Essays / Lecture

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=220 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Barry Masteller Paintings">Home</A></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <A HREF="essays__lecture_m.htm#essays" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="Essays / Lecture"><B>Essay By </B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="essays__lecture_m.htm#essays" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="Essays / Lecture"><B>Marcelle Polednik</B></A><A HREF="essays__lecture_m.htm#essays" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="Essays / Lecture"> </A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="essays__lecture_m.htm#enigmatic_urbanscapes_barry" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="Essays / Lecture"><B>Essay by </B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="essays__lecture_m.htm#enigmatic_urbanscapes_barry" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="Essays / Lecture"><B>Donald Kuspit</B></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="essays__lecture_m.htm#ecstatic_reserve_in_the_work_of_barry" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="Essays / Lecture"><B>Essay B</B></A><A HREF="essays__lecture_m.htm#ecstatic_reserve_in_the_work_of_barry" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="Essays / Lecture"><B>y</B></A><A HREF="essays__lecture_m.htm#ecstatic_reserve_in_the_work_of_barry" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="Essays / Lecture"><B> </B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="essays__lecture_m.htm#ecstatic_reserve_in_the_work_of_barry" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="Essays / Lecture"><B>Dominique Nahas</B></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="essays__lecture_m.htm#lecture" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="Essays / Lecture"><B>Lecture Monterey Museum of Art 2011</B></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="slideshow.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Slideshow"><B>Slideshow</B></A></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" width="100%" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <bR> <bR> <div>  <A NAME="essays"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>Essays</B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>Essay By </B><B>Marcelle Polednik</B><B> </B></div> <bR> <div> In an age when Califoria landscape painting is less an aesthetic category than a geographical designation, Barry Masteller contemplates the history of this genre and the distinctiveness of the scenery that inspired it. At first glance, Masteller's paintings evade specificities of time and place. Depicting a somewhere that is nowhere in particular, a golden, eternal hour, they are at once transcendent and elusive. This timeless quality, however, is neither universal nor indefinite. Rather, it has its roots in Masteller's sustained engagement with the particularity of his surrounding landscape and the history of its representation.</div> <bR> <div> Since the 19th century, artists have flocked to California compelled by the beauty of its natural terrain and the unique light that floods the soil. The exceptional setting inspired two diverging sensibilities, each one aimed at capturing the rare qualities of the environs. Artists such as William Keith and Joseph Breuer strove to painstakingly and faithfully record the luminous views they observed. Their contemporaries, Gottardo Piazzoni and Xavier Martinez, on the other hand, focused on light as a mercurial agent of transformation and created contemplative, abstracted compositions. </div> <bR> <div> While distinctly contemporary, Masteller's canvases betray the influence of those early pioneers who recognized California's singular fusion of land and light as fruitful ground for a more meditative approach. Piazzoni continually emphasized his concern “not with the external aspect of the landscape, but with its inward life.” The haunting glow that envelops Masteller's landscapes also hints at the mystery lurking beneath the natural world. For Barry Masteller as well as for his historical predecessors, the landscape serves as a conduit to unknown worlds and hidden dimensions.</div> <bR> <div> Tall and wiry, round and sensual, or angular, trees are the protagonists of Masteller's paintings. In The Woods series, rows of trees silhouetted against the burning sky transform the landscape into a contemplative interplay of light and form. In other series, such as Clouds over Sea, the sky itself takes center stage. The linear, horizontal bands of distant sea and clouds break over the middle ground, revealing billowing, recognizable cloud formations. Abstract color fields give way to the physical world. Rather than focusing on land, these landscapes explore what can be seen from the earthbound perspective. Though firmly grounded, the paintings soar to new heights.</div> <bR> <div> Masteller's works remind that paintings not only represent but also exist as physical landscapes. They reflect a keen understanding of paintings as three-dimensional terrains, formed by sedimented layers of pigment, binder and varnish, and built up, like geological formations, over the course of time. Rather than a weighty, physical presence, however, the works exude a lightness more befitting of a mirage. The ethereal brushstrokes that hover on the surface of these canvases enhance the insubstantial quality of the apparitions. The painstaking method with which Masteller applies the paint to canvas, the delicacy of the forms and the subtlety of the deep, sultry hues invokes the jewel-like tonalist surfaces that haunt his compositions. </div> <div> Barry Masteller's paintings offer a provocative challenge to the notion that the past brilliance of place California landscape painting has dimmed in recent decades. Light burns intensily, albeit wistfully, over the expanse of his canvases.</div> <bR> <div> Marcelle Polednik<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <bR> <div> Director of Collections and Exhibitions, Monterey Museum of Art</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div>  <A NAME="enigmatic_urbanscapes_barry"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></div> <div> <B>Enigmatic Urbanscapes: Barry Masteller's Boulevards</B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> <B>by Donald Kuspit</B></div> <bR> <div> Is there a precedent for Barry Masteller's beautiful, haunting<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> boulevards? We see the same moody elegance in Gustave Caillebotte's Paris,<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> the Place de l'Europe on a Rainy Day, 1877--the same brooding isolation, the<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> same grandly empty spaces, for all the figures that inhabit them.<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> Masteller's cities are 21st century New York and San Francisco, and his<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> lights and darks are more cunningly balanced than Caillebotte's--the dark<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> clothing of his 19th century figures hardly makes a dent in the hazy<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> luminosity, while the strong radiation from Masteller's luminous windows<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> locks horns with the darkness (their interaction conveys the tension of the<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> city, hidden by its deceptively bland geometry)--but they have the same<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> strange spaciousness: a peculiar mix of seemingly infinitely extending<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> straight streets and the claustophobic intersections--deceptively broad,<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> open spaces--where they converge.</div> <bR> <div> Caillebotte's place and Masteller's boulevards are equally grand, but<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> the boulevards are much more complex--not to say dramatic and<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> disturbing--than the place. The Parisian buildings and umbrellas are<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> curved, fluid structures, with an ornamental flair, the American buildings<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> are bleakly rational--facilely functional rectangles, with the wrap-around<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> Bauhaus-style windows that confirm their basicness. Whatever curves<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> appear, as in the sidewalk of Boulevard 53 and the pipes of Boulevard 54,<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> both 2005, or ornamental patterns, as in Boulevard 46 and Boulevard 47,<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> both 2005, seem incidental to the matter of fact look of the scene.<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> Masteller's light softens hard American cities, more the products of<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> mechanical engineering than imagination, while Caillebotte's light brings<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> out the softness of the Parisian surfaces, giving them an imaginative<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> expressiveness.</div> <bR> <div> But in the end Masteller's New York City and San Francisco are much more<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> uncanny and fantastic than Caillebotte's place CityParis. Caillebotte observes a<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> scene, but Masteller invents his scenes: his pictures are abstract<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> constructions that convey the strangeness and alienation of urban life even<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> as they suggest the larger enigma of representation, hinting at its<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> problematic, uncertain character. Masteller is a conceptual painter: he<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> unites fragments of the urban environment--carefully chosen from a<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> repertoire of photographs--to create a kind of picture puzzle, that is, a<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> representation that conveys the unreal look of every convincing<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> representation even as it precisely realizes reality. The empirical is<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> subsumed in the enigmatic, making for a sense of uncanny truthfulness,<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> however factually bizarre the picture finally seems. Boulevard 44 and<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> Boulevard 45, both 2004 convey this doubleness--the sense of the<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> unfathomableness of reality that emerges from excruciating attention to its<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> detail. What Masteller finally represents is the uncanniness immanent in<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> space--space whose uncanniness becomes manifest because Masteller has lived<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> its contradictions. These are evident in the at-oddness of the buildings<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> and streets, and above all in the clash of light and dark. There is a hint<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> of latent violence in Masteller's Boulevards, for all their apparent calm.</div> <div> I think Masteller's urbanscapes are a breakthrough. He has previously<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> been known for landscapes, influenced by Monet, as he has acknowledged. His<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> trees have a glowing intensity, his clouds a peculiar impenetrability, for<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> all their ephemerality. Masteller is clearly a master observer of<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> atmosphere, light and dark, natural form, and their interplay. The results<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> are solemnly harmonious pictures. But in the urbanscapes this facade of<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> harmony is broken, nature is no longer the scene, and there is a sense of<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> disruptive, even demonic power. Perhaps Masteller has discovered himself<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> through his experience of the city. The innocence of the landscape has<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> certainly disappeared. No apologies for haunting beauty; it remains credible, </div> <div> despite the attacks<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT>on it by different modernists, among them Duchamp and </div> <div> Newman. Beauty<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT>conveys the esthetic conviction that is the core of art at its most<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> intimate.</div> <div>  </div> <div> Donald Kuspit </div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>Donald Kuspit</B> is an art critic and a professor of art history and philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Kuspit is a contributing editor at Artforum, Sculpture,and New Art Examiner magazines, the editor of Art Criticism, and the editor of a series on American Art and Art Criticism for Cambridge University Press.</div> <bR> <bR> <div>  <A NAME="ecstatic_reserve_in_the_work_of_barry"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></div> <div> <B>Ecstatic Reserve in the Work of Barry Masteller</B></div> <div> <B>By </B><B>Dominique Nahas</B></div> <bR> <div> The shimmering bimorphic forms of Barry Masteller's landscape paintings predominate the artist's work. This is not to say that Masteller has ignored urban scenes or the use of hard-edged geometry. In his Boulevard series, for example, the artist has arranged city streets and apartment buildings, along with the silent movements of silhouetted Hopperesque people seen through store or apartment windows, to create a sense of community and isolation. In another body of work entitled Moon Sequence the artist has gone out of his way to investigate geometric repetition by painting naturalistic scenes as sequential events. We see the differing position of moon and stars over varying dusky silhouettes of trees in Moon Sequence 6 (2004), for example, where an entire image consists of nine panels stacked vertically in sets of three. In Moon Sequence 2 (2003) the artist lays out, predella-like, a horizontal ordering of three small panels. When read from left to right the work creates a narrative of shifting perspectives of land and night sky, as if we were viewing several frames of a film at one time.</div> <div>  </div> <div> Deep vistas of land, water and sky, however, are where Barry Masteller finds his essential voice. His sensory landscapes, all imaginary, are immediately identifiable through his signature use of saturated colors such as auburns, crimsons, browns and ochres. The varying light effects in his work recall the glowing effects in the works of Rembrandt and Turner, the charcoal drawings of Seurat, as well as the early-century California Tonalists.</div> <div> To achieve his chiaroscuro effects the artist uses a light, delicate touch in which brushes and rags are used to apply pigments and washes as well as to wipe away wet areas of the canvas. Mark making and image-formation and spatial tension, therefore, are created as much by accretion as by reduction. The essential drama that Masteller suggests through his deft use of light is cyclic: perpetual emergence and dissolution from gauzy indeterminance into anticipatory consciousness. His paintings, irradiated with light, are seemingly at a standstill, mysteriously elusive and ecstatic. In the works, the suffused contours of our world as we know it are present but they seem wholly other, as in Earth and Sky 479, (2003). This is not surprising, as the artist's indwelling worlds --- not inhabitable by man - appear to be undergoing deep-rooted, slow change. </div> <bR> <div> Masteller wants us to participate in his intensified perception of objects and the space around them, in the transcendental sublime. His image making compels us to take stock of primary dimensions of sensible phenomena, which open up and then dissipate into the realms of invisibility and the hidden. These immanent fields of possibilities, paradoxically, seem to rise up from within the earth itself, confronting us with an outward sense of harmonious fullness which seems to close in on itself, as in Earth and Sky 470 (2003). In a mid-ground of reflected water there lies a concealed reserve of time and space which pulses secretly throughout the artist's work, often punctuated by the silhouettes of round-shouldered trees, as in Earth and Sky 498 (2004) which serve as surrogates for the human form. This imagistic play is clearly not so much a depiction of the actual physical world held in suspension as much as a reflection of the painter's varying states of mind.</div> <div>  </div> <div> Barry Masteller's ongoing Earth and Sky series asks that we reconsider, in pictorial terms, what we take for granted. When we see a horizon line shimmering in the distance of his bucolic scenes we are not meant to train our eyes and thoughts solely and exclusively to time that is to be but also to be aware of hidden realms within his work. Subliminally, we join a dimension of absence, which is literally grounded in the artist's work, as we consider the terrain that lies below the mounded earth in the foreground, expressed as unseen. Similarly we become slowly aware and marvelously compelled by a sense of the unknowable in the area which lies beyond the horizon in each of his paintings --- implied but undepictable regions of time and space --- made manifest through the suggestion of aura which permeates the earth.</div> <div>  </div> <div> Wonderment regarding the hidden face of the order of things seems to preoccupy Barry Masteller. He captures that feeling in his paintings. In his notes he writes: “ With the passing of the years I feel a greater connection to the earth, especially to light and the way the physical world responds to light with illumination, reflection and emanation.” </div> <bR> <div> Dominique Nahas</div> <bR> <bR> <div> Dominique Nahas is an art critic and independent curator based in Manhattan. He is also a regular reviewer for Art in America and the editor of d'Art Internationa</div> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B> <A NAME="lecture"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Barry Masteller Lecture and Slideshow at Monterey Museum of Art at La Mirada May 11, 2011</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Musings, Images and Reflections.</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> Brooks McChesney introduction.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> Today's talk, I guarantee you, will be a very special one as our speaker is one of the most noted artists on the Central Coast. He has been exhibiting publicly since 1964, has had at least 4 solo shows here at the Museum and currently has his work featured in the US Embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal. His biography of shows, galleries and collections runs to 6 full pages- surely his is a major artistic  presence not only here but around the world. </div> <div> A sense of mystery and hints at undiscovered places pervades Barry's work.</div> <div>  </div> <div> He has said: “I've always been a loner. As a kid I used to go off by myself and watch the trees. I used to dig these holes- big enough for me to crawl into and then cover them up. I would have just enough of a peephole that I could look out. I wanted to know if the environment would change if I weren't there. I tested that out by digging these holes and just watching nature. I realized that my presence does, in fact, affect nature.  It was important for me to have 1 foot in and 1 foot out. I think that also made me aware that there is a mystery in life- and that nature is full of mystery. And that in turn translates to my paintings.</div> <bR> <div> A pivotal moment in Barry's career took place here at the Museum when he entered a juried show in 1975. Not only was he accepted, but he won “Best in Show.”  Fast forward and today he still works on his art at a healthy pace every day.</div> <div> Currently Barry & his wife Marianne, a noted potter and ceramicist, live in Aromas. Marianne is with us today. Please stand up, Marianne, and welcome.</div> <bR> <div> At home, Barry's studio is his sanctuary. He puts on a little jazz and lets himself go. Inside tip: Barry plays sax when not painting. Perhaps best known for his moody, evocative landscapes, his Earth and Sky series, his most prolific, numbers in excess of 600 works. </div> <div>  </div> <div> As Erin Clark wrote in her profile for ArtWorks, “Many of the landscapes are painted in that quiet time- between day and night- when the colors are just a tad more vibrant, when the shadows are a tad longer- and more mysterious- and the mood is reflective. They pull you into a place that is familiar and foreign at the same time.”</div> <bR> <div> Currently Barry is working on his Boulevard series of cityscapes inspired by visits to San Francisco and New York City.  These paintings are views from hotel windows in the early morning hours and fuse tension and tranquility on the same canvas.</div> <bR> <div> Reflecting again on that sense of mystery, Barry writes that “Painting for me is like magic, what you see is not what you see. The closer you get to the surface, the more the picture fades away and the more it's just about paint- with all of its beautiful blemishes, brush marks and hairs, bubbles, cracks and studio detritus. Step back a few feet and you reenter the place of dreams.”</div> <bR> <div> Now to help us reenter that place of dreams, please welcome todays' speaker, Barry Masteller. </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> Thank you, Brooks, Barbara Codd, Mary DeGroat and the staff at La Mirada.</div> <bR> <div> And thank you all for coming this morning.</div> <bR> <div> First of all I'm going to put forth a disclaimer. What I am about to talk about is based on memory, some of it over forty years old…names, places, events…this may be a work in progress, so if any of you here this morning have a different account please let me know.</div> <bR> <div> Okay…</div> <bR> <div> I thought about how I would like to structure this talk today and in thinking about my history as an artist, it really began here in Monterey. Even though I had started painting about eight or nine years earlier I really don't think things began to coalesce in my work until about two or three years after moving to Pacific Grove in 1970. So I would like to speak mainly about my time in Monterey with some condensed history and how I feel it affected my work. And by the way, when I talk about Monterey I'm referring to the entire area.</div> <bR> <div> So here goes…</div> <bR> <div> I grew up in a section of Los Angeles known as the Echo Park district, about half way between downtown and Hollywood. All of the primary schools in the LA city school district were asked to select a painting to represent their school, several of the students in the school hung paintings in the main hallway and kids would vote on their favorite.</div> <bR> <div> My painting of a bird on a branch was selected and it would hang at the main board of education building downtown for several months. It was my first official group show and the start of my being called Barry the artist, I was in the third grade and would be asked to do most of the art projects for the remainder of my years at the school. </div> <bR> <div> I hadn't spent much time outside of LA except for a six month stay with my father in Vallejo and some train trips to Iowa during the summers to be with my grandparents.  When I was 11, I had gotten into some trouble so my Mother shipped me off  to live with my Father and attend a new school. My Mother and Father had divorced when I was an infant so my Mother thought it would be a good idea if I got to know my Father better; it would be the first time we would live together. Vallejo was my first experience with northern California my second would be Monterey.</div> <bR> <div> I first arrived on the Monterey Peninsula September 1966, I was 21 years old. I had been painting for about five years and was aware of Carmel and its reputation as an art scene. I was invited to attend the Monterey Jazz Festival with my then father in-law Ruben Leon and our wives, I was excited  to learn what it was about Monterey and Carmel that attracted so many artist's. Ruben was playing lead alto and soprano sax with the Don Ellis orchestra; we had spent Friday the day earlier driving from LA to Carmel.</div> <bR> <div> I remember my first impression the morning I awoke and took a walk outside and on the beach in Carmel, I said to myself `Man this sure isn't LA' we arrived early at the fair grounds to set up. Don `s band was the first set of the day and he would be followed by the Charles Lloyd Quartet with a 21 year old Keith Jarrett on piano and Jack DeJohnette on drums and followed by them the John Handy Quintet. </div> <bR> <div> It was a fantastic day as the thick Monterey fog burned off by late morning and the sky was blue and full of sun, I felt like I was in heaven. On our drive back to LA on Sunday I watched through car windows; the Oak studded hillsides of Monterey county roll past and thought to myself someday I'm going to live here.</div> <bR> <div> Over the next few years I would travel with my wife to Big Sur, Monterey and Pacific Grove every opportunity we got, often staying for several days in our VW camper on the beach in Pacific Grove or a cabin in Big Sur.</div> <bR> <div> I recall on a later trip to Pacific Grove I was standing on a street near the forest and watching the fog as it rolled through the tall Monterey pines I was reminded of a photo I had torn from a magazine that I had tacked to my wall as a teen, I used it to paint from and found it frustrating that I couldn't capture the affect of the fog coming through the trees.  </div> <bR> <div> I later realized it was a reproduction of a Brett Weston photograph. It would be several years later that I would re-mat and reframe one of the originals in my capacity as a  framer for Don Hartman in Monterey. I remember thinking `wow' this place has been with me forever, even before I thought about moving here. I think that single photo was my link to Monterey and the Aesthetic that it provided to my psyche and subsequent work. </div> <bR> <div> I met and talked with Brett a few times at openings and with mutual friends but never telling him that story.</div> <bR> <div> It was January 1970 and we were moving into a small Victorian house on Fountain Avenue in Pacific Grove that I had purchased in the fall of 1969. I had a wife two toddlers and an infant. I was 24 years old out of a job and I needed to find work in the gallery or picture framing field that I knew. </div> <bR> <div> One morning I was looking through the help wanted ads in the herald, I came across an ad for a gallery director I called the number and a voice with a noticeable European accent answered_ “Laky Gallery” he said, Hello I'm inquiring about your ad for a gallery director, he asked “do you have experience?” Yes I do I replied, he asked “where are you?” Pacific Grove! _He said_ “get over here so I can meet you” </div> <bR> <div> I met with Les, a very dapper man in his fifties, he took down my contact information and said he would get back to me.</div> <bR> <div> After a day or two, I hear a knock on my door, I open it and there's Les dressed in a fine wool suit and silk tie. Surprised to see him I said Les why are you here? He said I want to see how you live! </div> <bR> <div> I invited him in, he walked around my living room stopping at each painting on the walls and then sat down on the couch. About that time my two toddler daughters came rushing in to see who this new stranger was, well they were all over him like pins to a magnet, rubbing his finely trimmed hair into knots and pulling on his tie.</div> <div>  </div> <div> These were my wild daughters and this was their play pen. Les sat through this for about a minute got up and headed for the door, turned around and said to me “ you have a very interesting home” he would later say to me… “Perhaps I should have called first”</div> <bR> <div> I didn't get the job but Les and I remained friends for the rest of his life. </div> <bR> <div> I attended many of Les's openings in the early 70s he had a show of  SC Yuan's work in 1972 or 1973 as I remember, Yuan was a complicated guy but always loved to talk about painting especially to artist's that did too. He had a solo show at the Pacific Grove Art Center around that same time period. </div> <bR> <div> It's also where I met George DeGroat, George was also one of Les's stable of artist's a highly respected painter and a very gracious guy, always impeccably dressed. He came to many of my shows and always made a point to find me and comment on my work, usually commenting on certain paint passages and techniques, always curious about its story and willing to share his knowledge. </div> <bR> <div> Les Laky was also very gracious and would come to almost every show I had during the 70s and 80s. I knew he had a deep love of painting and a well trained eye. He would never once express his opinion about my work even when asked. One time he was looking at one of my early narrative paintings I asked what he thought, He just moved his head slightly up and down smiled and walked to the next painting.</div> <bR> <div> Les had a hard eastern European skin and a very critical eye when it came to ART especially anything contemporary American but he was always the consummate gentleman. I recall him asking me a question in my studio one day. He asked what I thought about Wayne Theibaud's  paintings. I said that I thought Theibaud' s work was strong and important within contemporary California painting, especially his San Francisco hillside paintings. I asked him what he thought?? He looked at me and said with the stern face of a parent…”His work is awful!” I didn't argue I just said ok and moved on.  Later on I would do some painting restorations for him, his confidence in my work was always a puzzle to me but I knew he respected me and my work on a certain level and I treasured and respected that in return, also happy I wasn't Wayne Theibaud.</div> <bR> <div> On another job search in 1970 I recall going into the Oliver's art store on Alvarado Street next to the state theatre, I inquired about a possible position doing their framing and was told that Ramon Oliver in New Monterey did all of their framing and that I should talk to him.</div> <div>  </div> <div> I walked into Ramon's Workshop (as it was called) and said to Ray (as everyone called him) Hello I'm Barry Masteller, I'm from LA and I need a job! He asked… well what can you do?  I said; `I can cut mats, multi layered mats, fabric covered mats, cut glass, cut frames with a chopper, join frames, do custom finishes, wet mount, dry mount, build shadow boxes, fit anything and everything and do minor restorations too!' He looked at me and said “I can't give you a job” and I asked why not??  He said “Because you know more than I do!”</div> <bR> <div> He gave me the job anyway at least part time and we became close life long friends.</div> <bR> <div> Ray's shop was unlike any I had worked in before, there were stacks of stuff on every horizontal surface, Ray had memorized it all, he knew what was on each table and in which stack, what looked like chaos to me was in reality Ray's filing system. There were red frames hanging on the walls. I asked him what the red frames were for, he told me they were frames his father Myron Oliver made before he died and that the red was a clay base for gold leaf. </div> <bR> <div> I Learned from Ray several techniques in gold leafing that he learned through observation from his father that I would use several years later in my own shop where I produced my own line of hand built, hand carved and gold leaf frames. Working with Ray was a breath of fresh air after leaving LA. </div> <bR> <div> I would arrive at the shop around 9:30 get set up and just start to work and about 10:00 Ray would say “ Break Time” we would pile into his turquoise 62 Chevy convertible put the top down and take a 10 mile drive to get three blocks away from the shop. At fist I thought this is cool and later realized that this was how a Ray took his breaks, everyday at least four times a day. We would wind up on Cannery row at Rings restaurant. By the time we arrived I would have gotten a history lesson of Monterey and Pacific Grove that no text book could have offered.</div> <div>  </div> <div> Rings was owned by Vic and Bessie Knight the original owners of the Clock Restaurant on Abrego, they had sold the Clock by this time and were operating Rings because they missed their artist patrons and friends. I recall the first time I sat at the “Big” table at Rings, it was informally reserved for artist's to sit at and yak. I recall meeting John Boyt Morse a painter and of Morse code fame who was a regular; a very loud and pompous guy but also very sharp, witty and a good abstract painter, I enjoyed my talks with him and the other artist's at the table, often Joan Savo, Gerry Wasserman, Eugene Newman, Steve Brown and many others were also regulars at the “Big table.”</div> <bR> <div> Ray's father Myron was an accomplished painter and craftsman and was one of the founders and presidents of the Carmel Art association. He built frames for Armin Hansen and many of the Carmel artists during the thirties and forties. August Gay had worked for him as a frame maker and gilder for many years. Ray took me to his Mothers home in the Peters Gate section of Monterey so I could see some of his dad's paintings including some of the furniture that he had built, I was really blown away by his skill as an artist and craftsman. His commitment to his art was something I was truly inspired by. </div> <bR> <div> Myron was also co-founder of the Monterey History and Art Association and was instrumental in the protection of the Monterey adobes. Ramon took me by the 'Casa De La Torre' house on the corner of Pierce and Jefferson streets that he had lived in as a child. Myron used the main room as his studio; he designed and built the large prominent arch top window for north light that faces Jefferson Street.</div> <bR> <div> Pacific Grove in 1970 was a vibrant place for young people and it's art community was no different. I needed a studio so I rented a small space in the two story building at 591 Lighthouse Avenue above what was then the Hector DeSmets Bakery for $15.00 a month. There were several other artists in the building and I made friends with most. One was Art Guerra, Art was finishing his MFA at Stanford and was a great help to me in getting kick started in the art community. </div> <bR> <div> He was a fantastic painter who in 1974 with our mutual friend Bill Rabinovich moved to New York City to open one of the first SOHO galleries aptly named the Rabinovich-Guerra Gallery. Later Art would found the Guerra Paint Company on the lower Eastside supplying high end paints to artist's world wide. He had a solo show of his drawings at the Monterey Museum in 1974.</div> <bR> <div> My Father had died suddenly in 1969 and I was having a hard time coping with the loss. I set the studio up for painting and built a large wall easel. In the one year I had the studio, almost all I could do was stare out the window to the street and life below.  I did a single painting in that year, it was a painting about my father, I finished it, closed the studio and destroyed the painting; the experience was a catharsis for me.</div> <bR> <div> Our house had a large kitchen with a wicker couch a large round table and chairs, it became the meeting place for many of our artist friends who would often stop by individually or in small groups, we would spend hours talking about art and life while consuming pots of coffee. Our front door was never locked and it wasn't unusual for our friends to just walk in and have some coffee and conversation.</div> <bR> <div> As my kids grew bigger I found our 900 square foot house was quickly being out grown and I was running out of useable studio space. I set up my table saw in what was the parlor and would work to expand the house by day and paint at night using the top of my table saw to lay my canvases on to paint. I worked like this for about a year and a half around 1973 / 75 producing almost all of the paintings I would later show at the Monterey Museum of Art.</div> <bR> <div> The Pacific Grove art center was founded 1969 and by 1970 it was place of vitality with many of Monterey's artist community having and attending shows there. I now found myself in a family of like minds. It's where I first met Peter Person and Barclay Ferguson the art centers first directors that I became personal friends with and so many of the artists in the community like David Ligare, Joan Savo, Sam Colburn, Eugene Newman, Barbara Johnson, Art Guerra, Bill Rabinovich, Dick Crispo, Gerry Wasserman, Pat Reddy, Victor Digesu, Janet Amant, S.C Yuan, Ileane Tuttle, Peter Plamondon, Bob Divale, Jim Casteel, Don Teague, Eldon Dedini, Virginia Conroy, Stone and DeGare, Alex Gonzalez, Marie Brummond and so many others that created the Monterey art community of the early and mid 70s</div> <bR> <div> I think all of these artist's mentioned have shown at the Monterey Museum in one capacity or another over the years. </div> <div>  </div> <div> Barclay was a great supporter to me. Many times he would share his linen canvas with me when I was too broke to buy any. I remember once in the mid seventies I was once again out of work and he purchased one of my stitched paintings for $900. it was titled `The Last Apollo” and the cash was just enough to get me rolling again and buy some needed art supplies. That's the way it was -artist's helping other artist's-- it was a great community.</div> <bR> <div> I was included in a three person show at the Art Center the following year with two other artist's Jim Casteel and Robert Divale and again the following year with the same two and Victor Digesu and his wife Janet Amant. I would later have two separate solo shows there. </div> <bR> <div> I remember a conversation I had with Don Teague in 1976 or so. Don was about five decades older than myself and one of the most accomplished illustrators of his generation. He was talking about some of my paintings in the show and talking about things in my work I didn't even know were there, like the way I was unconsciously using line to move the eye around in one of my paintings. He was such a gracious man and I thought to myself …</div> <bR> <div> …Barry you have to listen to this guy because he knows what he's saying. Don even asked me if I would like to be a member of the Society of Western Artists because he would nominate me. I said sure but I never followed through on the submission. I've never been much of a joiner when it comes to clubs or organizations, I think it has something that goes back to the day's when I was a kid in military school or youth authority; I don't know, but never the less it was a gracious act on his part.</div> <div> In the early seventies I ran the Cannery Row Leather Company a small leather crafts studio on Cannery Row Boulevard across the street from Kalisa's restaurant where I and other craftsman made garments and accessories. Back then there was a completey separate arts and crafts community at work. The leather company was part of a small group of other crafts people. There was the Oz restaurant and a used record shop next door and down the street next to doc's lab was the 812 cinema run by two guy's named John and Allen, film makers who would show old films, there were no chairs in the large open space, just big pillows on the floor to relax on and watch some great films. John and Allen would later open the Dream theatre on Lighthouse avenue. And there was Brook Elgie a photographer who had some of the best parties in Monterey ever! And so many others who were affectionately known as the “Row Rats” myself included. </div> <bR> <div> We rented the leather shop on the cheap knowing that our days on the Row were numbered. It was also here that I learned to use a commercial leather sewing machine that I would use to stitch canvas in various shapes to use in my paintings. </div> <bR> <div> I would later abandon the machine and stitch by hand using a large curved needle and waxed thread used for leather. This became a tedious process which lasted only a few years from 1973 to 1976.</div> <bR> <div> So many times we would watch the cannery fires on the Row, one after the other would explode in flame and burn to the ground. It was said that it was much cheaper for the owners of these sites to hire an arsonist than to pay to have the buildings bulldozed for redevelopment. It would be only a few years before our building met the same fate. I watched from the deck of my home in Pacific Grove as it lit the evening sky. Later on the old Rings restaurant space would meet the same fate.</div> <bR> <div> The Monterey Museum of art was also new at least in the Pacific Street building. The Museum held an annual juried show that was always a huge and highly anticipated event for the artist and the art community. I entered it the first time in 1972 or 1973 and my painting was rejected (it was a large rather bad abstraction that I still have today, if not to remind me how not to paint). I entered again the next year with one of my stitched paintings and it was accepted into the show with an honorable mention. I was excited because my work would now be seen by so many of my peers and the museum community.</div> <bR> <div> I entered it again in 1975 with a painting titled “Six of one Half Dozen of the Other” also a stitched canvas, This time I was sure it would win best of show. On the day the winners were to be notified of the juried results I waited by the phone for the call. About 11:30 in the morning the phone rang I picked it up; Hello the voice said this is June Bracht Director of the Monterey Museum of Art is this Barry? </div> <bR> <div> Yes it is I replied; well; she said I have some great news for you! Your painting has won the best in show award! I know I told her and she asked how could you I only just found out myself! I don't know I just did, I've known it for days and was just waiting for your call to confirm it.! We both had a laugh. But I was truly excited, this would be the kick start to my career that I needed. Harry X. Ford Presedent of the California College of arts and crafts was the juror.</div> <bR> <div> There was a cash award and a solo show in the main gallery, this was March and the solo show would be in September. I had four or five paintings that were showable and I had to fill the gallery with at least twenty five works so I worked for the next six months putting together enough work to fill the gallery. This would be the start of my studio work ethic that I have to this day.</div> <bR> <div> In 1976 I entered a painting in the Monterey County fair and it won the best of show. The Juror that year was Alexander Napote, Art Professor at California State University, San Francisco.</div> <bR> <div> During the late sixties to the mid seventies I apprenticed myself under several different art restorers often in my capacity as a framer. When I went to work for Don Hartman in 1975 I was doing some cleaning and varnishing and wax resin re-lining for him. It was here that I met Martha Casanave, Monterey's most gifted photographer, I think it was 1976 or 77 she would come into Don's shop to mat and mount her photographs. We struck up a friendship that we still share today. She asked me then if she could take my portrait and I said sure, it would be the first of many over the years.</div> <bR> <div> My friend and fellow painter Bob Divale had a live in studio at 214 Grand Avenue. In Pacific Grove that he shared with Dave Love another Pacific Grove painter. One day in 1977 I asked Bob if I could rent a small corner of his space to store some of my paintings, I had run out of room in my small Victorian and needed to free some space. He said sure and that we could split the rent three ways $25.00 each I said ok! and moved the work in.</div> <bR> <div> It wasn't long before I started painting there too - often starting around five in the morning before I went to work. By this time Bob moved upstairs into a real apartment with a kitchen and bath, and then Dave moved out because I made him get up too early. I now had my own 800 square foot studio for $75.00. a month. I would have this space for the next 25 years.</div> <bR> <div> I opened my own restoration shop in my studio in 1978 while I was still working for Don I would work for him until April 1981, when I would finally devote myself full time to painting and restoration work.</div> <bR> <div> 1981 also brought with it some change I didn't expect, It was the year my Mother died.  This had been a long and painful road for her which lasted not less than ten years. My loss was to be tempered by the board of directors at the Pacific Grove Art Center appointing me and my wife to be co-directors, we accepted the position and decided that she would do the administrative work and I would be responsible for the exhibitions and installations. We worked together in this capacity for the next few years which were fun and grueling. </div> <div> I recall after about a year on the job there was a rumor that the Art Centers lease might not be renewed. Our landlord was Frank Work I called him to inquire about the lease and he invited my wife and I to his home (this very building we are in today) at 5:00 pm for cocktails. We sat in this room which then was his living room. And while sipping our drinks he would reminisce about his childhood growing up in Pacific Grove. </div> <div> He said “Back in the days there was a small trolley rail line that ran through New Monterey and into Pacific Grove, Well me and my friends would wait by the line as it turned to go up the hill on Grand Avenue and we would put grease on the rails and watch as the train would climb, hit the grease then slide backwards down the track and then try again.” </div> <div> About this time Frank broke into a huge laugh like he was their once again with his friends. After a few of these stories Frank said “You are doing a wonderful job at the Art Center I read all the great press you are getting and it's very exciting”…  “About that lease thing, don't worry about it”  “I'll have a new one for you” Frank was a huge supporter of the Art's in Monterey.</div> <bR> <div> I believe that my job as artist is to supply at least 50% of the experience. A painting is worth half without a viewer to support the other half. A painting is a mutual agreement between the artist and the viewer. Without the viewer the experience is incomplete weather good or bad the viewer brings their own experience to a work of art. I am continually learning more about my own work through the eyes, minds and comments of viewers that express to me their own personal experience with my paintings.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> A case in point:</div> <bR> <div> In 1982 I had a solo exhibition at the San Jose Museum of Art of some of my narrative paintings. Before the exhibition began I was addressing the museum docents on my work and answering their questions. We were going through the gallery and I would stop and talk about a particular work when a woman in the group held up her hand to ask a question. I acknowledged her; she asked “What are those?”  Motioning towards one of my paintings, I said `their rocks' like stacked rocks in a wall!' she said “Well I don't think they look like rocks at all!!” </div> <bR> <div> What do they look like to you? I asked. “They look like potatoes” she said. The other docents chuckled. `Well how can I help you see them as rocks? I asked. “You can't” she replied…”their potatoes!” Okay I said, would it make you feel better if they were potatoes? “Yes it would” she replied. Okay then I said “ For you they absolutely and without a doubt are potatoes! Not rocks? She asked. “Yes” I replied. And in a soft and gentle voice she said “Thank you.”</div> <bR> <div> I am continually amazed at how a painting can have such an emotional impact on the human psyche; Paintings have the power to bring out all of the emotional responses in people. And to think in its simplest form - it's just some pigment rubbed onto a surface.</div> <bR> <div> 1983 saw the beginning of the re-discovery of early California art and I found myself very busy with restoring paintings by many of the artists that are so familiar to us today. Artist's of the society of six, the tonalist painters. Armin Hansen, William Ritchel and so many others.</div> <bR> <div> I think I learned more about painting from studying those paintings up close and with a magnifying glass than I ever would have from art instruction. I spent hours if not years studying surfaces and color usage and technique. When I think about my own work I think the thing that stands out most is my concern for surface, in layering, scumbling and glazing. I think my concern for surface was the direct result of looking at those paintings with a magnifying glass. My favorite paintings were always those of the tonalists, artists like Gitardo Piazzoni, Xavier Martinez, Arthur Mathews, William Keith, and Charles Rollo Peters, and the influence of James McNeill Whistler and George Innes on their work.</div> <bR> <div> Many of the paintings that I restored were without frames or the frames were badly damaged from years of neglect and were in need of frames that reflected the period. At that time there were only a hand full of frame builders that were doing Arts and Crafts period frames and they were either in Los Angeles or back east. For my clients the time lag was too long and the quality unpredictable. </div> <bR> <div> I went back to my friend Ray and picked his brain once more on how his father built his frames. By 1985 I was producing 12 to 15 restorations with hand built frames in 22 karat gold leaf per month; working by day and painting at night. The gold was applied with a time consuming process called water gilding which was the same process that Myron Oliver used on his frames. Ramon told me that his father Myron studied in Italy in the nineteen twenties and it was here that he learned this process.</div> <bR> <div> In 1989 I took over the space next to my shop/studio which added another 1000 square feet to my 800 square foot space. In the front facing Grand Avenue I opened the Claypoole- Freese Gallery and over the years I showed a small group of local artist's who were mostly my friends, people like: Joan Savo, Sam Colburn, Michael Pavlov, Deanna Forbes, Karen Nagano, Gerry Richman, Chris Winfield and others, also occasionally using the gallery space for fund raisers for organizations like the Zen center in Carmel Valley, that put together a great show of local artist's that brought in some needed cash.</div> <bR> <div> 1989 was also the year that I started my Natural Occurrence series. I had been working on my architectural paintings for several years and wanted to break out in a different direction. I decided to move away from the Vertical, Horizontal, Diagonal structure of the architectural paintings and just concentrate on the surface with under painting and successive layering creating a deliberate pentimento and moving the work more towards abstraction.</div> <bR> <div> In 1990 I opened a second painting studio at the Monterey airport in a new commercial space, 1000 square feet of open space with 16 foot ceilings. It was a great space that allowed me to do much larger works that I could get some distance on and work flat on the floor on several paintings at the same time. </div> <bR> <div> In 1992 I purchased a home in Aromas on five acres of California oaks on a hillside over looking and adjoined to several thousand native acres. I built a new studio on my house, a modest 500 square foot space with controlled lighting and needed heat.  After a year or so I began to do paintings that were influenced by the landscape.</div> <bR> <div> In 1994  I wanted to see how I would approach doing a tonalist work, I decided to keep my pallet as simple as possible using as few colors as possible with thin glazes that I would use to achieve various color effects.  I decided to use just four colors, Cadmium Red Medium and Cadmium Yellow Medium with Ivory Black and Titanium White for my lights and darks and for the blue violets that I could achieve by using thin successive layers of white over black with a glazing medium.  Thus was born my Earth and Sky series. I also used this color combination in my other series from time to time when I was looking for the same affect.</div> <bR> <div> I traveled to Paris and through Switzerland, Italy and Spain in the early nineties spending two solid weeks at the Louve, arriving when it opened and leaving late in the evening. I wanted to immerse myself in historical works and learn as much as I could from them. I feel as a painter it's important to know where one comes from within a historical context and to know where one might go in the work.</div> <bR> <div> I decided in 2003 to close my gallery, the frame building and restoration business as I was only occasionally taking on new jobs and no longer put shows together. I worked in my studio in Aromas every day at least eight hours, and the commute from Aromas to Pacific Grove was becoming less and less, my paintings were doing well and I decided to just concentrate on that.  </div> <bR> <div> I remember in the 1970s asking Don Teague what advice he would give a young painter like me and he said “go to the studio everyday, even if you don't paint - go there and be in that space, because when the magic happens you must be ready for it.” It would be some of the best advice I ever had. And the same advice I give today.</div> <bR> <div> Okay. The slides you are about to see are arranged chronologically from 1973 to the present. You will see that later on after about 1989 I begin my series, so in a given year I might be working on one or all of them in the same year. This by the way is how I paint today; it has become my process of choice. Moving from one series to the next and back again.</div> <bR> <div> There are a lot of slides to view so I'll move through them rather quickly, stopping at some that might require some extra commentary.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="slideshow.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Slideshow"><B>SLIDESHOW ></B></A></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div>  All text and images contained on this site copyright  Barry Masteller 2011</div> <div>  <script type="text/javascript"> var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script> <script type="text/javascript"> var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-2450319-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); </script>         <script type="text/javascript"> var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? 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