Invisible Women

A group self-portrait in words, dedicated to and inspired by all the Ballsy Art Chicks over a certain age whom I have and have not met at Portrait Society of America conferences over the years

Judge, Jury and Executioner
From The Solon Senior Project: Judy Takács Paints Fascinating Wisdom

I am the thick bespectacled woman at the bar with the fire in her belly.

Sporting sensible business attire, I speak intelligently of the technical details of art making and can’t stop staring at the insanely delicious structure of your nose.

I sit in the unreserved back tables at the Portrait Society Awards Banquet, firmly zipped into my gala-worthy finery, spilling cleavage front and back, and I want to grab you in a headlock, knock you down and paint you…hard!

My cane, my orthopedic shoes and I and have vigilantly stood guard over my artistic vision for the better part of the last 50 years…protecting it with inner peace, a passionate voice and force only when necessary.

Cameo Appearence
From The Solon Senior Project: Judy Takács Paints Fascinating Wisdom

I came of artistic age during an era of portrait painting blight. By night I hatched secret plots with realistic eyes and noses in the shadows of artistic institutions. By day I pasted toxic smelling type to board using hot wax and aspired to someday drawing laundry-soap packages like the male artists in the next room.

I grew up painting people, but if I was lucky to be in the company of artists, I found no mentors, little instruction, and very few kindred spirits. Far from the coasts, I belonged to a Portrait Society of One. I devoured what knowledge I could from forgotten black and white Velasquez reproductions in dusty library-sale books…praying the next page would hold a color plate or a detail.

My painting grew out of this desert with influences from the masters doled out by the art gods with a stingy eye-dropper; a local Sargent show that, for 8 weeks, became my daily happy hour; a 12 hour bus ride to the Metropolitan in New York for a two hour artgasm; and then there was the serendipitous stumble of a lifetime into a room full of Egon Schiele in Vienna and a housefull of Anders Zorn in Sweden. Who were these artists, and with all my art education, why had I never heard of them? And don't even get me started on Bougereau. If I'd sold my car back in the day I could have bought one!

I have worshiped at the altar of actual Rembrandts, Cassats and Vermeers because, when I came of age there was no internet…we really knew nothing of portraiture except for what had made it into books and museums. My favorite artists were the dead ones…and of course, the illustrators—Norman Rockwell brought me to my knees— but one didn’t speak of him in polite art company.

I came of age when Impressionism was the closest thing to representational painting that could be taught by a reputable art institution. From that you quickly moved on to Expressionism, and then if you were serious about being a fine artist; pure Abstraction. There was no taking the best from both worlds, you were in one camp or the other.

Ironically, if you bucked that path, you were reactionary…not rebellious and cool whatsoever. Even in my art youth, I’m sure I was considered every bit the dowdy middle-aged lady in spectacles you see before you today because I painted people…and they looked more or less like people.

Dragonfly and Survival
From The Solon Senior Project: Judy Takács Paints Fascinating Wisdom

But here I am, many years later at the Portrait Society Conference and despite my advanced years, I don’t paint nearly as well as the twenty thirty something Finalists (not a typo, at the Portrait Society Awards there are twenty artists whose paintings have been chosen as finalists, and many of them are in their 20s or 30s). Their youthful paintings glow like the Rembrandts that I have been memorizing for 20, 30, 40 years. I believe they do realize how lucky they are to have their immense talent and drive today and not 30 years ago. Today there are Academies and Ateliers that burst with instruction and inspiration for them to launch brilliant careers painting people. And there is a growing art market that embraces realism to welcome them. Not saying it's an easy path at all, but some of the trees and pricker bushes have been cleared. Seeing what these youthful masters paint and trying to learn, beg, borrow and steal how they have achieved their miracles, well, it pours gasoline on that belly fire of mine.

And, it would seem, the time for painting people has come again. And, since the young have adopted this passion as their own, there is a strong headwind for a movement. At the Portrait Society I am surrounded by hundreds of kindred spirits and inspiration by the bucketload, but I’m thinking maybe the younger artists don’t actually see me…and unless by some lucky twist of cyber fate they have glanced at one of my facebook posts, they haven’t seen my work either.

Nonetheless, the time for me to paint my people has come. I’ve raised my children, I’ve saved some money… and, health, safety and caring for those I love notwithstanding, I’ve got 20, 30, 40 years ahead of me for this epic journey.

I am the bespectacled and thick lady with the fire in her belly and I am in the process of conquering the world…one painted soul at a time, and I will do so until the end of my time.

And maybe, my inspiring youthful peers at the next Portrait Society Conference will actually see me next year and know that I am on the same passionate people painting journey as they are…but maybe they will also remember that I’ve been on it, tripping on stones since well before there was even a path.

The Magnificent Mrs. Melzer
From The Solon Senior Project: Judy Takács Paints Fascinating Wisdom

And, why, you might ask does this blog post not include a Chicks with Balls portrait? Well, my dear readers and art patrons, the show is coming up (Friday night August 9th from 7 to 9:00 at BAYarts), and I'm slowing down the pace of his blog, because some of the paintings will remain a surprise until showtime! Be there to see them all!

Inspiration from Iowa

For Laurel of Peace and Wisdom, this is Just Another Day

Around the time Chicks with Balls was secretly flailing itself from side to side inside my cluttered brain, I had the opportunity to attend the Portrait Society of America International Conference in Washington DC. This was in May of 2010. I was invited by my fun, talented and ballsy artist friend Susie Porges (susanporgesstudio.com), to whom I shall be eternally grateful for this pivotal point of inspiration. She had heard about the conference from our mutual artist friend, internationally renowned pastel portrait painter, Judith Carducci (judithcarducci.com).

When I look back on certain turning points in my art life, certain pieces of art stand out as jolts of electricity that show me what is possible to me. They show me a light, they change my way, they focus my vision, they push me into the water, they throw me a rope. These art encounters shine because they show me what is possible and that it is possible for me.

The River…by Puvis De Chavannes

According to family legend, when I was three and we lived in NYC (before we moved to Ohio when I was four), I visited the Met with my dad many times and was fixated on the Puvis de Chavannes Nude bathers painting called “The River”. I didn't remember the painting specifically, but those early classical nudes must have gone into my subconscious.

Painting of a Woman by Amadeo Modigliani

As a child, I remember hiding behind the couch reading these mini art books my parents had sprinkled around the house. The one featuring Modigliani was a favorite because he painted ladies like I did, some portraits and some nudes and in my 8 year old mind, I thought, “I can draw better than him and he’s a real artist with a book an everything!” (I’ve never had a problem with personal confidence…it’s selling it to others that trips me up.)

As a middle schooler, I remember my art teacher Mr. Kovacs showing me a drawing by a Hungarian student a few years older than I was. It was a delicately shaded, sensitively drawn, meticulously rendered little pencil drawing of an ordinary hand drill. I thought, “Wow… a kid did this…and a Hungarian kid like me no less. ” That kid was George Kozmon, (georgekozmon.net) who many years later became my very inspiring figure drawing teacher and friend. That drawing also showed me that art wasn’t just made by dead painters and “professionals” from New York. It could be made right here in Ohio…by people like me…by me. I could be that good…and now I am actually way better than he is. (Hey George, if you actually read this and tell me so, I’ll take it out and tell the truth, but until you see it, it stays…ha!)

Anyway, I won’t belabor the points of inspiration point. I’ll fast forward to the Portrait Society of America 2010 Conference.

Mrs. Zimmerman by Rose Frantzen.

At this conference, I had the privilege of meeting artist Rose Frantzen (oldcityhallgallery.com), seeing her dynamic demonstrations, listening to her talk candidly about her path as an artist and viewing her show at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC. Her show of 180 portraits (!!) was called “Portrait of Maquoketa” and it really touched home.

Rose Frantzen is a crazy good painter of people, she has limitless energy and she comes from a very small town in Iowa. She set up her studio at the Old City Hall on Mainstreet, Maquoketa and invited the citizens to come and pose for her for 5 hour portrait sittings…two a day (!!). She painted a 12 by 12 a la prima portrait of each and every one who signed up. Townspeople would sign up for shifts to come and pose while others would gather and watch the painting process.

This is brilliant on so many levels. First and foremost it is a dream come true for the portrait artist. When you are a painter of people there is no greater luxury than to have willing models of all ages, races and personalities lined up to pose for hours on end and signed up for months to come.

The other idea I loved about it was that she brought great art out from behind the hallowed walls of museums and by-appointment only galleries. She made it fun, friendly and welcoming. And she made the people of the town part of the creation process.

And she was from Iowa…another invisible square vowel state like Ohio. She was from the Midwest, and she was going to stay there. She wasn’t taking her talents to New York to make it, she was bringing the spotlight to Maquoketa by making great art right in her own back yard. And her paintings are good enough where the spotlight does indeed shine on Maquoketa. She hosts sellout workshops with extensive waiting lists. She sells her art nationally right from her gallery on Mainstreet. She creates masterpieces of everyday life, from life, in the tradition of Zorn and Sargent. And she is a star among portrait luminaries internationally.

I saw inspiration and I saw a painter of people making it in the Midwest.

This life changing encounter threw another log on the fire in me that was Chicks with Balls. I could make it happen right here on my mainstreet in my home town.

I was nobody from nowhere…and THAT was the point.