“An apple tree will do” (Post 43)

Those of us who are familiar with the art history of the 20th century will know the story of Piet Mondrian and his apple tree. He made many drawings with the apple tree as subject matter and over a period of time his style changed drastically. “The Style” that he is remembered for today, in Dutch “De Stijl”, does not look as if the apple tree was the “root cause”. I have no idea why he was drawn to the apple tree, but he brought us something new. He taught us a lesson perhaps?

He did not think the apple tree was too mundane. He tried to draw the same subject in many different ways, until the inevitable “automatic” wonder happened. It is not easy to follow the promptings of a process or the “pointers” of a series of art works in progress, because we do not want to take risks. We have all heard authors say that eventually the characters in their stories or novels will complete the plot by "themselves".

In our art journeys I think there is a similar element of serendipity that pulls us forward and introduces new ideas without us realizing it as they happen. However, for these moments of serendipity to “befall” us, I think, we have to create a certain minimum number of works to show our commitment. We all know the creative process cannot be completely contained within the boundaries of precise words and steps, because there are so many variables, but the one common denominator is: the artist keeps on producing art works relentlessly. (Maybe it was easier a 100 years ago when the cell phones were not around to distract us.) Sometimes, the biggest mistake we make on canvas, will lead to tomorrow’s big discovery or a new technique or possibly even a style. Fortunately, every artist who is committed to his or her craft is also deriving satisfaction from his work, otherwise it will be pure drudgery.

I was not trying Piet Mondrian’s “apple tree” method here. I created a display with a few trees I drew over the years and I duplicated and flipped the smaller ones, just for fun. If we do not know what to tackle next, how about a tree? They are everywhere. (A tree a day keeps the sloth away.)