Rick Jamison painting | rickandkathy.com

“Out of all the senses, smell is considered the most unique because most people cannot describe it easily using words and because it is the strongest sense of memory. Just a single inhale of a certain scent immediately evokes feelings and emotions from when the person first experienced the scent.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smell#cite_note-1)

“… most people cannot describe it easily using words….”

Or paint.

Painters depend heavily on their ability to stimulate our eyes to create an emotional response to a painting. It was interesting, therefore, to experience my own response to one of Rick’s most recent paintings.

Is there anyone on the planet who doesn’t love crawling into a bed made with clean sheets that have been dried in the sunshine, heat, and wind?

“Clothesline-Dried Fresh!”

Why isn’t there a perfume, or even just a laundry detergent that captures that scent? And what if a painting could?

I’m not talking about a “scratch-’n-sniff” experience, but rather a “see-’n-catch a scent that makes you remember something really wonderful in your life, maybe when you were the happiest so far.”

Was this the little back bedroom that Gramma always had set up with four cots and line-fresh sheets: one for you, one for your sister, and two for those crazy, wonderful cousins from the East Coast that you couldn’t wait to see every summer?

Or was this the bedroom with the soft double bed and flowered sheets that waited for you, cool and safe and clean, to crawl into straight out of the shower with wet hair, sun-kissed cotton pajamas smelling of the lavender laundry soap she used, and the gentle tingle of freshly bronzed skin?

She always let you leave the door open so you could fall asleep to the filtered light from the bathroom across the hall and the sounds of adults laughing and scratching in the kitchen, sharing their generations of love over a game of Hearts and accusations of outrageous cheating, quickly forgiven.

The cool, slightly damp stone taste of air in a cement basement in summer…

… the woody, warm, dusty fragrance of a well-kept attic…

These are a few of the aromas that resonate fondly with many.

What about you? What aroma from your past would you love to hang on your wall?

The challenging thing about painting—and writing—is deciding what to focus on.

This is also true about life, by the way.

By the time Rick actually starts to block in a painting, he has already spent a great deal of time thinking about the composition: from the original source material (and it’s usually several sources combined), what will he keep? What will he change? What will he move, recolor, and shift?

The photo he’s using here as a reference is from an afternoon we spent last summer at a crowded beach at Ocean City, Maryland. Not only do the intersections of water, sky, and sand pose an interesting set of problems for a painter to solve, but where else can you find such a wealth of half-nude, real-sized models posing patiently as they sizzle in the sun?

It’s a rare painter who can reflect how gently laughable and enjoyable we all are as we move through our lives together. Similar to “Beach Ladies,” a painting like this reminds the viewer that none of us should take ourselves too seriously.

That’s a gift, folks.

Watching an ambitious project like this take shape is also a gift.

From the initial composition and drawings to the establishing of light and dark values…

… to seeing the individual elements come to life, it’s a fascinating documentary of possibilities on top of complex decisions, all described in an infinite range of color.

This takes a steady hand and nerves of steel.

This painting in particular is endlessly entertaining to me. It has just as much interest from 12 feet back as it does from 12 inches in.

From 12 feet back, the three women in the foreground are profound and oddly hilarious studies in women’s shapes at various ages, bone structures, breast size and orientation, bellies, and butt shape. It also showcases nicely our propensity to have our hands on our hips with minor variations in elbow angles and hand positions allowed.

And I’ll bet you a cookie they were all wearing “The Miracle Suit“:
“Look 10 pounds thinner in 10 seconds!”

Who are they kidding? 10 seconds?! Have they never seen a committed woman struggling to get into a bathing suit that guarantees to compress her so effectively that she’ll look 10 pounds lighter? That’s at least a full three-minute sweat-and-swearing filled episode which, if filmed, would immediately shoot to first place as a viral video on YouTube.

Yet from 12 inches in, you can see that Rick decided to leave the orange underpainting as the substance of the man, painting in around him to show the viewer his shape and movement. Plus he gave him shorts, which I thought was kind, all things considered.

Michelangleo: “I saw an angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

Rick: “I saw a fat man in the orange and painted around him, let him be.”

What to paint? And what to merely suggest with a swish and a flick?

It’s possible to use oil paint not only as a delivery mechanism for color, but also as a three-dimensional art medium, like plaster of paris or whipped cream. Applied with skill and the muse’s suggestion whispering in one’s ear, the effect can be amazing. For instance, you can apparently create a wave’s shadow that, under gallery lighting, will augment the painted suggestion of the shadow beneath it.

Neat trick, Rick.