Ben Haggard

I use the term “all-at-onceness” to describe a quality I am always trying to capture in painting. All-at-onceness is related to the experience of seeing something—really seeing it—in the present moment, whole, unmediated and without deliberation. The idea is inherently paradoxical: an experience so completely in present time that it is outside of time. This is what I am trying to produce, images so immediate that they operate outside of time.

This demands a concentrated working process. In my case, I have to work very rapidly if I am to sustain a state of altered awareness (or trance as I usually think of it) where I have no experience of time. This is like a meditation practice, though more active.

The approach is related to “alla prima” painting, where oil painters apply wet paint over wet paint to complete a painting in a single session. Alla prima painting was central to the practice of the Impressionists, especially Monet, who sought to capture the qualities of light operating at a particular time of day. For me it reached one of its highest expressions in the work of van Gogh, who painted two masterpieces a day during the last period of his life, working in a state of heightened concentration and perception that is difficult for me to imagine.

All-at-onceness is also, I imagine, related to Asian practices of calligraphy and Sumi painting, where the painter hones the instruments of body and mind to allow essence (or, perhaps, absence) to be transmitted unimpeded.

My primary influence was Leo Marchutz, who dedicated himself to extending the discoveries of Cezanne’s late work, especially the watercolors. Leo was able to capture with a few gestures an entire world, spiritual and outside of time, illuminated by an inner light. I have neither his temperament nor his restraint, but his work seeded in me a faith that painting could still serve a spiritual function for both painter and viewer.

“Did you write a blog about it?” Well, uh, no.

“Well at least you got some photos didn’t you?!?” Um, well, not really…

Lisa was quizzing me about my three week visit to Republic in the remote Upper Peninsula of northern Michigan. I had been telling her about the strawberry Jell-O we made and her journalistic instincts got the better of her. “That’s so cool,” she told me.

On my insistence, several of us had gone to pick strawberries. The U.P. is almost entirely rural, and u-pick strawberries, raspberries and blueberries are common. (Not to mention the miles and miles of wild berries that grow along the roads and railway embankments.) The weather had been unseasonably cool and wet and the ripe strawberries were rotting fast on the plants. I checked each berry carefully as it went into the lug, eating on the spot the ones that were too perfectly ripe. On the way home the car filled with a delicate perfume.

The next afternoon we made jam—strawberries, sure-gel and sugar. The recipe insisted on 6 cups of sugar for 2 cups of fruit. We reversed the ratio and got a delicious conserve but an unsure gel. That didn’t stop us from putting it on everything.

The next project was Jell-O. Jell-O is ubiquitous in the Midwest, central to regional identity. “Salad” in local parlance refers to Jell-O with carrots or fruit in it. In our attempt to go native and fit in, Joe and I were making homemade Jell-O with plain gelatin and fresh fruit. We raided the local St. Vincent de Paul for authentic Jell-O molds and scoured vintage copies of “The Joys of Jell-O” for inspiration. In the rugged backwoods of northern Michigan we were pioneering a Jell-O renaissance!

A half gallon of strawberries were cored, cut and sugared to release their juices. The gelatin was melted in hot water and stirred in. Spoonfuls of homemade jam were added to intensify the flavor and the whole thing poured into a mold. Brilliant! The essence of strawberries captured in a perfect mid-summer form.

We went on to experiment with uncooked strawberry pies (pastry cream in a baked pie shell buried in strawberries with a little gelatin), strawberry parfait (homemade strawberry Jell-O unmolded onto a basin of fresh tapioca pudding), and strawberry dessert (Joe made a sponge cake, cut it up and stirred it into homemade Jell-O and served it with whipped cream).

And there were still plenty of strawberries left over to put on cereal in the morning. The day before our visit ended, the wild blueberries and raspberries came ripe. And the chokecherries and pin cherries were on the horizon. If we’d had another month there we could have transformed the world of Jell-O forever.

Rembrandt: late.

Not long ago a friend expressed to me her dismay that I had been so harshly critical, even dismissive, in my postings on Liebermann and Corinth.  Why, she wondered, hadn’t I simply appreciated the work that I do admire, as I had with Bonnard?  Wouldn’t that have been more gracious, less gratuitous?  I believe these are good questions, so I have continued to think about them.

My answer rests on a distinction between “appreciation” and “discrimination.” To appreciate is “to value or regard highly; to raise or increase in value.”  To discriminate is “to note or observe a difference; to distinguish accurately.”  As Joe puts it, a food enthusiast might be able to appreciate cotton candy, but one would think he lacked discrimination if he ate a lot of it.

This distinction is fundamental to how I think and work as an artist.  I can appreciate all kinds of things—ceramic figurines, B movies, tacky drag, Jello desserts with tiny pastel marshmallows, “My Fair Lady” sing-alongs.  I triangulate among the values these things represent in themselves, the context within which I hold them (which, in the examples above, might be irony or “camp”) and the contribution they make to my own creative life—a process that is most potent when it simultaneously works both objectively and subjectively.  In this way I elevate or appreciate their value.

Discrimination, on the other hand, is the ability (which I find must be continually developed and refined) to make accurate distinctions.  If I am to grow as an artist, I need to hone my ability to distinguish good work from bad, successful from failed, authentic from false, meaningful from vacuous, spiritual from mechanical, vital and challenging from safe and familiar.  As I mature, I expect the distinctions I make to become more numerous, interdependent, and subtle.

I use a different part of my mind to discriminate than I do to appreciate.  One drives toward excellence, the other toward potential.  One works on discovering when and how something is good, the other seeks to see the good in everything.  They are not mutually exclusive—they are simply different mental operations.  Nevertheless, my friend’s point is well taken:  the harsh critic will himself be one-sided and inauthentic if he fails to also hold in mind the larger context in which everything can be appreciated.

Rembrandt: early.

Last in a series–I have been so impressed by the late paintings of this relatively obscure German impressionist/expressionist that I wanted to share them.  This last group is paintings of religious and/or mythological themes.  To enlarge, double click on image.

This time it’s still lifes.  To enlarge, double-click on image.