Synchronicity
Archived Portfolio Drawing, circa 1979 by Melody Phaneuf
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A few days ago I received a message from a former student who is pursuing illustration. She had been shaving her Prismacolor pencil to the needle-sharp tip that I had insisted upon for pencil drawing precision, and considered it remarkable how natural it felt despite the waste of time and torture she considered the activity at the time of my instruction. This made me smile.
Earlier that evening I had been watching a film clip about Samoan football players and the NFL. I’m not a fan of football but I am intrigued by human behavior. The episode showed a high school team preparing for practice by performing the traditional warrior dance passed down from father to son through many generations. The chest pounding and war whops seemed to put those enormous 17 year olds into a trance condition. It was no wonder that they could slam into one other at breakneck speeds with complete abandon.
It struck me that the pencil sharpening ritual was to the artist analogous to the Tarzan tactics of the footballers. Like a Yogi chanting OM at the outset of practice, the preparatory ritual focuses the mind, body, and spirit.
It’s possibly a similar reason that I enjoy painting still life so much. The arranging of objects in light and shadow, stepping back, looking at pattern, moving something a little back or forward, then stepping back to compare once more, is the ritual that summons the Muse, putting me into the spirit of creation long before I pick up a brush.
It is always delightful to hear from a young artist pursuing her craft. I am pleased to think that, like the Samoan warrior dance, a simple act of pencil preparation might become a ritual that survives the test of time.
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Boston Artist, Melody Phaneuf is well known for her evocative still life, landscape, and portrait paintings. Her paintings are regularly on view at The Guild of Boston Artists, 162 Newbury Street; at Fenway Studios, Boston by appointment; and North Shore Art in Gloucester from May through October. Phaneuf ‘s paintings have been exhibited at The National Arts Club in New York City, Galerie Herouet in Paris, and with Art du Monde, in Japan.
Melody The Artist Home, founded with photographer and color specialist, Martha DiMeo, features Phaneuf’s original oil paintings on tumbled marble tile murals and beverage coasters, fine art prints, and handmade note cards.
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