Photograph of the installation of the exhibition From the Inside Looking Out: The Journals, Drawings and Prints of Charles Ritchie at the Gregg Musuem of Art & Design, North Carolina State University, Raleigh. Photograph by Matthew Gay.

Pictures at an Exhibition

Stepping into one’s solo exhibition can be revealing; especially if work that’s been out of mind for years is included. It’s strange enough seeing one’s art framed and under glass, or presented in display cases; a situation that denies the whole tactile experience of creating the work as well as displacing it from the studio in which it grew. The unfamiliar, freshly-painted white room, the rarefied lighting, and the uncluttered, surprising juxtaposition of works serves to make everything feel alien: what a great place for an artist to be.

As I spent time going through my exhibition in at North Carolina State University, several things struck me. I enjoyed reviewing some early drawings that haven’t been shown before. The group includes Window with Moon and Star and Worktable with Open Book, drawings from 1983. Both works feature the same subject, the table and window of an earlier studio. The tight pen drawing of the former was made by thinning inks and building up layers of line with a very fine point pen. This very precise drawing process took months. Compared with Worktable with Open Book, a much larger piece created using large brushes in loose watercolor wash on a watercolor block; this drawing was executed in probably a half hour. I’m fascinated that I was working with such variant methods at the same time. I think the tension of swinging between loose and tight approaches has been one of the elements that has kept painting interesting for me. I still vascillate between these poles when I work. I should also note that Window with Moon and Star seems to me to be a reflection on the 19th century British artists that I was vitally interested in the time, William Blake, Edward Calvert, and Samuel Palmer. All of whom became more familiar to me during the summer of 1984 on our honeymoon in England.

Another early work, The Bend, completed in the fall of 1984, (see my online journal entry for 17 August 2008), seemed to be a reflection on the period in which it was created. The year was a turning point of my life; I married, I began the move to my present studio, and my outside work shifted towards a curatorial career. Looking at the drawing, I felt as if the picture was a long jump; a leap across the dark space between the lights on the left and right of the composition. This kind of metaphor never occurs to me while I am working, but such associations emerge in hind sight. Perhaps I subconsciously scout such visual metaphors when I choose my subjects.

One of the discoveries I made looking at the show was that during the mid-to-late 1990s I was not drawing so much. There are few works from that period in this exhibition. During this period I began working with Jim Stroud at Center Street Studio making prints. Also at this time, I experimented with oil paint on gessoed board, an investigation that was never fully successful. During this diversion, I discovered that I like the versatility of working with paper and the quick drying time of watercolor.

Regarding the installation of the show; the journals seem particularly out of context when displayed in exhibitions. My books are utilitarian and when limited to a spread of two pages open in a display case they lose their functionality and serial richness. They are meant to be held in the hands and experienced as a sequence of pages. Of course, the alternative of giving up security within such a public setting seems far less palatable. I have found no better solution.

A final note; memories of the creation of the work can affect how one remembers it; such as remembering it bigger or smaller than it actually is. Ones hopes and dreams of what one wanted to achieve with with a work can also jade memory. Reacting to the inaccuracy of these mental images can often times spark the trajectory for a new journey when one steps back to contemplate in the setting of an exhibition.

Other installation photographs are below. Deepest thanks to the Gregg Museum of Art & Design at North Carolina State University, Raleigh for their beautiful presentation and particular thanks to Matthew Gay who documented the show with these images.

(above) Photograph of the artist copying in his journal at the Ashmolean Musuem, Oxford, England, June 1984.

Finding Forbears

In June of 1984 my wife, Jenny and I went to England for our honeymoon. We spent a week in London followed by a week driving around the country. We wanted to do something romantic and beautiful for the occasion, but neither of us are travelers so I look back now and imagine we were subconsciously homing in on spiritual forebears. On the trip, I certainly encountered artists who have changed the way I see the world who continue to inspire me with their achievements.

Sure, I liked John Constable’s landscapes before our trip, but when we stepped into an exhibition of his small studies at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I was overwhelmed. Constable communicates a thrill in depicting his world, putting painterly bravura at the service of the humble and commonplace. At Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, I fell in love with Samuel Palmer’s work; I too wanted to invest a small page with mystery. Palmer’s varied mix of pen and ink and watercolor has informed my own drawing technique over the years. During the trip I also became aware of the work of John Martin whose command of scale is breathtaking. You may never feel as tiny as in front of one of Martin’s works. For example, his Creation of Light (see also below) convincingly evokes the immensity of the universe, juxtaposing human form with astronomical. What a master of light! The brightest point in the work is not the depicted sun, moon, or stars. It is the vaguely defined point just to the right of the sun; possibly a reflection off of a cloud bank? Who knows? Such is the imagination of John Martin.

(above) Book 130, Charles Ritchie after John Martin, Creation of Light, 2008, watercolor made from a reproduction of a mezzotint, illustration from John Milton, Paradise Lost. Published 1827.

One of the most resonant moments of the trip was our visit to Fountain’s Abbey in North Yorkshire whose ruins struck me as the greatest memento mori I had seen in my life. How do powerful cultures wither and leave these bones? I grasped the book in my pocket. Perhaps in my own way small way I seek to leave a skeleton of my life. My desire to organize my work around a linear series of journals is a satisfying conceptual framework, but it serves an emotional purpose as well. Through my own private memento mori I mark the passing, days, and months, and years; recognizing my mortality and attempting to come to terms with it.

(above) Photograph of the artist’s wife, Jenny, standing before Fountain’s Abbey, North Yorkshire, England, June 1984.