WEBVTT

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Hello again, and welcome back to Senior Perspectives, a show about and by elders here on the North

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Coast brought to you by the Redwood Coast Senior Center. I'm Charles Bush, I'll be your host

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tonight and I have a very special guest tonight, David Jencks, and you're already slightly acquainted

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with him even if you've never been to the Senior Center because those were his paintings. Those

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were portraits of folks in our community that went flying across your screen at the beginning of the

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program. David, welcome. It's a delight to have you here. Thank you. Tell me about that, all those

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paintings when I first came into the Senior Center, wow, they were all up and down the hall. How did

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that get going? How many? And just tell me about them. Tell me the story of the paintings. Actually,

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it is an interesting story because I'm, painting portraits is one of my favorite things to do and

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on the other hand, it's very hard to get people to come and sit for you. And I ran into and Darren

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Arvola who came to my studio, she sat for me one day and I was complaining about how difficult it

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was to get people to sit. So she said, I know a place where there's lots of interesting people

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that you might like to paint. So she spoke to Joe Curran and I went to the Senior Center and it's

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been seven years I think. That's what I was going to say. How long? Six and a half years. Right. And

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do you know how many paintings there are up there on those walls? No, I think at least a hundred.

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At least a hundred. Yeah, they're beautiful. You know, when I meet new folks who come from other

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places and are visiting the Center for the first time, we walk down that hall, I have to say the

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usual response is, ah, they just can't believe that someone has done that and that we've captured

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all of those souls and have them hanging up on our wall at the Senior Center. What an extraordinary

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thing having gone through the process with you. It's a fairly intimate exchange and I suspect way

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more intimate on your part because you're seeing so intently. I was just sitting there but you were

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doing something altogether different. What's it like to paint a portrait? It's very hard work

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actually. As much as I enjoy it, it takes tremendous concentration and over a few hours that can really

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drain you but there's something about bringing a person to life in two dimensions that's very

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satisfying if it works out. If it succeeds? Are some better than others to your sensibilities?

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Definitely. I like about maybe five percent of the ones I love. Is that right, really? I love them all. I mean, I think

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they're glorious but it would seem that sometimes you feel like you capture it and then sometimes

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not so much. What makes it good? What makes a portrait really please you? Well, it's interesting.

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I think everybody likes the paintings on the wall but they don't like their own. I think, which is

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kind of interesting in a way, I guess people don't really see themselves from any angle other than

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looking head-on at themselves in the mirror. I think for me it has to be a good painting as

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well as a good likeness and that's something that's even more elusive than a good likeness. A good

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likeness you get by drawing very carefully, measuring very carefully. So the proportions

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are all appropriate. And that's where the concentration comes in but the handling of

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paint is what I really care about and some of them have that as well. Well, and there's the

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proportions but then, and I know we'll get into this a little bit later because your paintings

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are so beautiful and you paint light. You capture this ethereal thing called light and I see that

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in the portraits too. That must be interesting to, again, it's not just the proportions but there's

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something else magical and alive that you're trying to capture. Are you talking about the

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light in the person? Yeah, well and the light of the skin and the way the wrinkles and the curves

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and the contours of the face is so delicate and so intricate. That's partly because of the setup and

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you know I close all other forms, other sources of light off from the sitter and just have one

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big light that's lighting both the sitter and my canvas. And if that happens it's because I'm

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painting, I guess painting light is really what it's all about because that's how we're able to

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see and distinguish between form and one form and another. When I spent some years in northern

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New Mexico and the painters there I think are all obsessed with light because in a certain sense the

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landscape, although they're mountains, the landscape is pretty flat and light is mostly what it is and

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I came to love the physical presence of light. Is that Taos? In Taos, right, exactly. You paint

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the ocean and the sky and where we live in such an expansive and very exquisite way. Can we talk a

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little bit about that because I think that your work is extraordinary and just exquisite and

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luminous. How do you do that? What is it that you're capturing? Well, I have two different ways of

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going about it and one is actually sketching outdoors which is very tricky procedure because

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the light is constantly changing. So one either has to get a quick impression or use a good camera

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like I do. That's an interesting question because you don't do portrait work that way very much do

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you? No. Right, but do you take like a series of photographs or is it a photograph that you then

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paint from? How does the camera, how does it participate in that creative process of capturing

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the world and putting it on a canvas? Should I bring out one of these? Oh sure, let's take a look. You've got some stuff to show us which is by far the best way to get at this. It's the best way to talk about it.

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Okay, so this is a painting, these are paintings. This is an outdoor sketch. Okay. Which is a very

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quick study from the headlands in Mendocino late afternoon in September or so and the trick is to

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somehow, I think the inspiration for me was the light shining off the water and how somehow the

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rocks seemed purple in the shadows. So this was maybe, this took maybe 45 minutes or so and then

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I took transparencies, 35 millimeter transparencies at the same time and back in the studio I used

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those to touch it up and kind of pull it all together and then I used this as a study for a

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much larger finished piece which I did by actually projecting the transparencies onto the canvas in

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order to get the drawing in and then I used this for color. Wow and this is acrylic. No, this is oil.

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No, I paint in oil only now. Oh do you? And at one point you worked a lot in acrylic. Yeah,

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before I painted in oils, I started painting in oils in about 1987 but before that I painted in

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acrylic for years and years and years and when I moved to the southwest I decided to try oils.

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To try oils. Partly because acrylics are very hard to keep moist in the heat and the hot climate.

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Right. So I painted in both mediums for a while and then finally switched to oils just because it

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seemed to be better. I know this is a little technical question but you know we have an

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audience that has, it's full of artists and does oil capture light differently? Does it work

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differently than acrylic? Is there a difference between those two media and what you can make the

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canvas give back to us? Well acrylic can be a very sort of opaque flat kind of medium but I

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used it with a lot of transparent acrylic medium in the paint to kind of like watercolor to. We

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can switch that down actually if you want. Okay. I brought another one. Oh good. You want me to set

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this down over here? Okay great. And we can switch to the next one here. This one is actually. Okay

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let's see here. There we go. This is the kind of work that I do. I paint a lot of sunsets over the

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ocean and of course the sunset is something that's very ephemeral and very transitory and

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has gone in a flash. So these I do strictly from photographs. Do you? Okay. And I actually project

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the photograph on the canvas and trace in the composition and then look, I tape the 35 millimeter

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transparency to a little viewer and aim that at a light box while I'm painting for the color. So

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it's kind of a painstaking process and the trick is to cover up all the numbers. So before you put

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that down though just if we can get a camera back on that for just a minute. You know I

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happened on an exhibit that I think it was in Mendocino. I don't remember even which the gallery

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was. I mentioned it to you when I saw it because I just walked up the stairs and went oh my gosh

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and ran over because the paintings did something to my heart. I mean it was if they're so ephemeral

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they're just the light is palpable and what I wanted to ask you about is lots of sea painters,

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it seems to me, paint water primarily. You paint light primarily and the mysteriousness of the air

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in some of these paintings, the ones that so struck. This is an exception. This has more water in it

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than most of them. Right, right, but even the water has the quality of the sky. Is that unusual and

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unique I think to your perspective and it's so impressive. Well the sky is what I'm really

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interested in. Right. And most seascapes have kind of a crashing wave theme and that's I don't

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know been overdone. Right, the big curl of the big wave and the light coming through but. And I think

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that any success that I have with this kind of painting is partly due to the fact that I'm

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painting from transparencies because when you're looking at a transparency as opposed to a print,

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photographic print, you're seeing light coming. You actually are seeing the light coming through.

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You're seeing light coming through color and very, very analogous to looking at a monitor,

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looking at an image on a monitor. It's the same effect and I sometimes paint from monitors using

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digital photographs. So that's in trying to reproduce, to me the 35 millimeter transparency

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is the closest thing to reality in photography. It evokes the actual sense of being there much

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more than photographic prints. Right. So in trying to reproduce. Again because the light is actually

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coming. Exactly. Yeah. Which is the way it is in real life. Right. And so trying to reproduce that

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effect of the luminosity and just using the transparency as a as subject matter so to speak.

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Right. Gives the painting that kind of quality of light. This is again it may be a goofy question

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because art is something I just appreciate and I don't understand the process very much. Did you

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study and develop a certain set of skills and then discover a vision and create the technique

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to make that vision happen? I did study in college, excuse me, and here and there afterwards but it

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took me a long time to get around a painting. I had a lot of other things to get on my system I guess.

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And I had a lot of I was very nervous about being able to make it as an artist. I still am actually.

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Financially speaking. I want to talk about that a little later about the the commerce of art but

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please continue. So it was probably you know it wasn't until I was about four years old that I

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really started painting seriously and I think that it... Is that late as artists go do you think? I

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think so. I mean. How old are you now? Sorry. 66. 66 okay. And proud of it I guess. So 26 years as a

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painter. Exactly. Yeah. And I guess I've always taken slides of what I'm working on outdoors. I

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started up painting just still lives because it was something that I could control and I'm sort of

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kind of a little bit OCD about things and wanting to get everything just so. I think my painting

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life has been an odyssey from a kind of super real very detailed approach to representing the

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subject matter to constantly trying to break out of that and and be freer and and I think that's

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you can see that in many artists work. Yeah. Through at least in the last hundred years or so. It seems

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like to me being an artist your eyes are precious in a very unique and special way. I know I've been

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told I can't draw. I don't have that facility. I haven't practiced but so often I've heard

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instructors say you have to see first then draw. Does that make sense? Yeah it does. I drew as a

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child and I just drew an isometric projection without even knowing what it was. I mean I was

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drawing drawing came very easily to me and my mother was a commercial artist so that. So you

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were around and saw it. My earliest memories of her were working at a drafting table in the living

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room doing freelance greeting cards with airbrush. She airbrushed kittens and puppies but she could

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actually do anything and draw circles around me but you know drawing is definitely the foundation

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and portraiture is I mean I spend a lot of time painting from photographs for the marketplace but

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painting people sitting right in front of me is really the thing that I get the most the most joy

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out of. In terms of the actual act of having a relationship and making that making that happen

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on a canvas. It's incredibly challenging and but if it works it's just supremely satisfying.

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Do you, photography has advanced to such an immense degree in so many ways that the technologies of

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pointing and recording visually and portrait painting is I just don't run into portrait painters

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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

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but what's the the tension between the photographer of a person and painting a person. How to talk

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about that difference? Well it's interesting I think today we're so used to looking at people

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smiling in photographs because photograph is it's an instant and it's something that is is sort of

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ubiquitous it's everywhere right photographs of people but now literally everywhere I mean but it's

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very hard to paint a portrait of somebody smiling at least for me because I'm very I'm kind of slow

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but I think a photograph the camera also distorts it has its own kind of I think usually what happens

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is everything in the middle of the face kind of gets pushed forward a little bit and is a little

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bit bigger than everything else so it's and yet it's so easy to I mean I can start painting

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somebody and then take a break and see them from the side and think that my proportions are all

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wrong. But I think that a painting and getting to know someone and being with somebody over a

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period of time especially if you can have more than one sitting those paintings at the senior

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center are all single mostly single sitting aren't they? Absolutely and relatively short even I would

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imagine in terms of if I came and said I want a portrait painted we wouldn't have done it so fast.

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Right exactly right if if I was to do a commission for instance I would take several sittings in

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order to finish it and I would take photographs to use as reference for to finish the clothing

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and so on and so forth but to get back to your question I just think there's something that you

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can I mean a good a really good photographer can certainly take a lot of photographs and come up

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with the one that captures something more than just the surface appearance of the human being

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but in a painting I mean I certainly try actually I actually don't consciously try to capture what

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the what's going on inside the person even if I I'm so busy trying to just right make it look like

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them that but somehow it's interesting at the senior center people always say oh you really

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captured so-and-so or I recognize everybody and there's you know they all seem to have a certain

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individuality that comes through but it's really just the sum total of of all the parts for me it

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it's it's a miracle that that happens and when it happens it's I guess that's that's one of the

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things it's such a such a kick so you said the word commission the artist in a certain sense has

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a gift and presents a gift back and yet somewhere in that equation in order to have the time and

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and the things you need to be able to do art you have to earn a living too and can you talk a little

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bit about that dance the dance of the gallery and the sale and and the commission and that the work

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of the artist and how do they coexist in your life and how has that worked for you well it hasn't

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worked as a portrait painter I should say that that's interesting right out front because in

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choosing to live here I think I've put myself sort of outside of the milieu where portraits are are

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in demand which is I would say in academia government various and and corporate situations

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so kind of where people think they're very important or in a way yeah down south important

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enough to have my portrait painted yeah exactly and I hear that at the senior center so you know

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I'll say to somebody you should and they'll go oh I'm not you know nobody would want to paint me

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isn't that an interesting idea I think anybody is every and everybody is is fascinating to paint

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so to me that's not an issue and and but as a marketable thing it's definitely few and far

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between for me so that's why I paint you know why I focus on the sunsets over the ocean not only

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because I mean they're very technically intensive to do but interestingly enough you'd think that a

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sunset over the ocean would be would be kind of a almost a trite subject matter but nobody's doing

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nobody else is doing it so that became for me a kind of a commercial niche and and even though

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they are you know very labor-intensive the end result is something that that I find I mean as a

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as a subject I think it's it has the potential to be evocative of something beyond just the

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experience of being there it's it's it's it's suggestive of you know other other energies and

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other other other realms potentially even a you know spiritually speaking so the goal is even even

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through the very technical process of producing them the goal is to is to inspire people to see

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something beyond it and but in today's market is just very tough altogether I today meaning fairly

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immediately recession on absolutely the last two three years here definitely yeah artists must be

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having a tough time well I had I was very fortunate to get into a gallery in Palm Beach Florida which

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is a sort of a very upscale market and with my seascapes and and that just just collapsed all

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together about two years ago I mean they're still showing my work but nobody's buying them at this

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point so what I did is I I turned half my studio into a gallery and I'm selling prints of my

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seascapes there and and originals and it's turned out to be it's turned out to work pretty well of

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course I'm selling things at wholesale because because you've taken the middle out there and

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so basically I've had to become my own gallery in order to continue to sell work and people turn at

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Comptre Ukiah Road coming down 101 I see that sign out there and and follow the signs and wander up

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the road and find your gallery yeah it's amazing that is it is striking it takes it takes a certain

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I mean of course there's a lot of tire kickers but right sure but it's amazing people and I've

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tried to create an environment that's you know the lighting and the background colors and so forth and

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to to complement the work but people people come and they really seem to respond so so if I wanted

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to find it I basically would drive south on 101 from Fort Bragg or even Mendocino and and get to

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Comptre Ukiah Road which is just past the bridge there turn left head up the hill and and follow

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the signs if the signs aren't there just call call ahead because I'm always I'm always open if

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I'm home got it I got it even if I'm in the garage making bookcases my my favorite philosopher who

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writes about artists is Ken Wilbur and and the thing that he says he said in in reply to how do

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you know an extraordinary piece of art a very special piece of art and and he said it's very

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simple it takes your breath away and and as soon as I heard him say that I had mused about that I

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went oh you mean like like that and that's exactly what happened when I walked into that gallery and

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so I'd seen your portraits and then I saw the I saw the seascapes that and that's exactly what

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happened I literally got to the top of the stairs and went and I knew that I had seen special beauty

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is that a pretty good capture of it what do you think that's what it's all about yeah I mean that's

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success as far as I'm concerned right right artists do paint the meaningful and that is spirit do you

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feel it that way is it magical when when you make a an exquisite painting yeah it's it's it's amazing

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it's just like I said when it comes to painting a successful portrait that it just kind of happens

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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

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specific way it's just you have to find something that that inspires you but you know I wish we

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could continue this forever I think probably we better we better let these folks get back to

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whatever they were doing before they tuned us in wonderful to have you here lovely to be surrounded

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by your work and your paintings and good night everybody thank you for joining us it's been a

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good visit