THE ART OF BEING AN ARTIST

Hard work is shown to be the key to success in Berends’ lavishly illustrated meditation on artistic labor.

The author, a Dutch painter now living on the Caribbean island of Curaçao, presents a 150-day journal covering the run-up to anexhibition of new paintings on the theme of “beach life” on display on the island’s seashore. The book is effectively a study of her hands-on creative process, which emphasizes open-ended, improvisatory experiments to see what looks interesting (“try not to think about a possible end result and just do things that come to you”), rather than angsty rumination. She began with simple, offhand abstract exercises on paper, featuring eclectic motifs from pastel blobs and blood-red drips to rectilinear stencil patterns. She worked in a profusion of eclectic materials, techniques, and formats: watercolors, oils, and oil bars (pressed oil paints used like crayons); diluted acrylics in a spray bottle; embossed rolling pins that imprint patterns in paint; images torn out of other pieces that she incorporates into new collages; and postcards, enlarged and printed to serve as backdrops. After a few weeks, Berends introduced figurative elements, mainly focusing on images of children goofing around at the beach (her favorite subjects include a young girl in a pink bathing suit, often peering intently at sand and water). In the journal’s concluding weeks, the artist brought together these strands in exuberant paintings of frolicking bathers with richly textured abstract motifs and the postcards, adding visual energy. Berends enriches her narrative with color photos of her studio, exercises, and the stages of her developing paintings, along with tips on everything from the quality of one’s brushes to the disposal of turpentine.

Berends’ journal is, in part, an engrossing account of an artist’s craft. Writing in limpid, straightforward prose, she presents readers with simple, practical descriptions of materials and techniques, as well as evocative musings on conundrums of visual effect: “One of the hardest things I find to recreate is the color of white when in shadow. It quickly turns to blue, and you lose the feel of it being white fabric in the shadow.” The book is also full of wisdom on the psychology of creativity, from the imperative to lurch from doubt and inertia into action (“The only thing to do is START!...The blank paper or canvas dares you to fail!”) to the hard lesson that the work of refining what seems like a masterpiece is never truly finished (“a good start to a painting is nothing more than that: a good start”). The photographs provide a splendid display of Berends’ work. Her paintings, especially the human subjects, sometimes leave a slightly rough-hewn impression, with figures and faces often decomposed into broad plats of color. Yet in closeups, they’re a riot of rich detail, full of swirling brush strokes and complex, intricate colors. Artists will find much food for thought here, while casual readers will find a feast for the eyes.

A visually dazzling artistic odyssey, full of sharp insights and warmhearted encouragement.