Serving Vision and Mastering Technique through Patience, Courage and Honesty- Hedda Sterne

And so I've been reading the Helen Frankenthaler biography Fierce Pose Helen Frankenthaler and 1950s New York . There's a lot of different artists that I've studied regularly in this book , but I just I love the way that Alexander Nemeroff has really written this story and really kind of piggybacked off of Night Street Women , which is another fabulous , fabulous read .

But I came across this quote might have been two weeks ago or a week and a half ago and it's been on my mind constantly and the artist's name is Hedestern .

She's a Romanian , born American artist and I'm going to read her quote and then I'm going to go a little deeper into kind of some art history today before you and I discuss the quote , if that's okay with you . I just think you know , if you know 1950s New York and you know the abstract expression is seen , which we've talked about quite a bit .

You've seen the picture of the Erasables , which is a number of the New York school painters with a certain woman standing up on a table in the back of the room in the back of the photograph and surrounded by a number of people that we've either talked about their quotes already in this podcast or quotes we will eventually so this quote she wrote , and this is

1940s , I believe . When she wrote this she said to serve your vision , you have to master your technique . You cannot cheat matter . It shows . You must learn to respect its laws . You are required to use patience , courage and honesty , and I'll read that again in a minute . I'm going to dive into some art history about head of stern real quick .

So , head of stern , romanian , born American artist who , as I shared , was a part , an active member of the New York Art School of Painters , and her work is very associated with abstract expressionism and its birth , but also pre abstract expression . She was very involved in surrealism and even data ism as well .

When she was in Romania , she was one of the several young Bucharest artists working in the studio of the data co founder and surrealist painter , marcel Janko .

Pretty incredible fact that she was literally working at her younger age in the studio of the co founder of the data movement , like a lot of artists during World War Two that were in Eastern and even Western Europe . There was a mass migration to the US and New York and she was a part of that migration .

Later on not early on and she happened to move to New York and lived right next door to Peggy Guggenheim pretty good spot to choose to live . And they became really close friends . So you can already assume what's going to happen in the world of Peggy Guggenheim if a female artist who is exceptional lives next door .

During her time with Peggy she became reacquainted with a lot of the surrealist artists she knew in Paris who had started to come to New York Andre Breton and Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst . And by 1943 , she was regularly shown at Peggy Guggenheim's Art of the Century Gallery in New York and included in the massive show exhibition by 31 Women .

So her career when she hit New York she hit the ground running with everybody who was somebody that time , because they're a part of Peggy . And number two , when the Betty Parsons Gallery opened in 47 , she was one of the first artists represented by Betty Parsons .

So here you have probably the two largest female run and owned galleries and dealers , representing Hedda Stern right at the beginning of the 1950s .

She was included in just about every show that the New York Art School was in in the 40s and 50s and her contribution to ABEX came in the form I think you're really going to like this , nathan came in the form of her use of commercial spray paint to depict motion and light in her renderings of roads , highways and cityscapes .

So is there an influence of street art pre street art by Hedda Stern ? I don't know . I don't know if that conversation has been had , but I'm sure there were not that many artists at that time using spray paint in their work .

During her time there , she became a key participant in the artist sessions at Studio 35 , which is a very , very key group of discussions and conversations about the modern art scene in New York at the time and the aims of the artists .

So you have this group of artists who are breaking boundaries and creating new ideas and themes and they're constantly talking about them . Together . We talk about the importance of an artist network and a group of artists .

This group of artists included Robert Motherwell , rothko , barrett Newman , ad Reinhart , william DeKooning , hans Hoffman , adolf Gottlieb , louis Bégois , david Smith , and you get the picture . This is a group of some of the most transformative and really innovative artists in the history of the art world .

Discussing these things , and after a major two day session in 1950 , 18 painters and 10 sculptors signed an open letter to the president of MoMA to protest aesthetically conservative group exhibition juries because they were not being allowed in . And at that time MoMA was like you're not it , we're going to stick with the traditional .

So they penned this letter as an open rejection of MoMA . So imagine even that impact . Right here you are climbing the ladder and you're to the largest museum in New York and one in the world saying you know we reject you .

After this letter comes out , time Magazine does an article on it and dubs the group the Irrassable 18 , and attacked the artist for the distortion of fact and that they had a contempt for modern paintings . So then , oh sorry , the Harold Tribune actually published the Irrassable 18 . Life Magazine covered the protest and included a photograph of fifteen of the letters .

Twenty eight sign is including earned spirit newman james brooks rough coat . If you've seen the black and white image online , it's a very famous painting . I mean you've got cliford still , and jackson paul like and all these guys at ryan heart got leave the coating , all city in suits , you know , looking tough , got their machismo on .

And then there's a woman standing at the back and it's head of stern . She's the only woman . She showed up late for the photo shoot , which I think is hilarious , but she's the only woman woman in that photo . And Later in her career she actually had a quote where she said I'm known more for that damn photo than for eighty years of my artwork .

Little bit of history on head of that . I think very , very important because she's one of the most influential female artists In the history of artwork and we just don't hear too much about her unless you're studying it .

And I wasn't even familiar with her to an extent other I knew who she was in the picture , I'd seen maybe one of her pieces , two of her pieces before , and as I , as I hit this quote in the book , I did a deep dive after that point and I really , I mean I am wowed Buy her work .

I mean it is incredible just moving from surrealism and then into abstract expressionism and then figuring out the mediums and the things she's doing . And this quote really hit me because I talk about technique and medium and those things a lot .

So I'm gonna read the quote again and let's jump in and I hope that that little bit of history interest people enough to do some really deep dives on head of stern and her artwork . So the quote again To serve your vision , you have to master your technique . You cannot cheat matter . It shows . You must learn to respect its laws .

You are required to use patience , courage and honesty , throwing you this quote and going hey , head of stern , here's a quote about mastering technique . You know what was your first impression when you kind of looked at that ? And First impressions not like deep diving , you know , philosophically into when you first read it what's your reaction ?

So you know part of that systematics and how you want to Break down the word of master or mastery , but I am a big fan of technique , you know , so I might . My first thought was this is really interesting and specifically , I would say that the part that captured me the most was that very last sentence about that .

The artist is required to use patience , courage and honesty . We're talking about character , which is which is really interesting . That , to me , was very , was very fascinating , and I'll throw it back to you and ask what do you think the relevance of those virtues are To the art making process ? And maybe just that , the context that quote .

But the more that I've kind of gone in and researched what other artists are saying , or writers or creators about technique and things , I'm starting to grasp it a little more . And I think , after maybe the time of reading that I went away , she's saying to serve your vision , you have to master your technique .

Because when I first was reading it you kind of glance over and you're not really thinking about certain words within . You know what , you're just kind of reading and I was thinking , oh , you need to master technique , don't cheat , don't cheat it , you gotta master it . And I'm like what the freak ?

I've been really discouraged in the studio lately and just with my own work and thinking of how do I break out of certain realms or certain definitions and things . And I'm like , okay , you know , I've got certain techniques I do that have become mine . How do I build on those ? How do I ? And so I went to serve your vision .

You have to master technique and you know , like any good quote , you have to kind of dive into other people at that level talking about those things sometimes . And I came across this quote by oscar wild and he says technique is really personality .

This is the reason why the artist cannot teach it and why people cannot learn it and why the aesthetic critic can understand it . So technique is really personality . It's you in the piece , the technique that comes , it's what you are , what your voice is , how you are creating the work . Right is the technique , she's saying to serve your vision .

Right where you want to go with your work , how you want it to be perceived by the public , how you're Put it on to the water , the canvas of the sculpture , the photograph or the script that you're writing , whatever you've got a , master your technique . You can't cheat matter .

Right , it's easy to just do something and then put it out there , but it's not easy to have patients , courage and honesty In your artwork and spend the countless hours trying to get your technique down and serving it to a way that when you put it out there , it's received aesthetically .

Rereading that first sentence , you know she uses the word your twice . Your vision , your technique yes .

I think that , especially when you consider the idea of not cheating matter , a vision is more than just , you know , a happy accident that happens to look neat , right , and so when I think about mastering your technique to serve your vision , it's a matter of repetition and just spending a lot of time with whatever it is that you're trying to do , so that you

can communicate whatever your vision might be in a consistent and at least replicatable fashion to really mine you know that vision and really explore those ideas to communicate them properly . I was just looking up quotes about mastery , because this is a word , it's an idea .

I think about a lot and there's a lot of different sort of , I suppose , interpretations of what mastery really means , but this one jumped out at me Michelangelo . If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery , it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all .

And one thing that I think about when it comes to technique is the importance of just paying attention and making note of what works and what doesn't .

I don't know why this example is coming to mind , but our oldest daughter is a competitive , fast pitch player softball and she's a pitcher and there's a tremendous amount of technique , as is with any number of things , but there was a time early in the younger ages where I could actually see what she was doing and provide maybe some useful tips on technique .

That day has long since passed , but it's interesting when she's having , like her pitching coach , slowing it down to whatever 240 frames a second and just going frame by frame to really break down technique and how even just one component of that technique being off , how it influences everything downstream from there .

And I think there are a lot of correlations there between really anything that requires multiple steps to process , understanding that .

Not that keeping perfection in mind has really served anybody certainly not me but understanding that there's a purpose to technique , there's a process to it , and paying attention , being a bit of a scientist or an archaeologist , sort of studying your own work .

Sometimes I try not to be in that sort of analytical left brain place when I'm the act of creating , but there's certainly a lot of place for really breaking that down after the fact . How did this happen , and is that something I want to spend more time with , to get closer to a replicatable technique that may resemble mastery at some point in the future ?

Right , inspiration is fleeting . It's not an everyday occurrence , it's not in every week or even in every month occurrence . Right , it comes and it goes , in small moments , sometimes big moments , but they're not always really close together .

And I love that he's saying like that , like we talked about earlier , the time spent , the hours and the hours and the hours and the time spent experimenting , finding your technique , finding your voice , your vision and the work so that when inspiration does strike , you have this full arsenal of skills ready .

And this like leads me to a fantastic Julia Childs quote , which I haven't started watching the Doc series on Julia Childs , it's on HBO but I'm really excited to watch it . And she says once you have mastered a technique , you hardly need to look at a recipe again and can take off on your own .

Say that again Once you have mastered technique , you hardly need to look at a recipe again and you can take off on your own right . And that piggybacks what Steven said about you're dedicated to mastering this technique of yours because you know the second inspiration comes . You don't have to think , you're just in the flow and you're just creating .

I love both of those quotes .

The less time I mean and like you're saying , when , when inspiration strikes , when we're actually in that flow the less time that you know one can spend thinking about anything technical for , quite frankly , because it's already intuitive , it's already baked into the DNA of the creator the better the work's going to be right .

Yep , a lot less starts and stops , a lot less costs , a lot less , a lot less consideration for , you know , things that may not be consistent with communicating the full vision .

Courage is the most important of all the virtues , Because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently . You can practice any virtue erratically , but nothing consistently without courage . And that , of course , could be its own episode in itself .

But I wanted to bring it into the conversation today because I think that as you look at those , so those three that had a talked about in this particular quote , that were breaking down patience , courage and honesty , I think that of those , patience makes a lot of sense .

I mean , if we're applying it specifically to the process and the experience of making art , it's something that I think about a fair amount because I like it inherently

. Courage , I think I just like that , I like the way that she addresses that right , you can practice any virtue erratically , but nothing consistently without courage because of those two . Courage , right , I mean that is kind of foundational to practicing patience consistently . It's foundational to practicing honesty . Consistently . I mean any virtue worth practicing .

You know it's not going to be easy , right ? So it's going to require some courage specifically to apply it in situations which are difficult .

And so it's like you think of trying to master your technique and find a technique that churs , that takes courage in its own , because there should be a lot of failure in there , and we already know there's a ton of fear in that , because you can do something that looks good and you can cheat it .

You can cheat matter , as she's saying right , you cannot cheat it , but you , an artist , can cheat matter , but people will know in the end right .

Doing something that looks nice , right , rather than doing something that's pushing boundaries , changing norms , locating a certain vision , adding some newity to it , innovating , what , however you want to say it , right , it's really easy to just and I'm gonna use painting and as an example , rather than all of the art Just going , I'm gonna throw some paint on , I'm

gonna mix these colors , I'm gonna get a squeegee and gear heart Richter a moment and then put it out there and it looks nice . It can fit on a wall , right , is it ?

Art sure falls into the definition of art , but does it fit my own personal definition of art , which is pushing the boundaries , spending the time mastering technique , hours and hours and hours , not releasing and showing everything to the public , waiting and being patient ? Right , it takes courage to be patient , like you just said . It takes strong courage to go .

I'm not gonna put that on Instagram . I'm not gonna put these 20 paintings on Instagram because they're not where I want my work to be right now , so why put them out there ? So for me it's like it's also an honest thing . It's easy to be a designer as an artist just create looks and create colors , and I'm not saying that's wrong .

If somebody's making a living doing that , more power to them , that's fine . But for me , I make art for the sake of art . I don't make art to get wealthy . I love supporting what I do by my art , but I want to spend time trying to master my technique and my vision and hopefully start creating things that separate from the pack over time . Am I very ?

It no way , not even close . I know how much time it's gonna take and that's the honest part of it too . Right , like I'm having patients , like Keta says , I feel like I'm being courageous and doing things that I'm uncomfortable with at times to see if they work , and I'm wasting supplies .

The painting may not get out in the world , I may tear it apart , cut it up paint over it , flip it over paint on the other side , whatever . But I'm trying to live in courage and I'm trying to be honest with my work and so I do think that , like she says , you cannot cheat matter .

The art world knows , curators know if you're cheating the system , art dealers know , gallery owners know they'll look at it and go , nope , like that , that's too much this , that's too much her , that's too much him that somebody else's work or they don't really , they can tell , they don't really care , they're just going through the motions .

They're not mastering anything , they're just going through the motions . I know that that's probably gonna make a few people mad out there , including friends of mine too that maybe I've had this conversation with in the past .

But it's like you know , do what you want to do at the end of the day , and I'm fine with People that are doing whatever they want to do . But I'm in it for art . That's not a sexy thing , that's not a glamorous thing , but I'm in it for art sake .

I want to continue to grow and develop and tell him 90 years old and change and experiment and find my vision and my voice , because I want the viewer to feel something I want to be . I want the viewer to feel truth and honesty and emotion when they see the work on the wall . It's really easy to walk into a room and walk right by art .

I want , I want the viewer to stop at my piece . I want them to stop and feel something . You know , and I don't know what it takes to do that , but I truly do think that honesty does lead to that somehow .

But I think that it's important to be honest with yourself about what your vision is and to be proactively in the game of evolving your vision .

Right , like it's not the type of thing that you just identify somewhere I mean , maybe just for some people , I don't know , but it doesn't seem to be , certainly not for myself the type of thing you just say that's my vision and to stay on nothing but a straight line from here till I , you know , follow over or stop .

So I think that's an important thing is to I mean , I'll throw another virtue that's not in the quote , but you know just awareness , you know , and that would be another whatever version of self honesty , but just being aware of all . Right , what's my vision now ? Am I being honest with what the vision is ?

Is , is my work , is my technique serving that vision , but also being open to exploration of how that vision should naturally evolve over time . Right , and that's the whole point of patience , being just being in the game , getting in the reps .

You know doing the thing enough to be able to have a sense of you know what is honest and true to you and what isn't , but I don't know . I'm still trying to figure it out .

And when Helen Frankenthaler was a young 20 year old and walked into , got to go behind the scenes to see Jackson's first exhibition of his drip paintings , it blew her away . And she says that moment gave me the freedom to do whatever I wanted to do the next day in the studio .

That one moment is what told gave her confidence and permission to do what she wanted to do and over a period of short time is when she started to lead to her poor paintings . And so you know , I look at Jackson who I believe was 100% patient , courageous and honest in his work . It's easier for people to go . He just started dripping whatever .

Well , that took courage at that time in life because he was going to do nothing else but make art , nothing else . Starved friends would bring sandwiches to he and Lee's door and leave them out , psyched , had no money for food . You know , their goal was art period . And when you look at Jackson's art pre the drip paintings , he's trying to be Picasso .

You look at his paintings , you know you're trying to be Picasso and he even says it . We're all trying to be Picasso . Back then All of us were .

But then as they get together and they're starting to explore you know these artists DeCunning and Heta Stern and Rothko , and all these guys are talking about these changes , and Gottlieb and Gorky and Franz Klein and all the Ninth Street women , they're all together like trying to push boundaries in these areas and things .

I can only imagine , like people look at Pollock's work and go , oh , he's just slinging paint around . Well , was he , do we know Right ? Is he struggling with his thoughts on his own mental illness and his own addiction and struggles while he's painting in a dance ?

Was he finding complete freedom from all those other things that hinder his life while he created and painted and dripped and threw paint around the canvas and moved , you know , in a spiritual dance , so to speak .

Like I have to think , as my knowing what I go through in the studio as an artist , all those things are involved in the action , all those things are involved in his technique , whether he spoke about them or not , which he did not most of the time .

As an artist , you know what you feel and you're doing and the things that you're expressing while you're painting . So to me , I look at an artist like that and I go man .

That courage and the honesty with his work that comes out inspired the Frankenthalers and so many other artists to find their technique , to find their vision and their voice and their work , and that , to me , that's powerful .

There is the difficulty , challenge , fascination and often productive clumsiness of learning a new method , the wonderful puzzles and problems of translating with new materials . So how does that strike you ? I'm going to read it again .

Now , listen , so many thoughts coming in just thinking about that too , especially because I'm so ingrained in Helen

. Right now , technique is a skill or an ability . It's a way of doing something , a skillful way of doing something . So most of the time it's kind of put into art or things . But technique doesn't mean it looks the same all the time . Technique doesn't mean it's the same gestures , the same strokes . It's the same same , same same .

Technique is like your way , your , your Nathan Turborgs , helen Frankenthalers , heta Stearns particular way that they go about their skill and their craft , what they're making , their art . So I think it's easy for an artist to hear the word technique and get scared and go I'm just not a good painter .

It has nothing to do with being a good painter or a poor painter , or it's your way of creating your work is the technique . So there's , it's an open door for experimentation , for risk taking , for trying new things and new mediums . All that fits under technique .

It all fits into the way that you create your work , how you go about , the way your work is created . So it's not we're not thinking same lint like the same exact thing all the time . It's going to be change . You're going to get older in age , which means you become wiser , and I love you know .

Going back to the Michelangelo quote on mastery , he's saying it's not that wonderful if you were behind the scenes . It's work and work and work and work and failure and work and courage and work and honesty and stopping and starting . You know all those things . That's all wrapped up into , like Michelangelo finding his technique and technique .

Oh , renaissance painting and abstract painting . Now we got two different worlds that we're looking technique wise . We're looking at academic technique versus emotional technique now . So there's plenty of separations between those things too . That can create a whole other conversation .

But I want to drop another quote from an artist from today , not a well known artist , I just came across her looking for things on technique . Her name is Kathleen Cook and it says she says technique is not the most important part of making art . It is the why of the painting , the idea , the concept and the message being conveyed .

That gives an artwork its life and purpose . So now we can jump back up to Oscar Wilde . Technique is really personality . So she's saying technique is not the most important part of art . The most important part is the why of painting , the idea , the concept and the message that the artist is conveying . That's giving the artwork life and purpose .

And I think that's where Heta Stern , when she says you cannot cheat matter , it shows If somebody doesn't have the why in the painting , the idea , the concept and the message being conveyed , then matters being cheated and people will know .

It's just a way and it's , you know , back to our , our core quote that we started with it's your way of doing things , not the way , yep , not the in the broad sense binary . You know right or wrong .

It's a way that you yourself have developed and spent time with , patiently , courageously , honestly , to get to a point where you've mastered you know what's yours when .

So you put in so much time into your technique that it just comes out like Julia Child said . You know what I mean . Once you've got it , no need to look , you're just rolling . You found your voice , you're able to do it . Yeah , yeah . And that's hard as a young artist .

So let's , let's piggyback this to beginning artists , to the younger , not in age , but in time with painting , the younger beginning artists , to just emerging artists . Technique can be frightening . It can be a very frightening thing , because I hear this over and over again . I just want to find my voice , just trying to find my voice .

There's this struggle between what you feel like you should be creating as far as what you see out there in the art world of the art , that what you feel like you should be creating and what you're actually spending time creating , and so that's where we want to steal technique and ideas from other people and practice them and spend time .

And it takes time , right ? Oh , it's just . It's such a hard conversation to have with younger artists when they just , you know , failing and failing and failing and failing and it looks immature and it looks immature and I just can't get past will , because it takes time and I always tell them keep going .

You will find the moment where , all of a sudden , you start to find your technique . You start to find your voice and your gestures and your marks and your pores , whatever it is the way that you do things . You start to find it . Then you go , oh , oh , you know , there's like this evolutionary big bang explosion .

Or you're just like ah , that's me , that's not Psy , that's not Helen , that's not Heather Day anymore , that's not , you know so and so anymore that's me in the work . And then you build on it and you build on it and you build on it and over time , now the full paintings start to reflect your technique , your vision , your work .

Now it's time to serve it and just keep going .

Right , right , you got to get out there , you got to find your way , you got to pick through all the stuff , you know , to get to where you're ultimately going . But it's one step at a time in the general direction of where you think you might , you know , want to go , where your vision , you know , may or may not take you , but the art leads us there .

It's not a , it's not something you engineer or think about in advance . It's something that you discover by , by the doing

. Awesome , well , join us next time on . Just make art , for whatever the heck we decide to talk about then .

Yep , go make art , bye , bye .