Painting as a Spiritual Practice
Guest Writer: Ken Fellows
Remembrance Iris
My watercolor painting teacher and mentor, Dewitt Hardy, died suddenly 2 years ago at age 58. He was an artistic father-figure to me and others. With his distinctive paintings displayed in museums and Board rooms across the country, Dewitt was both a New England and a national treasure. Even now he sits on my shoulder when I’m painting … advising, reminding, admonishing and encouraging.
In my 50s, when contemplating life after medicine, I had no previous artistic experience. Back then I had asked my artist wife Kristin what I might consider doing in retirement. She replied emphatically: “You are so compulsive, you should try watercolors. They’re fussy and difficult.” By the time I retired in my early 60s, I had already taken several years of drawing and painting instruction in Philadelphia.
Retiring to Kittery, Maine in 2000, I attended several local art schools and workshops. Through them I met Dewitt Hardy, not only the dean of local watercolor painters, but a popular teacher whose class demeanor was known to be intense but humorous. In my first class with him, stopping by my easel, he announced to me and the class with a wry smile: “Ken, at this point in your painting there are 3 things you could have done wrong, and you did all 3.” I knew right then I was in the right place. I had a “perfect” first-day evaluation.
For deftly managing tricky watercolors, Dewitt was sardonic, but inspiring …exacting but supportive. When questioned one day about his explicit recommendations for painting the nude figure, he leaned over his seated inquisitor and growled in mock seriousness: ‘Yes, you have to do it my way. Because if you go home and start painting your way …you will get confused …then you’ll get frustrated … then you will become discouraged… then you’ll quit painting … and then, you’ll die.” I enjoyed reminding him from time to time about this, his personal theory of ‘artistic mortality.’
I painted the iris bloom above in the weeks following his untimely death. Dewitt was a master of watercolor florals, and I felt compelled to produce a tribute to him using one of his favorite subjects. Throughout the process of painting this iris, I heard his voice and felt his presence as in no other time in my 25 years of painting. I was energized, focused and inspired by his memory. It was a special creative experience. Painting for me is always meditative … timelessly pleasurable. I suspect that meditation is a foundation for spirituality.
This tribute to Dewitt turns out to be allegorical as well, however completely unintended. It was noticed by a fellow artist and pupil of Dewitt’s, Bill Paarlberg, when he first viewed the painting. He saw the iris flower as ‘life’ being stabbed by the ‘sword of death’ (the diagonal green/red blade of grass running through the flower’s petals) as referencing Dewitt’s demise. This may represent an unconscious level of spirituality reflected in this watercolor homage to my departed friend and mentor.
One of Dewitt’s favorite artistic admonitions was “we’re in the business of making miracles.”
He promoted finding scenes and subjects that, perhaps ordinary, were intriguing in some way, and that artists, through composition, color and technique, should endeavor to create ‘a miracle.’ From him I learned to search for the imperfect but interesting, the arresting, and the off-beat to paint. To change, enhance, and embellish, he advised, is an important part of making art. I have thought those intentions in my painting were consciously learned and willed. Perhaps not.
This painting has given me pause to consider that something beyond myself, something beyond human experience, is involved in pushing watercolors around a piece of cold-pressed paper.
Ken Fellows
Kittery, Maine