Recent Photographic Work

During the past six months I have been working on a series of photographic images that combine photographs I have taken of the landscape in rural Newfoundland with paintings I have done there in my studio. The paintings, as I have mentioned before, were not conceived of as landscape images but as the body of work has grown there is no denying the influence the landscape has had on the iconography.  Over five years I have taken perhaps as many as twenty thousand pictures from more or less the same point-of-view on the east side of my house and that series has documented in detail what is visible throughout any given day with changes in the light and the weather. This is not a new concept. Monet first began to paint in series from a fixed point-of-view as far back as 1870 recognizing how the changing light influenced what was visible. He was interested in grand structures like Rouen Cathedral which he painted many times and mundane forms like the hay stacks in the fields near where he lived. His approach to painting was called Impressionism. With the photographs I am still surprised by what I see at different times in the day and through the different seasons. Some of the images are beautiful and resonant and others just capture an aspect of nature like the height of the tide in October or the texture of a cliff face at dusk. In juxtaposing an image of the landscape with an image of a painting I began to see how I could create a unique image and one that was unabashedly modern in the now classical meaning of that term with its implication of a flattened picture space as the painted image defeats any illusion of depth that might occur in the photograph.

Living Colour Continued

Living Colour is the name of a series of paintings, all 4'x3,' done last year, 2012, between September and November. Three of the paintings, see below, were shown this past summer at Two Whales Coffee Shop, in Port Rexton Newfoundland, during the month of August.

That series had a  formal approach to composition and I decided in September of this year, 2013, to continue with the idea of pure painting but to break opened the compositional constraints. Here are five of the recent paintings. Untitled 1 is 6'x4', Untitled 2 is 4'x3', Nothing Like Jack Bush and The Breughel Shuffle are 4'x3' and Paradise By The Dashboard Light is 6'x4'. They will appear in this order.

Painting 2013

In Newfoundland since early in June I have been working on a series of paintings, all 4'x4' except for a triptych at 10'x4'. The works are in two series. One utilizing a vertical compositional structure
and the other a horizontal. The vertical may be in response to the physical configuration and power of the landscape while the horizontal might be about the sky. In the most recent works the two structures have begun to collide and come apart.

Excellent Swimmers With Impeccable Form Innocent and Chaste

it was on the pier

at Jackson’s Point

in the mid-summer heat

pretending to shade their eyes

secure in the blind

of their separate gangs

skin tanned and glistening

bathing suits wet

both fit and both excellent

swimmers with impeccable form

race to the buoy and back

and the winner is

forgotten as she  pulls off

the white  bathing cap

and shakes the curls

back into her raven hair

Hey little girl is your daddy home
Did he go away and leave you all alone
I got a bad desire
I’m on fire

At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet
And a freight train running through the
Middle of my head
Only you can cool my desire
I’m on fire

desire trumps all religion

and parental imperative

they had nothing to say but

their beauty was undeniable

standing beside each other on the alter

under the canopy

outrage already brewing

the Russians and the Poles

never meant to get along

his father inviting one hundred

more to the wedding

and forgetting

to tell her parents

who were picking up the tab

and there were no seats

for honoured guests

the Gentile politicians

and the bankers

and chaos ensued

and that was only the ceremony

and through the evening

it  got much worse

and we would hear about it often

how his parents

first cousins from the shtetl

in Poland

had no class

though the mother

with a loving heart in disrepair

warm and giving would die

much too soon

while the father

a true believer prayed

three times a day

to a God he would never know

a furrier making garments

to stave off the cold

Persian lamb, muskrat, beaver,

mink and Alaska seal

ownership alone

was a declaration of prosperity

in this new land

both bleak and hostile

but not as hostile as Poland

not as dangerous to the man

with his prayer book hurrying

through the shadows

the sun lit streets

draped in darkness

to say Kaddish

for a mother or a wife

no pogroms or purges in this place

simply the shortened day

and the descending chill of indifference

her parents came from

Kiev and Odessa

and far apart they would remain

once  all the children were born

one in Belgium

on the way over

and three at the end

of the world’s longest road

where he ran a  dry goods store

lent money, gambled high stakes, won

and lost a fortune

and she a sullen introvert

was devoted only

to the children

in time he sent them all away

to Toronto

and stayed above the store

with its green linoleum floor

and the arborite table

and the mistress speaking French

the house by the lake sold

in exchange for one

with a view

on  a hill close

to Castle Loma 

the Cossacks

back in the old country

had a way of subverting 

religious impulse

whether with a pitch fork or a sword

and prayer came on days marked

by the cycles of the moon

in rooms adorned with symbols

of  half remembered stories

the women seated above the men

wearing their finest clothes

growing up in the north

they kept a shovel inside

the door to carve  a way

through the snow

leaving her with a different sense of God

than him on Euclid Street

his grandmother with an ax

killing the Friday night chicken

out in the yard

in the way that it was written

she wanted a bacon sandwich on white toast

with butter and mayonnaise

it was something he would never comprehend

choking on religious superstition

he offered little resistance

to the leash pulled tight

by an unseen hand

on a good night in their new house

in the newly built suburb

of treeless streets

at the city limits

there might be laughter 

on a Sunday night

watching Ed Sullivan on TV

and they might retreat

after the kids were in bed

and though there was never

enough sex for him

and always too much for her

there was a palpable heat

burning into the darkness

and bringing light to the household

like a comet passing through

a distant galaxy

once or twice a year

but rarely would it remain

civil with cruel words

enflamed with hate

emanating from behind closed doors

they hated themselves

for the trap they were in

and they hated each other

for springing it

love and desire slipping

from their grasp

sinking to the bottom

visible and out of reach

never enough money

since he left school

and went to work for his father

doling out a salary

that came in a brown envelope

like the cutters and the sewers on the floor

with strings of failed promise

and guilt attached

and always some back handed

comment about the wife

whose spending was unending

and for why does she need that hat, dress, coat, car, piano, TV, set of dishes

or  sterling silver cutlery

and religion with its rules

written back in time

of the bicameral mind

and still beyond

a shadow of a doubt

each believer an authority deflecting

and refusing all questions

the wisdom of the holy one

blessed be he

was absolute

and they fought

at the table

resistance and revolution

for the sake

of the children

he wanting them cut

and pasted into the family

ledger of belief

she wanting them born to freedom

the capacity to think and chose

and always this fight would erupt

on the most holy day

and night with screams

and the car tires spinning

in the gravel drive

while she sped away

for some reprieve

bastard

bitch

son of a whore

cunt

and so it is said

you shall repent

on this day and atone

for all your sins

it took them thirty years

to wring the last drop of life

out of their union

and leave us with the residue

shoveling it into the plastic pails

we used as children

at the beach

the shovels bending

with the weight of each load

and  it would take a thousand trips

up and down the cellar stairs

to eliminate the dampness and the stench

the human waste

Stephen Zeifman

What Is It Exactly That You’ve Done

the inner rage

has bowed out

to no applause

just the puzzled look

the sideways glance

what is it exactly

that you’ve done

beginnings now read

as the end

dawn is dusk and dusk

is dawn again

how can emptiness

have such weight

a void carried

between the ribs

and the soul

a physical burden

all day and all of the night

Mama take this page off of me

I don’t need it anymore

there’s nothing left

nothing left to say

as the darkness steals away

the remnants of our days

the scraps untouched

and uneaten snatched

from the edges of the plate

Mama put this pain in the ground

I can’t bear it anymore

that long black cloud is coming down

I feel like I’m knockin on heaven’s door

dressed in woolens

woolens on the shore

wading trepidatiously

into the arms of a welcoming sea

fistfuls of sand

all that remain

filling my pockets

muffling the sounds

of change

what is it exactly that you’ve done

what is it exactly

that holds up to the scrutiny of the sun

or the moon’s languid glance

you sing a little

and on occasion

you’ve been known to dance

but what does it matter

only the fool waits listlessly

in the wings

to escort you on your journey

Mama take this badge off of me

I can’t use it anymore

it’s getting dark too dark to see

I fell like I’m knockin on heaven’s door

knock knock knockin on heaven’s door

knock knock knockin on heaven’s door

Stephen Zeifman

The 9/11 Memorial at Ground Zero in New York City

On Saturday May 14, 2013 around 7:00 PM I revisited the memorial to those killed at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. On that day I watched the tragedy unfold on an old
TV in the art studio where I worked as a teacher. I stood with a colleague before the students arrived and we were shocked, stunned by what we were seeing. First one tower then the other and the horror of the fire and the people leaping to their death and the buildings essentially melting. There were no words for what we felt and then both of our classes arrived and we had to teach and that was it until later in the day at home when one could speak about what one had witnessed earlier that day. There were many conversations in the next few months and then the events receded out of the mental limelight into the shadows of the recent past. I remember being at New Year's party, bringing in 2002, and wanting to talk about 9/11 but no one was really in the mood. Not a festive topic at all.

In February 2012, in New York for a reunion, I made my way down to the recently opened memorial site having no sense of what to expect. After going through security, like getting on a plane, and then walking about ten blocks, I entered the memorial site and saw what had been created to remember the victims of that day. Two large square holes, about twenty-five feet deep, with water flowing down all four sides to the base and from there flowing into a black square drain of indeterminate depth in the center. Surrounding each hole was a metal barrier with the name of each person who died carved out and lit from below. The sense was of life ending and flowing down the drain touching on the randomness and sudden surprise of endings, on the waste and the loss of life of each person who perished. To me it was the fullest and most complete artistic representation of loss, the most moving memorial, a unique and complete vision, and I was moved to feel what had been stuffed away all those years before and finally had some kind of emotional catharsis.

Returning a year and a few months later with my wife and my son I was not expecting to be moved again but found the experience even more powerful than the first time. The tallest of the new towers was almost complete and was a majestic shape soaring into the sky and this structure added to the sense of New York's power and resilience and rebuilding made perfect sense. We all felt like we were on hallowed ground. My son is an architect and in the presence of what has been built on that site I hugged him and said he had chosen a noble profession one capable or creating powerful structures that can cause people to feel and think in a spiritual dimension that transcends the all pervasive urban concerns of commerce and materialism.

Water Colour and The Figure

We recently completed fifteen weeks with the Rosedale Drawing Group
and will resume in the fall. After drawing with charcoal, graphite and chalk
the participants wanted to try and paint the figure using water colours and
I invited an artist friend, Catherine Beaudette, to do a workshop with the group.
The significant points she made about technique were that water seeks
its own level, protect the white areas first, hold the brush loosely and near
the top, and use a fat brush. People who had been exposed to more conventional
instruction found this to be something of a revelation, more painterly and
less constricting, and there was great excitement throughout the three hour
session. There were two more classes after that where people continued to

work with this medium. 

What Can Be Learned In Thirty Hours Of Drawing

 

During the winter I teach a ten week course, thirty hours, of  drawing. We meet for three hours once a week. There is a process for teaching drawing, an approach that I have developed over many years. My feeling is anyone can learn how to draw.  Maybe not like Da Vinci but in a way that allows for some satisfying work. We begin with various approaches to line and work toward a focused and solid rendering of form with shadow and light. Our primary subjects are still life and the figure. We explore various black and white media during the program including graphite, charcoal, black wash, conté, and the participants can experiment with colour if they chose.  I thought it would be informative to post some of the work that has been done recently.

Just yesterday, during a still life class, we talked about how a bowl, a timeless form, holding a few pears can still be lovely and challenging to draw. Drawing itself is a timeless practice and one that can reward the participant with the kind of relaxation that comes from being totally focused on a task at hand and for a while forgetting and letting go of all the noise that occupies the busy urban mind. And over time, seeing one’s skills develop and looking at the fine drawings one has made gives the participants a sense of accomplishment and pride in the hard work they have done to achieve what once seemed like a goal that was out of reach.

September Morning Port Rexton, NL and Rocket to Oblivion Toronto, ON

Just beginning the process of editing photographs taken in the last six months I came across this and thought I would post it. There is a startling quality to the light and a real change to the coastline with the elimination of detail because of the fog. What I am seeing in Toronto now is so different but on occasion there is a drama to be found in the evening sky.