June Yokell's Blog

Wandering into new Territory

June Yokell — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 15:24:50 +0000

Sometimes I don’t know what I am feeling until I see it. I’ve been working on a new painting for a while now and have discovered some old feelings that were really there all along but somehow I just didn’t recognize them. Painting can be not just about what you see and how you apply paint, but about who you are, what you think about and how you feel things in a way that is both personal and then hopefully universal. Sometimes you think that what you are feeling goes beyond your individual experience but the way you’ve portrayed those feelings or thoughts doesn’t connect for the viewer. When you’ve made a successful piece of art you’ve been able to connect all the dots, starting with yourself and moving outwards (for introverts) or starting from the outside and moving inwards where you then are able to be cognizant of what you have actually been doing on a more personal level. For years I started from a introverted perspective, but in the writing of this I realize that slowly I have shifted over into the extroverted world of starting with something out there and moving back inwards. It’s a funny experience to realize that has been what’s been going on. With this new painting I’ve connected with feelings of loss. The older I get the more I know that I’ve been thinking about time and it’s passing and so it is not surprising that feelings of loss have come up. I was just surprised to find it while working on this new painting.

Speaking of Solitude

June Yokell — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 01:10:57 +0000

My painting, “Pool,” will be part of the upcoming show, “Speaking of Solitude,” at the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, 500 Palm Drive, Novato, CA 94949, September 4-October 3. Reception, Saturday, September 11, 4-6. Juried by Maria Medua, Director of the SFMOMA’s Artist’s gallery. Everyone is welcome!

CAL IF OR NIA

June Yokell — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 23:40:20 +0000

I will be showing “Where Land and Water meet in dreams” in the show CAL IF OR NIA, juried by Ruth Braunstein and Shannon Trimble, at Cabrillo College, Room 1002, Building 1000, 6500 Soquel Drive, Aptos, CA, August 30-September 24. Reception: Sunday, September 12, 3:00-5:00 PM.

One with Nature: En Plein Air Workshop

June Yokell — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 13:49:57 +0000

Besides teaching my Drawing and Painting Workshop, I’m also teaching a Plein Air Class. Plein just means that you are painting outdoors. Class starts September 11th and runs through October 16th, Saturdays from 9:15-12 noon.

Plein Air painting is an entirely different experience from working in the studio in that the light is always changing, the weather is variable, organization prior to going out is essential. However the pleasure of place and being outdoors is unbeatable.

Painting and Drawing Workshop

June Yokell — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 04:57:58 +0000

Well it’s that time again, my Painting and Drawing Workshop resumes at College of Marin through Community Education on Wednesday nights, 6:40-10:00 PM, starting September 8th through October 13th and then again October 27th through December 1st.
This class is designed for both beginners and more experienced students. The class runs for six sessions, and two of those sessions are with a model. The class is focused on both learning various skill sets and also encouraging each participant to explore their own thought/feeling/working process. Students are asked to keep an ongoing visual/written journal as a reference point for their personal observations which can be used for future drawings or paintings. The first half of the session is primarily focused on drawing skills which then lead up to painting in the second session of the class. The class is fun and challenging and the structure is on comaraderie. Sign up now by going to the College of Marin website at www.marin.edu.

In the flesh

June Yokell — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 19:35:47 +0000

In the flesh refers to the fact that I’ve recently brought over several contemporary landscape paintings to the SFMOMA’s Artist’s Gallery at Fort Mason, Building A, in San Francisco, right next door to the the renowned “Greens” restaurant. So if you have a hankering to see my nature landscape paintings, maybe rent or purchase, you can go over Tuesdays through Saturdays, 11:30 AM to 5:00 PM. The work that is over at the SFMOMA’s Artist’s gallery is: “Slough along Corte Madera Creek,” “Inlet along the path,” “The return of the boat at Corte Madera Creek,” and “Another point of view.” All of these paintings can be viewed digitally on this website in the gallery called “Oil paintings, 2010.”

Renting my Contemporary Landscape paintings is a nice and fairly inexpensive way to figure out whether you are interested in purchasing the work. You can rent in three month increments and if you decide to purchase the work, the money that you’ve paid for rental is applied to the final purchase. For more information about the SFMOMA Artist’s gallery go to: To learn more call 415.441.4777 or email artistsgallery@sfmoma.org.

An inquiring mind

June Yokell — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 19:36:25 +0000

Over the 4th of July weekend I had two separate discussions with two different artists-that lead into each of them putting forth their idea of what constituted being an artist and consequently what then constituted good art. Both of these discussions were casual and each statement made in the moment.

The first artist, Jack Scott, told me that he felt that all good art was conceptual. I should say that Jack, whose work I greatly admire is a conceptual artist. He is also on the board of Bucklew House which sponsors a yearly landscape show (MarinScapes), which I participated in and which he does not, as he is not a landscape artist. In that our discussion took place in the middle of the MarinScapes event, I wasn’t able to pursue the discussion with Jack further, but what was in my mind, was wondering how that concept, the idea that all good art was conceptual, related to landscape or landscape oriented art. When I see Jack next, I’ll make sure to continue this line of thought.

Then on Monday I went for a hike with my friend, the artist, Thomasin Grim. One of the topics that came up during our hike was how each one of us felt that one of the essential aspects of our personalities was that we each had inquiring minds that lead us to question assumptions. We each acknowledged that not everyone enjoyed that aspect of our personality, but those having this aspect of who we were appreciated was essential in an in-depth friendship. I put forth that many artists had an inquiring mind and Thomasin rejoined by saying that she thought that having an inquiring mind was almost the definition of being an artist.

So this brings me to a link between these two conversations and what I consider a basic dilemma of any artist who makes an object that becomes part of the marketplace, or then part of the livlihood of any artist, and that is; one, how does an artist maintain an inquiring mind, make art that begins with a concept or lead into a concept, and not get mirred in reproducing a product over and over again because it has been deemed to have market value? And then the second question, which comes from my recent readings (The $7 million stuffed shark, Seven days in the Artworld) and my current reading, A Peoples History of the United States-how does an artist whose personal moral leanings are with egalitarianism reconcile the fact that the people who drive the marketplace, therefore ones potential clients and collectors are those who often pursue work that perpetuates the inequality of the system and lack of egalitarianism.

Intentionality and staying open to the unknown

June Yokell — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 23:25:26 +0000

Since I use landscape as a jumping off place to reach into the unknown, I started thinking about how one (me) can start off thinking about going in one direction and wind up in another.
I’ve just completed five paintings that were derived from a photograph that I took down by the Corte Madera Creek-a favorite walk of mine-close by and always beautiful, even at low tide.
For the past few years my work has been influenced by water in many of it’s variables, but most recently I’ve focused on the water in the creek, it’s ripples, it’s stillness, the reflections and now some shadows. Sometimes when taking a photograph of the water, my shadow will cover a section of the composition. Although I haven’t previously used my shadow, I’ve been thinking about using it as it is similar to paying attention to the reflections in the water. So I’ve started a painting of the slough in full sunlight with my shadow in it-another version of the slough, another version of my attention to reflections. While I’ve just started this painting, I can tell already that although my intention was the continuation of working with the water and the creek and the slough, emotions that I hadn’t realized were there are taking form and begging to be seen and heard. The only way that allowed myself to be cognizant of this is by being with the work in progress, in my heart and soul, not just with my head and hand and so this takes me back to the question of intentionality. Where is intentionality generated? I suspect that most would think that it comes from the mind or the brain, a thought followed through. My own experience is both in life and in making art is that having a premise to start with, an intention so to speak, is like having a map, but allowing an openess to what happens is like getting lost and liking it.

Preparing for Life or Living in the Moment

June Yokell — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 04:06:43 +0000

Somehow I’d convinced myself that I’d gotten separated from myself, from my painting from the mere fact that I’d been living and that certain aspects of living had taken my attention away from a contemplative life. Can you separate your daily practical life, that such as buying food, paying bills, cleaning the kitchen floor, tidying your cabinets, calling on friends, reading a book, working a job, filling your gas tank from your life as an artist? After all, these activities always seem to take time from what I want to do, which is being in the studio painting, or going for a walk on the Corte Madera Creek watching the patterns of light and wind on the waterways. Not only is it the act of living that seems to interrupt with the contemplation of living but also the preparing for the future that takes away from living in the moment. Then again whatever kind of artist you are, and whatever your influences, Nature, Landscape, Death, Love, the Human Condition, your bathroom, they all kick back into your psyche as fodder for what you wind up putting down as the visual depiction of your experience.

Waking from the dead or an intellectual revival

June Yokell — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 01:52:26 +0000

Sometimes you can be dead for a long time but not know it. Despite working in an academic environment and despite consistently working in the studio, I’d say I’ve been brain-dead about art for about 20 years. There have been a few exceptions, such as when I got into a reading jag of art history books put out by the Oxford History of Art. So what’s the problem and how did this come about? Well work for one-work, meaning work that is like in a job, my day job, which I don’t knock, as it pays some of the bills, keeps me healthy and provides a structure, but intellectually challenging it is not.
Most of my time spent not at work or teaching is spent in constructing my days so I get to the studio and do as much work as I can and then at night trying to figure out which shows I should enter and how to market my art as a so called “Abstract Landscape Painter” which is one of the buzz words that I came up with Ken Klages, my web designer and web optimizer. Sounds like atomizer. In any case, this along with making sure that I do some kind of physical activity, pay my bills, keep my house somewhat tidy, maintain relationships has seemed to tax me so much that I wound up giving up reading almost all fiction, (unless you consider the NYTimes fiction) and have allowed my grey matter to be filled up with re-runs of Law and Order or Mystery or even Hoarders! The one positive thing about Hoarders is that I do always clean out my refrigerator or closet after a show. But I digress-

So I thought that I would as a Nature oriented painter (there are those buzz words again) be content to just paint away looking at, appreciating and reinterpreting the landscape, my landscape, here, right here in Marin County, CA, but I’m not completely content doing so-as I’m not sure that those dark and sometimes humorous things that I reflect on in a daily way make their way to the surface. The intellectual kick in the pants came from reading “The $7 million stuffed shark,” and now my current reading “Seven days in the Art World.” Now this is not to say that I haven’t been an avid reader of politics and world, national and local news-as I have been, but short of working directly for a particular organization that actually has a track record of making a dent in things, how to feel effectual has been daunting. And my job has always been that of an artist, which to my mind traverses the mixed waters of beauty, irony, observation, rumination, contemplation and commentary. In any case, I’m glad to have my brain back.