staats art classes
Staats Fasoldt
by Paul Smart
I haven't used watercolors since ninth grade, and then only
reluctantly when told I had to pass through the medium to get beyond
pastels to the oils and acrylics I really wanted to get my hands on.
But I'm feeling no fear, even though I've had to borrow my teacher's
paints and paper. That's because my teacher is the Woodstock School of
Art's popular Staats Fasoldt, as understanding a guide as one could ask
for. And, even better, there's something I'm finding in the venerable
WSA's newly renovated main studios that's not only inspiring - as was
hoped for from the beginning when these stone and many-windowed
buildings were first constructed by the Works Progress Administration
during Roosevelt's New Deal answer to the Great Depression of the 1930s
- but comforting as well.
It's not the new air conditioning (radiant heat in the winter) that's
lending the room, and me, this feeling, I figure. The big doors are
open and the rain is coming down in sheets outside. It's not the
lights, really, which haven't changed all that much. Or even the
cleanliness of the rooms, not yet given the decades of use that lend
all artists' studios a certain patina.
Tables are set up here and there, with a haphazard sense of wabi-sabi,
that ephemeral Oriental sense of imperfect beauty. A half-dozen
students are on hand, each with their own kits, their own buckets and
pots for water. Loads of brushes. Talismans. Photos they are working
from. Past works.
Fasoldt puts my table together with another new student's, the better
to guide us as we work. He's patient and warm-spirited, funny and
accessible.
Did I mention that he's got a new show of his masterful watercolor
work, of the Cape and Maine as well as local scenes, opening at
Saugerties' Dog House Gallery on Phillips Road this coming Saturday,
July 8, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.? Or that, as part of the town's Second
Saturday art events, the WSA is hoping to entice people to its
beautiful campus for a noontime slide lecture by landscape painter
Kevin Cook in honor of its twenty-fifth year of such events, to be
followed, from 1 p.m. until 3 p.m. by a special sale of etchings,
lithographs, monotypes and block prints by Kate McGloughlin's
printmaking students in the School's Graphic Workshop.
The person I'm learning with - Fasoldt seated between us - is an artist
whose work I've lauded in these pages. She's had a hiatus and is
looking for a new start. She, like me, has heard that Staats is the way
to go, and that this Wednesday morning class is less harried, in some
way, than the Saturday morning sessions he also offers.
I'd gotten the idea of doing something at the WSA after attending the
opening of its Deane Keller Memorial Exhibition - a monumental show
simply because of the exquisite expertise of a series of giant pencil
renderings of Middle East characters plucked from the streets - Board
President Paula Nelson had asked if I'd seen the newly completed
renovations and then excitedly taken me through, showing off everything
from the grand new studio rooms to the handicapped-access bathrooms,
complete with a crusty painter's palette toilet paper holder.
She pointed out how there was more to do; how what I saw there needed
replication in the gallery and administration building, the better to
allow the WSA to start having exhibits year round. As well as to give
those who worked for it, including Nelson, adequate heat each winter.
And so here I am. Fasoldt pulls out copies of a classic Edward Hopper
painting of a Maine lighthouse. Says that, despite appearances, the
artist had a deep love for abstract forms. He shows us the shapes at
play, the interplay of light and dark.
"I'm going to teach you about mid-tones," he says, explaining that we
will be working in a three-value system that uses no white paints. The
paper will be our white. "Most artists think in terms of light and
shadow. It's like genesis, really, with the light coming out of the
darkness..."
He gets us playing with water and color, showing how this medium is
more about moving water around on the page than pinpointing details. We
do exercises in solid color, then in gradations, where added water
creates a softening of tone. He explains the color wheel. The ways in
which pigments differ from dyes. Intensities and hues.
We joke about Mark Rothko.
Then Fasoldt renders an expressive, instantly recognizable and moody
translation of the Hopper before our eyes, starting with a watery blue,
then adding bits of green, some red highlights, and a second, darker
blue here or there.
My turn, he says, handing over the brushes.
It goes well, at first, with my bold use of color and quick decisions
getting me pegged as an instant impressionist verging on expressionism.
But by the time I've finished what I started, blotches have appeared
and my lighthouse keeper's house looks demented, as though it's borne
devil horns.
Never mind, Staats tells me. I've taken a leap.
Making my way around the room, I notice the various elements people are
each working on. Few are aiming at finished masterpieces, but learning
exercises. An exploration of the medium so they can get comfortable
with it and have a few tricks up their sleeves.
Many of the students, I realize, are frequently-showing local artists
better known for what they do in oils or printmaking, photography or
pastels. They're here, I sense, because Fasoldt reminds them of the
underlying truths all art relies on... at least, that which is
prettiest and most accessibly recognized for what it's meant to be.
"This is a wonderful spontaneous medium that allows one a great splash
of color," Fasoldt says at one point. "Watercolor will give you
anything you want... but when starting off, it's best to work within
limitations."
As I play with lessons involving the angle and speed of my brushstroke,
Staats delightedly points out a bird that's entered the studio. Then,
just as excitedly, yet in his calm voice, he speaks about how different
papers serve "as the painter's lifeblood."
"You know, nothing's going to dry right today," he says, as the rain
begins to peter off some.
I notice that none of it has entered the building. And yet, with a
glint of sun coming through the surrounding trees, I want to run
outside and jump puddles, search for rainbows.
When I tell my teacher how long it's been since I've done what I am now
doing, he says he's often found people talking about having been
natural artists up to that same age, 12 or 13. Was it something to do
with the education system? he wondered. My table partner suggested it
might have more to do with puberty and the distractions posed by
opposite genders. I think to myself that it might also have to do with
the doubts that race into one around the same time, for all the same
reasons.
I get ready to leave while everyone's still working and look how all
are doing. And I realize that the joy I'd felt in this room has
probably always been here. It's that of creativity, of learning new
tricks, even as adults. Even as professionals at whatever we do, be it
writing or the visual arts.
And then I realize why it is the renovations here are so important.
They validate this feeling that's been here. And renew it.
The WSA is located one mile east of Woodstock Village on Route 212. Its
openings are fun, its classes even better. For further information call
679-2388 or visit the website www.woodstockschoolofart.com.
Dog House Gallery is located at the corner of Glasco and Phillips Road.
Call 246-0402 for further information.
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