Curt Hanson Paintings
Curt's Blog
June 1,2011
Most of the work these past few months has been dealing with subjects from either right out my door or from a short visit to a lovely Island off of Cape Cod called Naushon. The last 30 years have really led to these paintings . Maybe that is how it always is but somehow it feels more true to me now than it ever has. My life here has been that of a hermit with most days not even leaving the hollow. After meditation in the early a.m. as it gets light the painting starts. Usually I know the night before what it will
be for the next day. There are a couple of hours painting work before another short meditation. The workday is then set and I keep going back to it through out the day. A cup of coffee comes next while checking emails and if I dare, a look at the news on the computer. The morning meal is usually pretty big. Looking more like what one might call dinner. By evening the painting is either complete or to a stage of incubation and to wait for drying time. The next day is almost always a different painting so that on returning to something it is always fresh. Each day of work feels totally new and each painting is painted as if it might be the very last one with every days work preparing for the next. I rarely listen to music while I work other than chanting that is part of my meditation practice. There is a quite here that demands to be listened to. That is why most music is so abrasive in this space. I did not always appreciate this but it has become increasingly clear to me that I am indeed blessed to have this old church as my home and place of work. My prayer is for each painting to have a little bit of this feeling in them because this I believe is what the world needs.
September 26, 2009
In 1985 I saw a moody landscape entitled " Gray , Lowery Day " by George Inness in New York and it resonated with something inside of me . This year was a very rainy summer in Connecticut and out of it came a series of green paintings , the subject taken from the stream behind Cornubia . Mostly without sun these paintings use green not so much with the full strength through out but where it is toned down and only brought up to full strength as a kind of swell. They are more a suggestion of the day than the actual visual truth. This of course is seen at its best in the later work of Inness.
The month of May saw 16 or so new paintings , most of them 12 x 16 inches . It was a steady flow of bouncing back and forth between " emerging spring in Cornwall Hollow " and a series called " the clong ( canal) at Maha Sawat" , Thai subjects from gathered research after just returning from a 4 month sojourn there. Out of this growing group of small paintings a few will serve as studies for larger works. I will be showing these at the gallery in Bantam Ct, along with the best of my work of the past few years.
December 17, 2010
Merry Christmas all!
It has been an amazing year. I just wrapped up the work with a snowing painting and lay the brushes down until, God willing, next spring. Having a few months away from the work only makes it stronger when coming back refreshed. For over 30 years, I did not understand this and was a painting machine with no off switch. Now the work is in place at the galleries with nothing else for me to do.
Click “Galleries representing Curt's work” on my home page to see the locations. Ella can also show the paintings at my studio by appointment while I am away (call 860-567 4768).
Best wishes to everyone and thanks for the great support over
the years. I have been very blessed to be able to dedicate my life to painting with the help of so many admirers and collectors.
August 18, 2010
Painting as an object of awareness
As one whom has given my whole life to the practice of painting, at its heart has been that painting is an object of awareness of what it means the be alive . Through direct observation of nature both in the external and the internal world it has and continues to be a way of knowing and understanding what this life is. Through the course of any workday are moment by moment observations of not only the subject of the work and the painting itself but also what is going on in the body and the mind and feelings. All of it is changing continually. It has become easier to see when I am attaching to a small thing in the work and loosing the big picture. It is by keeping the broad view that an understanding of the nature of things is experienced that is not possible when one is caught up in isolated little pieces that are separate from the whole.
July 23, 2010
"It is not the imitation , but the beautiful memory of things" George Inness
Memories of Siam. There are all the experiences that inspired them that get awakened while they develop. The paintings are as much about those experiences as what was seen. Insights from observing nature gets into them. The memory does not inject all the distracting detail that would happen by mir imitation.
Even when working directly from nature or using photographic reference. You can work, using the memory. When you look ....look and when you paint....paint, remembering the big important things that you saw while looking. It is a very different process than slavish copy.
July 22, 2010
Martha's Vineyard
There is a room full of recent paintings on Martha's Vineyard at The Christina Gallery. We were out there for the opening reception and to scout out the Island for some new painting material. Now back in the Hollow and the workflow as always is accompanied with a feeling of both renewal and comfort. Bouncing back and forth between Asian and New England subjects keeps them both fresh and from falling in the pit of overwork and tightness. Stepping back and shifting the attention is vital to the process. Clamping down of one thing to much Is not the path. Openness without grasping is a much better way. Seeing from outside looking in.
June 25, 2010
New Gallery
A new gallery called Curt Hanson Paintings adjoining Ella's limited in Bantam Connecticut is a lovely space where one can rest in the quiet reflection of Curt's New England and South East Asian subjects. The paintings have evolved with a contemplative feeling induced by a practice in Buddhist meditation and love of Thailand where he spends part of each year. "My Asian Sojourn has been like turning an upside down cup upright, open and empty to receive! Each spring returning home to Cornwall Hollow is both a new adventure with fresh insight and an old friend at the same time!"
December 19, 2009Most of the work these past few months has been dealing with subjects from either right out my door or from a short visit to a lovely Island off of Cape Cod called Naushon. The last 30 years have really led to these paintings . Maybe that is how it always is but somehow it feels more true to me now than it ever has. My life here has been that of a hermit with most days not even leaving the hollow. After meditation in the early a.m. as it gets light the painting starts. Usually I know the night before what it will
be for the next day. There are a couple of hours painting work before another short meditation. The workday is then set and I keep going back to it through out the day. A cup of coffee comes next while checking emails and if I dare, a look at the news on the computer. The morning meal is usually pretty big. Looking more like what one might call dinner. By evening the painting is either complete or to a stage of incubation and to wait for drying time. The next day is almost always a different painting so that on returning to something it is always fresh. Each day of work feels totally new and each painting is painted as if it might be the very last one with every days work preparing for the next. I rarely listen to music while I work other than chanting that is part of my meditation practice. There is a quite here that demands to be listened to. That is why most music is so abrasive in this space. I did not always appreciate this but it has become increasingly clear to me that I am indeed blessed to have this old church as my home and place of work. My prayer is for each painting to have a little bit of this feeling in them because this I believe is what the world needs.September 26, 2009
In 1985 I saw a moody landscape entitled " Gray , Lowery Day " by George Inness in New York and it resonated with something inside of me . This year was a very rainy summer in Connecticut and out of it came a series of green paintings , the subject taken from the stream behind Cornubia . Mostly without sun these paintings use green not so much with the full strength through out but where it is toned down and only brought up to full strength as a kind of swell. They are more a suggestion of the day than the actual visual truth. This of course is seen at its best in the later work of Inness.
August 13, 2009
The painting called "Full Autumn" shows the direction the work has been evolving. Not so much a literal interpretation of nature as a feeling that the landscape evokes. It is a calm that is better produced by the elimination of topographical detail. The mind has less to do and the feeling predominates. This is not at all a new thing but it is something that I am understanding on a deeper level as time goes on. It is a presents that exists in the paintings that I have been moved by as long as I remember though not always able to put a finger on and maybe it is by not putting a finger on, that is the key.
August 11, 2009
Painting and meditation are really one in the same. Meditation is about being totally aware and awake in the present moment. It is about observing what is happening right now. The word often used is "mindfulness" and it does not happen in the past or the future . 
This is something I have been experiencing for a long time in my work even though not labeling it as meditation . In formal meditation practice one focuses solely on what is happening in the body and the mind. In Buddhist vernacular it is also called Vipassana or insight meditation. Ultimately being mindful is carried throughout ones life, whether sitting, standing walking or lying down.
The painting for me has been going on for over 35 years, in pretty much an unbroken chain. Over that time it has become as natural as eating or weeding the garden.
Staying in mindfulness and observing the process as it unfolds produces a calm and ultimately an insight into the nature of things. The formal meditation practice adds to awareness in the painting an the painting practice adds to awareness in the meditation. In truth they are not separate.
August 9, 2009
It has been a very productive summer here and I am eating well from the garden ! Not as many visitors this year and sales have been down but the work flow is high and many amazing things have been happening !
The meditation has grown consistently with the Thailand and Dhamma connection . Wow, I have even found a very good teacher here in Connecticut named Achaan Da and he is from the very part of Thailand that has been my second home these past few years . My day moves from meditation to gardening to painting these days for the most part in a fluid way .
As for the painting , it has been going back and forth from the seasonal Connecticut work to the Thai subjects with fishing fishing boats, lotus ponds, monks and rice farmers ...........
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