Developing a Still Life Paintings Art Collection
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CoLLeCting ReSource guiDe Developing a Still Life Paintings Art Collection Laura Robb, Blue Cup with Crabapples, oil, 10 x 16. Discovering the prescient power and timeless appeal of still life art. A Quiet Dynamic David Riedel’s still-life paintings reveal a subtle sense of movement, mystery, and depth By g ussie F AuntLeRoy da vi D R ie D e L As the pAle light fades into dusk through north-facing skylights in his Portland, OR, studio, painter David Riedel sits quietly, watching a painting on his easel. His hands are in his lap. His tools at this moment are his eyes, closely observing how changes happen in the painting’s areas of light and dark— seeing how shadows and highlights fall on a brown clay jug surrounded by au- tumn leaves. What he’s hoping to see is the painting’s sense of mystery and depth increase in proportion to the studio’s disappearing light. “It may be a quiet still life, but it’s very dynamic,” the artist points out, his eyes still on the easel. “It’s not a station- ary thing at all. You have to be passion- ate about some idea, and then build in the tensions and energy and flow. There should be a lot going on. And the fascina- tion for me is: How well can I see what’s truly there?” As it turns out, since moving from northern New Mexico to Portland a few years ago, Riedel has had to work harder to see subtle variations in color and other nuances as he paints. For the previous 10 years he observed his paintings in the sharp, high-altitude light. That’s what filled the studio he and his wife, Rachel, built—along with an adobe house—on a mountainside north of Taos. When they moved to the Northwest, Riedel found himself facing a re-education in the Turquoise and Green, oil, 20 x 16. effects of light. www.SouthweStArt.com 2 Two White Onions, oil, 11 x 14. “Up here, the light is soft and silvery, DrAwing AnD other creative ac- he entered college at Northern Arizona and I have to struggle to see things. tivities have been central to Riedel’s life University, he headed for the architec- There’s not the sharp distinction be- since childhood. He was raised in Indiana ture department. But he soon switched tween warm light and cool light,” he ex- in the early 1960s, the son of a banker fa- majors, having realized architecture was plains. “I think it’s been really good for ther and a mother who loved to sit down no match for his growing interest in art. me. It pushes me to work harder to see, at the baby grand piano at night, playing He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in and the result is that I’ve learned to study elegantly while her four children were in fine arts in printmaking. He had a vague what I’m looking at more closely, to be bed. His was a “Norman Rockwell boy- sense of abstract expressionism but did very observant and careful with color.” hood,” the artist remembers, with bike not possess the fine art fundamentals a Riedel’s hard work has paid off. Already rides and playing in the nearby woods as future realist painter would need. For an award-winning artist whose still lifes daily fare. The exception for young David several years after graduation, in what are collected nationally and internation- was periodic downtime mandated by se- he describes as a “time of great energy ally, he received the top prize—the Amer- vere asthma. Confined to bed for as long and little direction,” he created land- ican National Award of Excellence—at as a week at a time, he would spend his scapes in pastels. “Hopefully,” he says, the Oil Painters of America national ju- hours reading and drawing. “I learned to smiling, “those early pieces will remain ried exhibition this past May. He also do those quiet things,” he relates. forever lost!” earned a merit award at this year’s Salon Surrounded by beautiful objects, in- Then, in 1986, he was introduced to International, which is held each spring cluding antiques, Chinese scrolls, and the Art Students League of New York. It at Greenhouse Gallery of Fine Art in San landscape paintings, Riedel absorbed was a career-sparking stroke of fate. He Antonio, TX. And while still life remains an aesthetic appreciation for such ob- enrolled there and everything changed. his primary genre, the 53-year-old artist jects. And while he was always encour- “For me, the concept of painting, as dis- recently has also begun showing his figu- aged in his love of art, there were no role tinct from drawing, was a revelation,” he rative and plein-air landscape work. models for making it a career. So when recalls, noting it was not until he was 30 www.SouthweStArt.com 3 that he picked up a paintbrush. His first woods away from everything and just car painting teacher, and one of the most camp and paint for a week—that’s one of influential figures during this period, my great loves.” was renowned still-life painter David Over the years Riedel has had ample Leffel. Sherrie McGraw and other in- opportunity to spend time in nature and structors also made a strong impres- paint on location. After Arizona he lived sion, and important living artists such as briefly in southern Colorado; in 1992 he Richard Schmid have left an inevitable moved to New Mexico to be close to mark on his work. a community of other artists in Taos. From 1986 to 1991, Riedel spent three to He met Rachel in a gallery in Taos and four months each year living in a friend’s they were married in 1994. Then came apartment in New York City and im- a daughter, Danica, and soon David and mersing himself in art. “The Art League Rachel began the “enormous, 10-year started teaching me the fundamentals of art project” of building an off-the-grid, drawing and painting,” he recounts. “But passive-solar adobe house and studio just as important was learning how to go from the ground up. about learning—how to pull each paint- Today the family has settled in urban ing a little farther along.” Completely Portland, near the Willamette River. Es- engrossed, he would paint and draw 12 pecially on blustery winter days, Riedel hours a day for weeks on end. When he finds a measure of wildness and solitude Red Onions, oil, 14 x 15. was finally exhausted, he would return kayaking on the river. In a more con- Enamel Pan and Peaches, oil, 11 x 15. for a few months to an isolated cabin in a tained way, his studio—in a former fac- canyon near Sedona, AZ. tory converted to art spaces—is a quiet There, alone, the artist more fully place as well. The artist has covered the pots, objects he collected during travels absorbed and explored what he had studio walls with neutral-colored fabric in Asia, and an assortment of dried flow- learned in New York. “The contrast was to reduce reflections that would inter- ers, branches, and leaves. wonderful,” he remarks. “Even now, to fere with shadows and color in his work. Things get shuffled around on the get out in a very quiet place, out in the Around him are shelves filled with vases, shelves over time, which often sparks the idea for a painting. Other works are born of a simple color combination or an intriguing shape. ENAMEL PAN AND PEACHES began when Riedel noticed the blue enamel pan he has used many times on camping trips. “One day it just caught my eye and I knew there was a painting there,” he recalls. In another instance, a branch of perfect red maple leaves hung drying on the wall for months before it became the inspiration for CLAY POT AND FALL LEAVES [see page 5]. However an arrangement starts, its journey to a finished painting taps into a wealth of knowledge the artist has ac- quired over nearly 25 years. Now, with technical painting skills under his belt, he is free to approach a work from various angles, depending on what interests him at the moment. “It’s never just stuff on a table,” he explains, referring to the expe- rience of visually exploring an arrange- ment. “It’s all about the relationships. Sometimes I’ll decide to play with edges more, or I’ll set up a good framework of shadows and work on that, or I’ll think of the image in a more abstract way, as pieces of color. These are all just internal games I play in the process of painting. “It’s never easy,” he acknowledges. www.SouthweStArt.com 4 Clay Pot and Fall Leaves, oil, 24 x 22. “Each time I set objects on the table it’s be limited to the studio. It’s your life. the yard, a neighbor’s strikingly beauti- a different environment or there are a It’s part of everything,” he says. Echoing ful cat is grooming itself under a tree in different set of parameters I set for my- the advice of a respected instructor, he the evening light. “Oh man,” he says, “if I self. So it’s always a challenge—which it adds: “When you see it now, do it now. In had my sketchbook with me—what a fan- should be.” other words, when you see something tastic pose!” F Another means of honing observational beautiful, don’t put it off; you might not and drawing skills is to always carry a see it again.” Colorado-based Gussie Fauntleroy also writes for Art sketchbook, something Riedel did dur- Settling into a chair in his front yard, & Antiques, New Mexico Magazine, Native Peoples, ing his student years and is training Riedel smiles ruefully as he discovers and the Santa Fean.