While viewing the creative work of Roberta Murray, the name Agnes Martin unexpectedly came to mind.
Born in Macklin, Saskatchewan, Agnes Martin (1912-2004) grew up in Vancouver, then moved to the United States in 1931. A self-described abstract expressionist, her work is primarily associated with Taos, New Mexico. There is an absence of similarities between Ms. Martin’s minimalist paintings and Roberta Murray’s representational images of Alberta, Canada. It is in their spirits, their quest to discover, understand, and present us with beauty that binds these two distinct artists.
In her 1969 essay, “Beauty is the Mystery of Life”, Agnes Martin wrote, “When I think of art, I think of beauty. Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye, it is in my mind. In our minds there is awareness of perfection.”
As an artist, Roberta Murray concerns herself with being aware of beauty and capturing it in her art. Her work cuts through the distractions that prevent us from seeing what is in front of us. We fail to notice the stance of the working man, the lazy drift of clouds across a field, the glow in the face of a pregnant woman. Roberta, like Agnes Martin, asks us not to respond intellectually, but rather with our emotions to that mystery of beauty that is present in everything around us.
The essence of all beauty is composition. Again quoting Ms. Martin, “Composition is an absolute mystery. It is dictated by the mind. The artist searches for certain sounds or lines that are acceptable to the mind and finally an arrangement of them that is acceptable. The acceptable compositions arouse certain feelings of appreciation in the observer. Some compositions appeal to some, and some to others.”
The articulation of the composition the artist perceives requires practice, a coordination of eyes and hands, the application of time and patience, and self-discipline to create art. But composition demands something else of the artist. It asks that she not only accept what the mind perceives, but make it her own by allowing herself to experience it in the depths of her spirit. Roberta’s paintings and photographs reveal such openness.
Roberta’s receptiveness to her environment has an added dimension. She not only reveals what is in front of her, but explores the depths of what came before. She compels us to look at the landscape to see, for example, the people of the First Nations in a series of paintings titled Vision Quest. These are haunting images invoking a spiritual reality. In these paintings we do not see the “noble savage.” Instead we experience a connectedness to the earth, an awareness of the complex-simplicity of our relationship to the past and how it flows into our current times. Most importantly, these images speak to our desire for wholeness—our humanity.
Wholeness, as Roberta’s work reminds us, occurs when we connect to our environment.
Q: You have said that you have known that you wanted to be an artist/photographer since you were two years old. Do you remember when the idea came to you? How do you define that moment in terms of an experience? Was it a dream, something you saw?
A: I don’t remember anything too specific, just that I always wanted to draw, doodle, colour, and/or paint. I was the middle child and was often overlooked growing up. I think art was my way of being heard. I do remember always being fascinated with these unfinished paintings my mom had. I don’t remember how old I was, but I loved the paintings. One in particular was of a hunting dog and pheasants. Even though it was unfinished I always thought it was fine. Although I’m sure seeing those paintings influenced me to try harder, I really think I was born to be an artist.
Q: You were born in Calgary, Alberta, but spent weekends and holidays with relatives in the ranch territory of the province. How influential were those days away from the city on your vision of the world and what you wanted to become?
A: The time I spent with relatives was huge in helping me become the person I am. My childhood was often difficult and my time with relatives was away from the stresses of family life. I spent a lot of time with my great grandmother who was one of the sweetest, most patient people. She was well loved and respected in the little community where she lived, as were the other relatives there. This taught me a whole other way of life. It taught me about peace, love, patience, kindness, and self-worth. I also learned about nature, wildlife, and western living. I learned to see and appreciate the small intricacies of life.
Q: As a child, you often carried with you a sketch pad or a camera. The first photograph you took was with your father’s camera. In what ways did your parents encourage your creativity? Did you receive encouragement from your other relatives to develop your talent?
A: My mom painted so encouraged me when I was small. My parents would let me play with their cameras, and eventually bought me an inexpensive camera of my own and would buy me art supplies. As I grew older their encouragement waned as they became involved in their own problems. My grandmother also painted and where my parents lacked, she more than made up for it. However, I didn’t really need much encouragement. I was going to create no matter what.
I also had some really great art instructors in junior and senior high school. My junior high art teacher was tremendously encouraging and was a big influence. She especially recognized how valuable an outlet art was to my inner well-being. After high school I applied to and was accepted into the Alberta College of Art, but didn’t receive the support necessary to attend.
Like so many other artists it took me many years to recognize art is more than just a calling or career choice, it is who I am.
Q: During the 1980’s you studied photography. Where did you study? Who are some of the photographers that have influenced your work?
A: After not being able to attend art school, I started working for an oil company and was studying to get my accounting designation. I soon married and moved from the city to Rocky Mountain House. Although I was still studying accounting, the people around me were always commenting on my photography. I saw an ad in a magazine for a home study program and decided to look into it. While juggling a husband, new baby, and part time job at the local camera store I quickly worked my way through the New York Institute of Photography. Had we had the Internet back then I’m sure I would have finished the course in record time; but back then I had to wait to have films developed and mail to go back and forth.
I know the program has changed a lot with the changing technology, and it isn’t considered as prestigious as an arts degree from a university, but at the time this was a fine program. I learned a lot and was well qualified to be a photographer. I did some studio work, and was able to get press passes from our local newspaper to photograph sporting events.
During those early years my inspiration was largely the nature photographers of the time. Galen Rowell, Ansel Adams (everyone was inspired by Adams), Canadians Freeman Patterson and Courtney Milne. Prince Andrew (he was quite a good photographer). Today my inspiration comes more from the impressionistic painters and photographers of the late 1800’s. I love the work of photographers like Robert Demachy, Frederick George Ashton, Henry Peach Robinson, Alfred Stieglitz; and painters like Childe Hassam, Camille Corot, Alfred Sisley, Degas, Julius Seyler, Nicolai Fechin, amongst others.
Q: How did the 19th century English Pictorialist photographer Henry Peach Robinson influence you?
A: Robinson is often considered to be the pioneer of photomontage and photo manipulation, but it is really his ideas and beliefs in how photography could be so powerful a tool for communicating ideas and emotions. It was his campaigning for photography to be accepted as a form of art more than just a scientific instrument for documentation, which really pushed the envelope on what photography could be. He used the theories of oil painting to guide his work through simplification, composition, and light contrast in producing photographs that had a painterly feeling. He felt photography and photographers were too fixated on trying to record details.
When I was just starting out in digital photography, the forums I visited and books I read were overwhelmed with articles on sharpness. Photography had captured my imagination again after using the camera to try and record abstract colour fields from nature to use in my textile work. The process evolved into these impressionist abstract type photographs that were so far removed from what everyone else was focusing on no one knew what to make of them. Eventually I started creating layered images using textures captured in nature or from my own paintings to create a more painterly appearance in the images pushing them even further away from mainstream photography.
Instead of worrying about sharpening algorithms and which lens could produce the most details, I used cheap lenses where the focus was often off and never sharpened any of my images during processing. Part of this was out of rebelliousness at what the mainstream was doing, but part of it was also out of necessity. I couldn’t afford the high end camera equipment everyone else was buying. I felt the results created images that drew me in to the story or mood more than marveling at how detailed and lifelike the image was, which appealed to me.
Ooko Camp by Roberta Murray
At this point I still wasn’t even aware of the term Pictorialist Photography. It wasn’t until someone left a comment saying how much my work reminded them of the work of the Pictorialist photographers that I started to learn about this movement. Immediately I felt a kinship with both their images and their ideals. What surprised me was how my ideas and thoughts about photography so closely mirrored what the photographers like Robinson were thinking at the time. This innocent little comment set me off on a tangent of unofficial research into this photography movement, which I continue today. Every time I pick up a book, or look at their images, I’m transported into a different world. It’s not just the time and place of the images, it’s the impressionistic qualities and moodiness.
Q: Georgia O’Keefe was Alfred Stieglitz’s lover, muse, and subject of his photography from 1918-1925. During this seven year period, Stieglitz1 captured O’Keefe’s body and personality on film. His camera also caught her essence, her soul. How difficult is it to capture a person’s story, their essence in a photographic portrait?
A: It’s hugely difficult. The problem with the portrait work I did back in the early 90′s is they were quick studio portraits. It was easy to make a person look beautiful, but that didn’t capture any essence of who they were. There was no story, no personality. It was impossible to capture that because you never knew the person. How do you find out their story in an hour? That requires a certain type of person to coax that information out, to understand, and to be able to work with it in portraying the person through a photograph. I think that’s a big part of why I was never satisfied to be a portrait photographer, and why I don’t consider myself one today.
I do like to incorporate the human figure into my images as a way of conveying a certain mood and emotion, but I leave the true portrait work to others with a better connection to and understanding of people. I can capture a beautiful image of a person, but I think most of these portraits fail to capture their essence or soul.
Q: The American portrait photographer Arnold Newman (1918 – 2006), whom you have quoted on your site, believed that regardless of the subject, a photograph must excite the viewer. He was also of the opinion that photography is “an illusion of reality with which we create our own private world.” How do you make an image exciting for the viewers, invite them in to create with you in that illusion?
A: I don’t consider the viewer when I’m creating my images. As egocentric as it sounds, it’s all about me. Each step of the way the creation process is about my feelings, my mood, and my vision of reality. The image must excite me. If not, how could I possibly think it would excite the viewer?
The illusion comes during the interpretation of the image. I think a lot of my images appeal to viewers because it represents something missing from their life. Maybe it’s simplicity, maybe it’s freedom, or joy, or many other feelings. Sometimes the feelings represented in the image are apparent or obvious, but more often than not it’s the viewer who determines the mood based on what they want in their life.
Many of my images are just ordinary unremarkable scenes that people drive past every day without ever giving them a second glance, but there’s so much beauty begging to be seen if people would just slow down and allow themselves to see it. We are often so busy in our lives we forget to slow down long enough to engage our senses fully. My images give people permission to feel and let their mind wander off to a quiet place of their choosing. It allows them to project their wishes or needs onto the image, for their inner voice to be heard without fear of ridicule.
Q: There is an abstract, romantic atmosphere to some of your paintings. You seem to be somewhat following in the 19th century romantic documentary tradition of Frederick Verner and Paul Kane. As you explore and create a visual and historical catologue. How would you define the texture of your paintings? In general, what atmosphere are your striving to create with texture as you compose a scene?
A: Both Kane and Verner were, due to the time period, painting more accurate depictions of the early Canadian life, so their work is more documentary in nature, while mine is purely fictional designed to present an idea or story, not reality. It is interesting to note that Verner earned his living as a photographer.
My earlier acrylic paintings relied on heavy textures to symbolize the many layers of truth, but as I progress that type of texture is becoming less prominent. This is partly because I’m working more with oils and I am concerned about the integrity of the painting when heavy textures are used, as well as the drying times, but also because that aspect of the painting has become less important to me as I progress.
Q: Like Edmund Morris’ early prairie paintings you capture the beauty and spirit of the land with a rich palette and tonalities. How photographically inspired are your paintings in terms of your technique and your subjects? Do you photograph your landscapes, for example, then paint the landscapes from the photograph?
A: There is often a strong connection between my photographs and paintings. Although I do photograph many of the landscapes, I invent just as many, or use historical works by the old masters as a starting point. There is always going to be a strong tie with photography in my paintings, but I also love to paint plein air, so I can’t say every painting has started as a photograph.
With the Vision Quest series, there is less reliance on my own photography at the moment because of the nature of the images. I do have a series of photographs featuring teepees which will eventually be used in paintings, but for now I’m working on images that the spirit is telling me to paint.
Q: Anais Nin, whom you also quote on your website, wrote “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” How important is understanding of the reality of nature and people to your perspective, to your creative process both as a photographer and a painter?
A: I don’t think understanding the reality of nature and people is as important as questioning reality and trying to understand how transient the term really is. I’ve long believed there is no such thing as reality because it’s different for everyone. We form what we believe to be reality through our personal experiences in life. Who we are, how we were brought up, where we have been all influence how we view the world. What’s beauty to one person may be fear to another. These polarities fascinate me. Watching how differently people will react to any particular image is one of the aspects of my work I enjoy most. To see one person interpret an image as freedom, while the person beside them interprets it as confinement or oppression really makes a person question life and how we come to understand it. We truly don’t see things as they are, but how we are. I love Nin’s quote because there is so much truth in it.
Q: In a series of paintings you titled Vision Quest, your focus is on First Nations Peoples. There is a strong spiritual quality to these paintings that transcends the intellectual because of their haunting quality that is similar to the photographs of Edward S. Curtis. What influenced you to paint this series? How did they come about?
A: I grew up in Alberta, which has always had a large native influence from the many reserves and different tribes living here, and the western culture which is so big a part of the history of our young province. There would always be stories of cowboys and Indians in my youth. There would be little things that would be said “the natives say when this animal does this or that, this will happen” and if you watched it was often true. I found their culture fascinating. Their regalia is colorful and beautiful; their ideas of creation and life worth considering.
The older I get the more I think we are missing the point of life, and the more I believe their culture holds important information and ideas about living in harmony with the world around us. I believe our ancestors have behaved badly in trying to stamp out native culture. Can you imagine someone coming along and telling you, you can’t be who you are? That’s what we did. It’s shameful.
Native influences have always crept into my work. Even as a child I would photograph the tribal chiefs during parades or other events. I can’t really say how these paintings have come about because I’ve really just started them. I can tell you I’ve dreamt about them. They are something I am being pushed to do and at times it’s felt like there is some other force guiding me. How and why I can’t answer – I just know that the visions keep popping into my head and I know I have to let them out and put them down on canvas. There is so much to life we don’t understand, and this is one of those things.
Q: What is it in the First Nations Peoples, the reality of the 18th and 19th centuries, that speaks to you?
A: In Alberta we have just scratched the surface of what we know about first nations history. I have not studied what is known in any great length, so I can’t really talk in depth about it. However, I can say that most people here have no clue to the depth of history which exists. There are little known areas where evidence of pit houses, similar to those built by the ancient Mogollon people of the American southwest, which date before the great pyramids of Egypt. We know the desert people abandoned their cliff and pit houses, but there’s never been any answer as to why or what became of the people. Did some of them come here?
We have the remains of stone circles older than Stonehenge, and a Hidatsa earth walled village in Blackfoot territory, which match Blackfoot elders’ oral history of a peaceful group that had broken away from a distant tribe. Spirituality and sacredness normally associated with Christianity was an important part of Native culture and life. The earth and its animals, and their importance in sustaining life, were revered and celebrated.
Then European’s came along calling natives savages and creating stories of a people that goes against most other accounts of their way of life. We fear what we don’t understand. We fear what is different. Maybe I am romanticizing history, but what I see is a people that lived in harmony with the earth, seasons, and animals for thousands of years without hardly leaving a mark on the earth. Then Europeans came along forever altering the landscape, filling it up with metal, concrete, vice, and strife; pushing all else to the fringes and brink of destruction, if not their total destruction.
Henry David Thoreau wrote in Walden: “In the savage state every family owns a shelter as good as the best, and sufficient for its coarser and simpler wants; but think that I speak within bounds when I say that, though the birds of the air have their nests, and the foxes their holes, and the savages their wigwams, in modern civilized society not more than one half the families own a shelter. In the large towns and cities, where civilization especially prevails, the number of those who own a shelter is a very small fraction of the whole.”
There is a freedom and simplicity of life, represented in traditional native culture, we are missing. Now we pay for tourist attractions that allow us to sleep in teepees. We hunt, fish, and camp for leisure; cooking our food over an open fire. We spend a lot of money so we can use our weekends to get a taste of how Native Americans lived. Why?
Though their life may never have been simple, they lived simply. I suspect it is this simplification that stands between society and happiness. What is our purpose in life now that we don’t have to spend our entire day tending to the essentials needed to sustain life?
Rainy Creek Thunderstorm by Roberta Murray
Q: Your work reveals a close affinity to the land. But the viewer’s eyes are pulled toward the horizon and clouds. Clouds and sky are more than background in your paintings. Would you say that like Alfred Stieglitz you are concerned with the relationship of clouds “to the rest of the world” and experimenting with them?2
A: That is a fair assumption. I am fascinated by the weather. It is one of our most powerful forces of life, and has an untamable power which can destroy in the blink of an eye without warning. I signed on to Environment Canada’s weather watcher program following a destructive tornado here in 1988 which affected relatives. I have been a weather watcher ever since. That interest combined with the way society forms metaphoric associations with the sky to feelings such as hope, anger, spirituality, evilness, etc., make it an obvious choice for me to use in my art.
The other reason clouds and the sky are so prominently featured in a lot of my work is through the feelings of freedom a large sky can create. The sky stands between our metaphorical heaven and hell.
I think I, like so many people today, long for a kind of freedom which is hard to define and harder yet to achieve. I live in a forested region which many people praise for its natural beauty; and I spent a good part of my youth living in the country in a home surrounded by trees without a view of the sky. To me the forest is claustrophobic; confining. I need the room of open prairie to feel truly at peace. While I can’t have that by life situation, I create it through my art.
Q: One thing that is striking about some of your paintings is the merger of painting with photography. Are you merging the two mediums? And what techniques are you using to achieve this merger?
A: The Pictorialists often used painted elements in their photographs; either as backgrounds, or by painting on to paper used for the photograph – both before and after exposure – so incorporating painted layers into the work is nothing new, but it does further push the images into the painterly realm. I have worked with painted papers where I’ll print over top of a painted sheet of paper as well, and am working on some mixed media photographs where I’m painting on photographs. For example I created a few pieces where I printed a B&W photograph on watercolour paper, and then coloured it with watercolours. This is similar to the hand coloured B&W photographs that I used to do back in the 1980’s.
The merger between photography and painting is less direct than that in much of my work however. The Pictorialist movement forms a basis of many of my paintings and drawings. I have been using Pictorialist photographs for references in some paintings. To me this feels like coming full circle, and I often wonder if I was guided on my photographic path towards Pictorialism to land here, or is painting only a stop on the path leading somewhere else.
I don’t know the answer. I feel I’m being guided to do what I’m doing: a guided journey of the soul – destination unknown.
Q: Creative people are often encouraged to follow their heart. You have observed that the heart has two chambers. This understanding has allowed you, like others, to work in two mediums. For you that has been primarily painting and photography. What is the more dominate of the mediums for you? What goals are you establishing for yourself as an artist?
A: I have always practiced both painting and photography. Swinging back and forth between having one play a more dominant role in my artistic practice. It’s all a journey, following a path of creative expression. After seven years of practicing photography almost exclusively, painting has again taken up a more prominent place in my artistic practice. When I started painting again a few years ago, I was dismayed to find my skills were pretty rusty, so dedicated a good portion of my time towards practice and learning trying to recover those skills.
Along the way I discovered how much painting reveals about myself; and how much I truly love both the joys and frustrations of it. During this process I’ve found my voice and made some discoveries that will shape what path I follow in the future.
While I’m still practicing photography, I have definitely slowed down. I am no longer doing exhibitions with photography, or selling directly to the public. My work all goes to reps and agents who take care of the marketing. This frees up some time to transition to a painting career, which I have been doing.
Chicken Dancer by Roberta Murray
I want to continue to paint more. I especially want to explore the Vision Quest series, even though I know these images can’t be forced. I’ve discovered I love plein air painting. I’d like to try to combine that with the Vision Quest series by visiting some sacred sites, abstracting the landscape and trying to paint the emotions and feelings existing in these areas into the work. There are some sites I’ve visited in the past in which the spirit of the place is felt so strongly it is mesmerizing. I’d love to be able to capture that through painting while at the site.
I am encouraged by the success I’ve had so far with painting. I have had several group exhibitions and in the past few months have sold work to buyers in New York City, London, UK, Oregon, Toronto, as well as several pieces locally. I was also juried into the Federation of Canadian Artists, based on my paintings.
My goal is to create, learn, grow, and speak to people through a visual language with intimate stories they may not otherwise consider.
Q: We are witnessing a tremendous change in the marketing of art and photography. It seems that the market has moved to the lowest common denominator. Cheap art and low quality art is in abundance. If you were invited to a give an address at the L’École de gestion Telfer ( Telfer School of Management), University of Ottawa, at which Prime Minister Stephen Harper were present with students, faculty, corporate and other business leaders, what would you say about the current state and the future of the arts and culture in Canada?
A: People and our economies are in a state of turmoil around the world today. It is easy for us, in our scramble to keep life the same, to focus solely on commerce and ignore the parts of life that bring us peace and pleasure, creating a sense of well-being even in difficult times. We pay attention to bankers and economists, but ignore our own inner voices that may be screaming for symbols of hope, calm, and sanctuary.
Our society has been moving away from an economy based on manufacturing to one based on consuming. We’ve come to expect abundance in everything; and we want everything cheap even if it means outsourcing and losing quality. The consequences of this create such a strong ripple that by the time it reaches our shores we are unable to stop the waves. Jobs are permanently lost. Control is lost. Pride is lost. What is seen in mass produced art is echoed across many other industries. Clothing. Food.
Research into the effects of music on behavior, intelligence, learning, and health have time and again proven the benefits. Art has been shown to improve pride in community, lower crime rates in neighborhoods, as well as the numerous benefits to mental and physical well-being. We need the stories of writers, singers, songwriters, and visual artists to help us figure out who we are and where we fit in the world. But now diminishing funds are being spread over a wider umbrella including sports and the arts. When huge amounts go to build new arenas for sports teams making millions, what does this say to the ordinary Canadian?
Where would we be without Arthur Lismer’s painting Saint Hilarion, Emily Carr’s Kitwancook, Paul Kane’s paintings illustrating his journals which provide the earliest record of life in Canadian northwest settlements, or even Robert Bateman’s realist painting Polar Bears at Baffin Island? What if Yousuf Karsh had never picked up a camera? The world would be missing over a hundred thousand photographs of historic men and women who helped shape the twentieth century. Without support for the arts would Edward Burtynsky have been able to make us question the mark human industry is putting on the earth?
We would be missing Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, W.O. Mitchell’s Who Has Seen The Wind, Robert Service’s The Cremation Of Sam McGee. Imagine a world where we never hear k. d. lang singing Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, or Wilf Carter’s cowboy yodeling, or Michael Buble singing Come Fly With Me. There’s no Celine Dion, Shania Twain, and Ian Tyson never wrote and sang Old Alberta Moon. Totem poles don’t exist, and the mesmerizing drums and songs of a native powwow can’t be experienced.
While it is easy for governments to say “but the average person doesn’t care about the arts”, government guides the wants and cares of society. Where governments value and honor the arts, so too do their people. Our identities are tied with the arts that get left behind long after we are unable to speak. If we take away the arts, we take away our legacy and the means for future cultures to be able to understand who we were. We lose a richness of culture that helps us tell our stories. We lose our voices, OUR life.
To learn more about Roberta Murray and her art, visit uncommondepth.com, robertamurray.ca, and Google Plus.
Roberta Murray is represented by Different Strokes Gallery in Olds, Alberta.
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[1] Alfred Stieglitz (1864)1946) was a photographer and a promoter of Modern art.
[2] Stieglitz wrote in a letter, “Thirty-five or more years ago I spent a few days in Murren (Switzerland), and I was experimenting with ortho plates. Clouds and their relationship to the rest of the world, and clouds for themselves, interested me, and clouds which were difficult to photograph— nearly impossible. Ever since then clouds have been in my mind, most powerfully at times, and I always knew I’d follow up the experiment made over 35 years ago. I always watched clouds. Studied them. Had unusual opportunities up here on this hillside.” “How I Came to Photograph Clouds”, Alfred Stieglitz, The Amateur Photographer & Photography, Vol. 56, No. 1819, p. 255, 1923.
Intimate Stories from a Two-chambered Heart: An Interview with Roberta Murray is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN