memory – Art of Schmidt

Constructed Realities: Part 3, A Focus on My Childhood

I am slowly making progress toward my goal of making 20 new artworks based on poetry quotes. When complete, I am hoping to submit them as a portfolio to apply to graduate school for a masters in fine art, so I can teach college-level art classes. Over the past few weeks, I have been noticing a thread of common themes, one of which is my childhood. For some its a time of nostalgia, and for others, something to forget. For me, its a mixed bag, and the few memories I have from early childhood are fragmented, with few details. I took inspiration for this piece from many personal photos and from Billy Collin’s poem, Forgetfulness. The piece was created in stages with gouache sepia-toned paints, acrylic paints, gesso, and soft pastel with a limited color palette.

Childhood Collage memory loss, watermark — Childhood Memory Loss, Gouache and soft pastel, and acrylic paint, 16 x 13 inches, Jodie Schmidt, 2020.

I took additional inspiration from this artwork by searching for poems written about the subject of forgetfulness. I found this gem of a quote from Billy Collin’s poem, “Forgetfulness,” “As if one by one, the memories you used to harbor decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain, to a little fishing village with no phones.” Though the poem does not specifically address the issue of childhood amnesia, I felt it captured the feeling that memories are unstable and sometimes inaccessible.

I can remember small details, like elementary school book fairs, and my love of reading, library visits with my father, and being outdoors a lot on my favorite tire swing. However, more specific details have been more difficult to access, such as specific memories of how I got along with my sisters, who were many years older. It’s as if a giant hand has wiped out these memories, and without the aid of family photos and my mother’s memories, I would really be at a loss. All of this inspired me to make a pastel and gouache collage based on family photos of things I can no longer remember. This series has been a marathon, and a mirror, endless practice, mistakes, and setbacks. And all the while, it’s holding up a mirror to all of the weaknesses I have as an artist, especially in figure drawing and composition. How I wish I had paid more attention to figure drawing class as an art student! So, whatever the outcome of this series might be, getting into graduate school or not, it has been a journey chock full of lessons and opportunities to grow as an artist. Thanks for reading!

A Life Remembered: Paintings that Helped Me Process Grief

This week I am between projects, as I have just finished the 100 Faces in 100 Days drawing challenge. I also completed some paintings for the Frederick Coffee Company Art show I just finished. So now the perennial question, what do I work on next, and what do I blog about next? I have finally picked up the brush and pencil this Monday and started to revisit the drawings and photoshop files I created for my Voices and Visions poetry illustration series. These works are in the very beginning stages and I started them with evaluating the compositions of some of these files in Photoshop and re-organizing them. After that, I worked on transferring the photocopies of these illustrations to watercolor paper and illustration board. One painting even got to the basic lay-in with acrylic painting stage, but the others need another coat of gesso before they will be ready to paint.

It seems that the bad news I got from the Doctor’s Office on Monday has helped catapult me to action with this series. For the past several months I have been focusing on promoting art shows and administrative duties such as marketing, data entry, pricing, packing up art shows and setting new ones up, etc. However, the phone call I received this Monday, reminds me of all the other times I got disturbing news but had to find a way to get through everyday life in spite of it. This week has really been a déjà vu, of all the experiences and emotions I felt during my dad’s illness from March 2011-September 2011 when he passed. But with all that being said, the real take away I have had from these experiences is that tomorrow isn’t promised and that I need to make the most of the time I have today.

In March of 2011, I got the phone call that everyone dreads; my father had had a stroke. My sister had called the ambulance and he and was at Montgomery General Hospital where they were testing him for various things. This event ushered in several months of inconclusive tests, different diagnoses, hospital visits, sleepless nights and ongoing stress and uncertainty for me and my family. I felt totally unprepared for this kind of long-term stress and I didn’t know how to cope with it. The situation was also a shock because my father had always been a healthy man and never seemed to have any ongoing illness, other than his recent bout with shingles. I turned to making art as a way to try and introduce some calm and predictability into my days so I could go on working, doing laundry, etc. I discovered that attending art classes every week with a local artist, Rebecca Pearl

Source photo for Dad and Holly painting.

Dad and Holly, oil on canvas, 8 x 10 inches, Jodie Schmidt, 2011.

A photo of my dad and a 1929 Ford was used to construct the oil painting, Dad and 1929 Ford.

Dad and 1929 Ford, oil on canvas panel, 16 x 20 inches, Jodie Schmidt, 2011.

School photo of my father as a child provided the inspiration for my painting of Dad as Young Boy.

Dad as Young Boy, oil on canvas panel, 11 x 14, Jodie Schmidt, 2011.

A photo I found of my father and his first wife, Phyllis, taken sometime in the 1940s or 1950s, provided the composition for the painting, Dad and Phyllis.

Dad and Phyllis, oil on canvas panel, 11 x 14 inches, Jodie Schmidt, 2011.

introduced some much-needed structure into my days. After my father passed in September of 2011, I was still dealing with a lot of emotions. I decided to create a series of portrait paintings about his life to try and process the grief and to create a meaningful way of honoring his memory, using family photos as references for the oil paintings. Some days I could barely paint and looking at the photos of him in happier times was really difficult. Other days, I was able to paint without feeling so sad. And now, several years later, I am turning to art again as a way to cope while waiting for answers about my diagnosis of a low platelet count. I have to wait for two more weeks for another round of tests to get some more conclusive answers, hopefully.

Painting of the Week: Dad and Phyllis

Here is my completed oil painting of the week. This work features a portrait of my dad and his first wife, Phyllis when they were newly married in the early 1950s. It is based on an old black and white photograph that I found when I was cleaning out my dad’s house while he was in the Assisted Living facility back in 2011. I used the photo as a jumping off point for the composition and drawing but used my imagination when choosing the color palette, to create a color harmony of complementary colors of orange and blue, and yellow and violet. My painting is based on a series of oil paintings that I completed about my father’s life, based on family photos from different times in his life from childhood to young adult, to older adult to help process my grief during his series of strokes and hospitalization. I found that painting could provide a safe refuge for me when most days were uncertain and chaotic as I waited to get text messages, emails or phone updates on my dad’s health from family members, and tried to “keep it together” so I could get on with my daily life activities, like cooking, cleaning, going to work, and just getting out of bed every morning. The painting, Dad and Phyllis, are available for sale on my Etsy page: https://www.etsy.com/shop/ArtofSchmidt?ref=seller-platform-mcnav.

Title: Dad and Phyllis

Medium: Oil on Canvas Panel

Size: 9 x 12 inches

Item has been custom framed so it’s ready to hang on your wall!