped the thirty five millimeter transparency to a little viewer in that
a light box well in painting for the colors. It's kind of taking process and the
trick is to. Cover up all the numbers. So before you put
that down now just if we can if we can get a camera back on that for just
a minute when I. You know I happened on an exhibit that I think it was in
Mendocino remember even which the gallery as I mentioned to you when I saw it as I
was just I just walked up the stairs and went Oh my gosh and ran over because the
paintings did something to my heart I mean it was if they're so
a femoral there just the light is palpable and what I what I wanted to ask you
about is lots of sea painters it seems to me paint water primarily you
paint light primarily and the mysteriousness of the air in some of these paintings
the ones that you know this is an exception this says more water and most of the
Right right but even the water has the quality of the sky. Is that
unusual and unique I think to your perspective and it's so impressive. Well the
sky is what it what I'm really interested in right and. Most most
escapes have had kind of
a crashing crashing wave. Theme and that's. Been
overdone right in the big curl of the big wave in the light coming through but and
I think that. Any success that I have with this kind of painting is partly due to
the fact that I'm painting from transparencies because when you're looking at
a transparency is opposed to a print photographic print you're seeing
a light coming you actually are seeing the light coming you're seeing the light
coming through color. And very very analogous to looking at
a monitor looking at an inch on
a monitor it's the same same effect and I sometimes pay for monitors using digital
photographs. So that's in trying to reproduce to me to thirty three
thirty five millimeter transparency is the closest thing to reality in photo in
photography. It invokes the actual sense of being there much more than that
and then getting kind photographic prints right so in trying to reproduce them
because the light is actually coming from cycling it's not yeah which is the way it
is in real life right and so trying to reproduce that effect of the moon luminously
and just using the transparency as
a subject matter so to speak right gives the painting that kind of quality
of light. This is again maybe goofy question because I art is something I just
appreciate and I don't understand the process very much. Do you did you
study and develop a certain set of skills and then discover
a vision and create the technique to make that vision happen. I
did study in college. And here in there afterwards but it took
me a long time to get around to painting. I had
a lot of other things to get my sister like. And I'm going to lot of. I was very
nervous about being able to make it as an artist and still in the actual.
Financially speaking so I want to talk about that
a little later about the commerce of art but but please continue it so it was
probably wasn't until I was about four years old that I really started painting
seriously and I think that. It is that late as artists go do you
think. I think so. I mean how old are you how old are you
now sorry sixty sixty six OK and proud of it I guess twenty six years
as
a painter Exactly. And. I guessed I've always
taken I've always taken. Slides of what I'm working on outdoors
I started up painting just still lives because it was something that I could
control and write sort of kind of
a little bit. About things and wanting to get everything just
so I think. My painting life has been an odyssey from.
A kind of super real. Very detailed approach to representing the
subject matter to constantly trying to. Break out of that and and be freer
and and I think that's you can see that. Many artists work through
at least in the last hundred years or so it seems like to me being an artist
your eyes are precious in
a very unique and special way. I know I've been told I can't drop I
mean I don't have that facility having practice but but so often I've heard
instructors say you have to see first then draw Does that make sense.
Yeah it does. I I I drew as
a child and I could I just drew an isometric projection without even knowing what
it was and you know I was drawing drawing came very easily to me and my mother was
a commercial artist so that So you were around and saw my earliest memories of her
were working in
a drafting table in the living room doing freelance greeting cards and airbrush
airburst kittens and puppies but she could actually do anything and draw circles
around me but. Drawing is definitely be the foundation
and portraiture is. I mean I spend
a lot of time painting from photographs for the marketplace but. Painting people
sitting right in front of me is really. The thing that I get the most.
The most. Most joy out of in terms of the actual act of having
a relationship and making that making that happen on
a canvas it's incredibly challenging and. But if it works it's just
supremely satisfied. Photography has. Has advanced to
such an immense degree in so many ways that the technologies of. Pointing and
recording visually. And portrait painting is.
I just don't run into portrait painters that often I guess is what I want to say
it's I wouldn't say it's
a dying art by any stretch but but. What's the tension between the
photographer a person and a painting
a person how to talk about that difference. Well it's interesting I think
today we're so used to looking at people smiling in photographs because. A
photograph is it's an instant and it's something that. Is sort
of ubiquitous it's everywhere right photographs of people but now literally
everywhere I mean. But it's hard very hard to paint
a portrait of somebody smiling for me because then I'm kind of slow but.
I think the photograph the camera also distorts. And has its own kind of.
I think usually what happens is everything in the middle of the face kind of gets
pushed forward a little bit. Is
a little bit bigger than. Everything else so. And
yet. It's so easy to I mean I can start painting somebody and then take
a break and see them from the side and think that my proportions are all wrong with
Rush but I think that
a painting and getting to know someone and being with somebody over
a period of time. Especially if you can have more than one sitting those paintings
in the senior center all single mostly single sitting aren't Absolutely and and
relatively short even I would imagine. In terms of if I came and said I want
a portrait painted we would have done it so fast right exactly right if if if I was
to do
a commission for instance I would take several sittings in order to finish it and I
would take photographs to use as reference to finish the clothing and so on and so
forth but. To get back to
a question I. Just think there's something that you can I mean
a good really good photographer can certainly take
a lot of photographs and write come up with the one that captures something more
than just the surface appearance. Of the human being. But in
a painting. I mean I certainly try actually I actually don't consciously
try to capture what. What's going on inside the person even if I
am so busy trying to just write make it look like than that but somehow it's
interesting at the Senior Center people always say oh you really captured so and so
I recognize everybody and there's you know they all seem to have
a certain individuality that comes through but it's really just the sum total of of
all the parts right for me it's it's
a miracle that that happens and when it happens it's I guess that's that's one of
the things that such a such
a kick so he said the word commission. The artist in
a certain sense has a gift and presents
a gift back and yet somewhere in that equation in order to have the time and
the things you need to be able to do art. You have to earn
a living too and can you talk
a little bit about that dance the dance of the gallery and the sale and the
commission and. The work of the artist and how do they coexist in your life and
how has that worked for you. Well it hasn't worked as
a portrait painter say that that's interesting right up front because. In
choosing to live here I think I've. Put myself sort of outside of the
mill year where portraits. Are in demand which is I would say in
academia or government. Various and and corporate
situations so kind of where people think they're very important or in
a way. Down south important enough to have my portrait painted Yeah exactly and I
hear that at the senior center so you know I say to somebody and they go Oh I'm not
. You know nobody would want to paint me it's not an interesting idea I think that
anybody is everybody and everybody is is fascinating. So to
me that's not an issue. And but as a as
a marketable thing it's definitely. You and Rob Martin or for me so that's
why I paint you know why focus on the sunsets over the ocean not only because I
mean they're very technically intensive to do but. Interestingly enough you think
that
a sunset over the ocean would be would be kind of. Almost. A trite subject
matter but. Nobody nobody else is doing it so that became for me a kind of
a commercial niche. And even though they are you know very labor intensive
the end result is something that that I find I mean as a as
a. Subject I think it's it has the potential to be
a backcourt of of something beyond just. The experience of being there
it's it's suggestive of you know other other energies and
other other other realms potentially even you know spiritually speaking.
So. The goal is even even through the very technical process of producing the
goal is to is to inspire people to see something beyond it and but in today's
market it's just very tough all together I I today meaning fairly immediately
recession on absolutely the last two three years here definitely artists must be
having a tough time. Well I had I was very fortunate to get into
a gallery in Palm Beach Florida which is sort of
a very upscale market and with my seascapes. And that just just
collapsed old together about two years ago I mean they're still showing my work but
nobody's buying them at this point so what I did is nice I turned half my studio
and I would gallery and I'm selling prints of my seascapes there
and originals and it's turned out to be turned out to work pretty well course and
selling things. Because because you've taken the middle out there and
so basically it had to become my own gallery right in order to continue to sell
work and people turn at concerts down why don't I see that sign out there
and follow the signs and wander up the road and find your gallery you know it's
amazing. It is. Striking it takes it takes the course there's
a lot of tire kickers but right sure but it's amazing people and I've tried to
create an environment that's you know lighting in the. Background colors and so
forth and to to compliment the work but people people come
and they really seem to respond so so if I wanted to find it I basically would
drive south on WANT to one from Fort Bragg even Mendocino and then get to comps you
kind of road which is just past the bridge there turn left up the hill and follow
the signs at the signs out there just call call ahead because I'm always open if
I'm home OK got it I got it even if I'm in the garage making bookcases my. My
favorite philosopher who writes about artist Ken Wilber and the thing that he says
he said to him. In reply to how do you know an extraordinary piece of art
a very special piece of art and he said it's very simple it takes your breath away
and and as soon as I heard him say that I had mused about that I went You mean like
like that and that's exactly what happened when I walked in that gallery and so I
had seen your portraits and then I saw the I saw the seascapes the sign and that's
exactly what happened I literally got to the top assessment and I knew that I had
seen special beauty. That
a pretty good capture of it what do you think that's what it's all about I mean.
That's sixth sense far as I'm concerned Right right. Artists do
hate the meaningful and that is spirit do you feel it that way. Is it
magical when when you make up an exquisite painting.
It's it's amazing it's just. Like I said when it comes to painting
a successful portrait that it's kind of happens seems to happen by itself it's not
something that I think you can. You can try to try to do in a in
a specific way it's just you have to find something that that inspires you but.
You know. I wish we could continue this forever I think probably we better we
better let these folks get back to our whatever they were doing before they turn
into sand. Wonderful to have you here to be surrounded by your work in your
paintings and good night everybody thank you for joining us it's been a good visit.