Gregory Packard, original landscape, still life and figurative paintings

Journal Entries 2006

Balance

A good painting fosters a spirit of spontaneity and randomness, yet those qualities are most often brought forth with a solid understanding of the fundamentals: drawing, design, color and value. Lacking in those areas and you may end up with a painting that lacks harmony. At the same time, however, forcing that knowledge too much may lead your painting to lack inspiration. It's a matter of understanding and then letting go, like mixing known chemicals into an unknowable concoction. The results can be enlightening.

Isn't life the same way? Too much of living by the seat of our pants and life can become unharmonious. Too little, too much given to us without merit, and we become bored or insatiable. For some people everyday is a chance to manifest their own destiny while for others everyday is simply another domination by life, job or kin.

Gregory Packard, December 17, 2006

Window of Opportunity

Watching a sunset on the Pacific Ocean can be like watching a window of opportunity slip by. Moment by moment I want to reach out and grasp what is before me, to see the light pass though my fingers and hear the rhythm of the ever restless sea. It changes so quickly and yet its beauty remains constant and alluring until, as a darkness creeps over, the light is gone.

Gregory Packard, November 15, 2006

Day After Tomorrow

A little inner peace goes a long way. Some carry it with them; some find it in a quiet corner. It's easy to take it for granted but hard to live without. To varying degrees and with varying awareness we all search for peace in our own lives but often come away frustrated because it is not something that can be bought with monetary or emotional currency, and it can't be earned or even offered as a gift. From those who truly have it, it can't even be stolen. Like love and joy, inner peace has a higher calling in our lives. It has less to do with who we are physically or what family or town or country we are born into. Those are the things that define our own unique challenges in life, the things we should come to terms with in order to be able to find a little peace inside ourselves. Some challenges are great and some small but what seems to be universal is that we are all faced with them. Instead of dealing with them so that we have an opportunity to have some peace we often put off those challenges. We blame them on somebody or some circumstance or we say to ourselves that we'll deal with it tomorrow or the day after tomorrow and we have this image in our head that things will be better then. While circumstances may be different the basic challenges that keep us from finding inner peace are probably still the same, still not dealt with, still our own and still kept deep inside us at bay for a later date. We should stop waiting for tomorrow or the day after. While we can't control all our circumstances we can direct ourselves through them, but to do that we need to get on that boat and set sail. For the journey may be short or it may be long—it's our life. If you wait until the day after tomorrow it may be over.

Gregory Packard, October 18, 2006

Harmony

The extremes of life seem to balance each other. I find in my life that when something bad happens eventually something good comes along. It's not as obvious or mechanical as physics, "for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction", but in some mysterious way things seem to work out even when they appear dire. It's problematic when we expect our lives to be equal and opposite in a timely fashion just like if we bounced a ball. In the big picture life seems more like a forest. When it burns down it recovers sometimes more graciously than before and often as a different variety, but always it takes time. In a larger context the extremes of life sometimes make sense and a greater harmony is witnessed.

Gregory Packard, August 19, 2006

Worth the Risk

When I start a painting I often have an idea of what I'm trying to communicate but as I progress things typically do not translate on canvas as well as I had anticipated, so I can either improvise as I go, making choices on the fly or I can fall back heavily on technique to try and get the painting back to my original intent. If I improvise and make choices generously with my heart it can lead to a more emotional and often technically better painting than I originally had in mind. If on the other hand I adhere to technique I am usually drawn back into the same snare of old habits that led me to consider improvisation to begin with--the seeds of an unemotional painting. Just as in everyday life it's a matter of examining my heart and taking a leap of faith.

Gregory Packard, August 12, 2006

Nine Lives

I love experimenting with paintings. After painting a piece I typically let a period of time pass before I can determine if it speaks to me on an emotional level. Some pieces need more work and some don't. Each piece develops its own personality, and each piece has a life of its own and much of these lives can be told by looking at the surface.

There are some paintings that in spite of good intentions seem overworked and tired—a little long in the tooth but no real wisdom to show for it. They are like a person who grows old and bitter from good or difficult circumstances and never really figures out how to love in life. They are so narrow that nobody can measure up to what they think should be—what they believe they are. It's less about details than about noodling in too many or the wrong places.

Then there are the paintings that have been sanded down and repainted. You can still see the brush lines from the old painting underneath the new paint but instead of appearing overworked they typically add an emotional element which can show a sincerity that otherwise would be absent. Just like with people who grow from difficult circumstances sometimes the scars are still present beneath the beauty but rather than detract from their beauty they add to it by reaching beyond old heartaches as a hand might extend to those who have not yet overcome. These people have the potential to become some of the most beautiful people alive.

And finally there are the so called easy paintings. These paintings are graceful and simple by nature and include a bit of good luck. The strokes seem to flow effortlessly around form and light. If done well they harmonize like the song of a meadowlark. But without a solid understanding of painting these paintings are anything but easy to paint. Perhaps like the life of a person who seeks joy but misses the spirituality in life these paintings are often accused of lacking substance, but when the substance is there they are to me irresistible. It's almost as if these people have lived life before and have learned from the beginning to live this turn with the joy of a child and wisdom of a an elder.

Gregory Packard, July 23, 2006

Mountains

Everybody needs to climb a mountain,
at least once for the sake of asking,
who am I?
For some, those who do it daily,
there are many mountains.
The point is not to be the first to reach its peak,
or refrain from being last,
but, instead, to see your own reflection,
among creation's larger plan.

So take your time.
Reach to feel the cold in the crisp blue lake,
or the tumbling stream as you rise.
Smell the flowers,
which dot the mountain meadows,
and the fresh rain while waiting,
patiently, for the sun to shine your way.

Listen for the silence, when,
at the day's end you've found a place,
to confidently rest your weary bones,
and discern without disgrace,
a mountain that you climbed,
one you helped create,
one to which you were led,
by the simple hand of fate.

Gregory Packard, May of 1997

Opposites Attract

Today I stood in the studio and painted a small piece of coastline that tries with all it's might day to day, moment to moment to hold back the mighty Pacific Ocean. And while I am here in Colorado that stretch of coast, I am sure, is still standing proud albeit perhaps worn just slightly since the last time I saw it in person.

I think that in what often appears to be opposing forces in nature there is an overarching harmony. That in spite of appearances the ocean and the rock and the wind and the rain all lean on each other to exemplify their own essence more. The ocean wouldn't seem as awesome if it couldn't display itself smashing against the rocks and vise versa. Maybe I'm stretching it a bit; I don't know. But one thing is certain, when the sun shines on their appearing conflict it does unveil the essence of each, so powerfully that I can stand over a thousand miles away and still feel the cool sand slide out from under my bare feet as the water rushes back to sea from its most recent advance.

In painting there are similar conflicts that if handled with passion and insight can also expose a higher order of harmony. For example, I often question how much of a scene should be rendered and what should be left to the imagination. On the one hand it could be the immense subject that demands more rendering or detail while on the other hand it could be that too much detail would detract from the essence of the golden sunlight shining on the subject. It is the same reason that a photograph taken by an unskilled photographer can have all the detail recorded but none of the vitality of real life. A skilled photographer as with a painter has to use the tools of their craft to their advantage in order to hint at the vitality so evident in real life. Sunshine, for example, is thousands of times brighter than anything that can be printed on paper or painted on canvas, even when fully lit with gallery lighting, so an artist has to compensate for that. For this reason artists not only use lighter and darker values to make things appear lit but they place colors next to each other that make one another appear brighter or more dull, warmer or cooler—just like the sea and the rock the colors may be opposites on the color wheel but still have to work together to bring out the essence of their hue so that on the painting they can simulate sunshine. And it is the same for all aspects of a painting: composition, color, value, edges and drawing. To find the essence of the subject all the tools of painting are considered.

The hope is that the tools become second nature, a loving response rather than an analytical problem. Because in the end it's of little significance what I render and to what extent it is rendered so long as I can find the passion within and then let it out in celebration of this great gift we all possess of experiencing life. Every day that I am aware enough to notice what nature has provided is a day in which I am more capable of giving back my small token of gratitude in a painting. The rest, more frequently than not, takes care of itself.

Gregory Packard, June 14, 2006

Life is Perfectly Chaotic

Without a larger order it is easy to see as just chaos—misunderstood and often intentionally overlooked. But within the larger context a good mess is to me often a more realistic interpretation of life than the overstated. Nature and life are harmonious and messy at the same time. Sure we try to keep them neat by organizing our lives, our communities, our cities and nations, all to make life more livable—all to a certain degree necessary and usually good things. But to not see the chaos within the larger order is often to not see the beauty or perfection of it. It would be like seeing nature as a city park and never visiting the wilderness, or like knowing somebody only by the face they want you to see. On the surface they would look perfect, but they would be missing all the elements that create wonder, mystery, empathy, loneliness, fear and a scale of love or grandness beyond capture. To really know something or somebody I have to get beyond the obvious with all my senses; I have to get to the chaos and understand it as best as I can within the larger order of life.

Gregory Packard, June 8, 2006

Long Blue Streams

Golden rays of late and early hours,
Cast blue streams from wooden towers.
Both times of day have made me weep,
As fragile love and delicate flowers.

Do not ask these things to keep,
But fleeting thoughts while we sleep.
Lovely trees on snowy fields,
High in mountains on slopes so steep.

If all of life were sowed to yield,
This random beauty what hope we'd wield.
Wrapped in blankets fluffed white fleece,
Deep within we might be healed.

From nature's cup we're drunk with peace.
Long blue streams define this crease,
Between loves found and loves lost and pains not ceased
. . . between loves found and loves lost and pains not ceased.

Gregory Packard, May 22, 2006

"Trust your intuition. The universe is guiding your life." (fortune cookie)

In painting much of the learning process is accidental, experimental or as I usually say "a beautiful mess". Often the real art is a painter's ability to recognize when an unintended passage can, if put in the larger perspective of the painting, play an integral part—can even be one of the few spontaneous passages that is able to create real emotions deep within the heart regardless of the nature of the subject. An artist needs intuition to leave a stroke in place before he's sure it has importance in the overall picture.

Like so much I learn in painting it is an extension of life itself. Growth rests in discovering the potential within the areas of our lives which remain in shadow, which when finally emblazoned by light can no longer be ignored.

Gregory Packard, May 10, 2006

Fail 'til You Succeed

When I look to the heavens I see the twinkling in my young children's eyes. When I search for a spiritual belonging I see the joy in their actions. They know the secret to life—and it's not an intellectual understanding. It's a daily revealing of their hearts. They posses the basic joy for which most of us spend our adult lives looking and their yet unfettered curiosity still finds things clear of other's bias and of the responsibility life can entail. At such a young age their only burdens are physical as well as mine and my wife's desire to keep them safe and our own selfish desires to keep them from overtaking our household, which if left unchecked, they would!

It's a paradox. We are born with great freedom in our hearts to think and feel as pure and direct as rain falling on our lips, but it seems that at freedom's height we still lack the logic and physical abilities to manifest our joy and internal freedom into potential. Yet as we grow and gain the logic and lose the physical constraints to care for ourselves we somehow learn to constrain and lose much of the freedom and joy. Little by little the joy is replaced by somebody's "this is how it is" and the curiosity is scared away by the fear of losing love if you don't agree with that somebody's "this is how it is". Suddenly we find ourselves living to a code instead of just living. We more often learn what it is to be embarrassed and quit instead of what it is to fail and try again.

Then too often as adults we become set in our ways and never go back to rediscover the monumental wisdom of childhood. Personally I can count on one hand the number of adults I have met in my lifetime who seem to have that childhood joy and curiosity about them. They seem to be the people who are willing to take on risk to find joy. They seem to know that failure is a very relative term and is better thought of as perseverance. They seem to know that success is much less about material things and much more about rekindling curiosity and joy. They seem to be the people who are happy to fail until they succeed.

Gregory Packard, April 19, 2006

Precarious Balance

When fear comes it's 3:00 A.M.. Lying in bed I wonder how we'll make it, and I know I'll not sleep again this night. It seems to visit about once a month as if I need a reminder that one of the few sure things is life's uncertainty. This thief of the moment is a universal acquaintance. I take him for what he is, though, and in a way am glad he came. He is the reminder that like the beauty of nature itself the life I have chosen is a precarious balance. The many influences push and shove and I simply try to stay rooted from moment to moment. Fear is a result of assuming a future while looking at the past, and not necessarily my own. It wishes to uproot me from the here and now, but it has no place in the present. As the seasons oblige for change each moment brings anew an opportunity to experience that change fully without labeling it as good or bad—to live in great freedom. Fear reminds me of this, and for that in this moment I befriend it. For nobody is as stable as they think. One can build a fortress but then often unbeknownst to him it's the fortress itself that steals his life away. Or one may have been coddled and handed the life he has, the land on which he lives, enabling him the toys on which he plays. That too is built on fear, just a shackle tethered to a parental finger. Neither riches nor power can conquer life's burdens. Being in the here and now, embracing the uncertainty of it all is the grace and beauty of life itself.

Gregory Packard, April 11, 2006 (3:00 A.M.)

Awakening

Where there is warmth there is cold.
Where it is smooth there lies in wait the waves.
A quiet spot without a quiet mind can be the loudest place I know.

And when we seek the truth with the same closed mind we discover a windowless room,
One to which we've been before, one that reinforces our gloom.

Like the seed who prefers to blame the cold for its inability to sprout,
We hope our blossom into the spring instead of finding out.

The simple beauty of this world is that the sun is shining now.
Be present enough to find your bliss before forgetting how.

Gregory Packard, February 24, 2006

Many artists struggle on the issue of having a distinguishable painting style, thinking that it is a painting style that makes him or her original. I have certainly been there, but am no longer worried about it. Having a recognizable style is in my opinion neither good or bad, and only part of who you are as a painter combined with how you see things on a given day of painting. There'll be some consistency but not necessarily total consistency. Getting a painting to say what I want it to say, regardless of maintaining a particular style, has always been hard enough and kept my hands full. Consequently, I find it irrelevant and limiting to try to paint different subjects all with the same interpretation of the brush. I am inspired by so many vastly different things each of which creates a different kind of response within me—all this complicated by the way I see things on a particular day; that is, one day I may see a rose one way while on another day I may see the exact same rose entirely different. The important thing is to look at and experience the rose, not a conditioned response to it. It's that very thing—my constantly changing experiences and renewed vision—that keeps life and painting interesting.

Further complicating things is that most artists have had to learn their craft, and most artists—even most of the self taught—learn from those who came before even if it is simply from looking at their work and more so if you actually studied with another artist. I studied with four very talented painters, one week each with the exception of one whom I studied with for two weeks. I did not pick those artists at random. I chose to study with them because I felt a strong connection with their work; they helped me to see greater beauty in the things I already loved looking at and they pointed me in the direction of some of the artists who inspired them and whose work now also inspires me. It is natural and inevitable that I will go on to paint similar subjects and retain much of the mannerisms in handling paint that these painters shared with me. The subjects and the way those artists saw and expressed them in paint is the very reason I was drawn to study with them. If I didn't allow myself to fully explore that I would be suppressing who I am as a person as well as limiting my potential. It is just as natural and inevitable that I will develop on top of those mannerisms and subjects many more that are unique to me—a departure as I continue to live life and fill canvases with the things I love.

Learning to paint does not happen overnight. It takes a lifetime. I believe it was Monet who said you need two lives as a painter, one to learn how to paint and another to paint. In my opinion Monet is still very much alive, alive in my work, alive in the work of those who I have been inspired by and by the work of those artists who they were inspired by, and alive in the eyes of anybody who is fascinated by the way golden light touches an ordinary object in this vast and beautiful creation in which we live. Like Monet and most painters, painters start by becoming a good technician, by applying the paint as you were taught and slowly seeing more that is unique to you in your eventual transformation into an artist who in the end may be fortunate enough to have painted one or two pieces that live beyond your life time, at which point it no longer matters whose or what style is manifested because the art which truly inspires is simply an extension of creation, and nobody can really take credit for that.

Gregory Packard, February 4, 2006

Daddy's Little Girl

Each morning just before the sun comes out the little birds begin to gather around where seed has been set out for them. They are so tender and at the same time so feisty. Very often it's the little ones who peck and flutter the hardest to maintain their spot at the dish. A loud intruding noise can quickly scare them all away but a fierce storm will often only make them more determined to stay. You want so much to help them, to pick them up, cup them in your hand and tend to their every need, to ensure their warmth and security. You think you know what is best for them. In the end, you don't. Nature has a plan for each precious soul, and often when we hold on too tight we eliminate the greater possibilities for that soul, starving it in spite of our intentions. So instead of holding on we choose wisely to let go, we quit projecting our desires and fears onto them and instead enable them to scratch out their own best interests. With joy and uncertainty we watch them grow, eventually take wing and fly with the grace and sureness of a free and delicate soul.

Gregory Packard January 17, 2006

"Get out of the way". I spent years working hard, learning, studying, solving problems and applying paint to become a "better" painter, however one might define what that is. For me it has been helpful to study and work to learn the fundamentals, but even if I live a thousand years there'll always be more to learn intellectually about the technical process of painting. With the comparatively easy access to information on deceased artists I, and all artists today, have in effect lived a thousand years. And, still, what do we know about painting? The same can be observed about life itself.

All that said, painting is basically simple. All you have to do is put the right color and value in the right spot. Easy! The statement is true. And so it is with life, simply put your time and effort in the areas of life you value most. For me painting is as much about the aspects of life that are not intellectual, that are not logical or mechanical, where mystery if hunted can only end in confusion, and where feeling cannot be defined in reasonable terms and cannot be disguised by manipulation. Life is the illumination of the heart and so is painting at it's best. Sometimes you simply have to step aside, out of your own way, and let the mystery happen.

Gregory Packard, January 9, 2006

Oh Lord I stole this day.
Her blue she gave away.
Lying down beneath the flowers,
I've stared and dreamed and lost the hours.
I laughed a country mile,
while the sun simply smiled. And now it's dark and the moon is grey.
Lord I stole this day.

Gregory Packard, July 19, 1993

Journal Entries 2004 and prior

Journal Entries 2005

Journal Entries 2007