So already, first of all, let's just say--and say it loud--that Scott Ketcham's open studios are this weekend--yes, coming right up, on Saturday, November 18 and Sunday, November 19, both days from 12:00 to 5:00 at the Sandpaper Factory, 83 E. Water Street, Rockland, MA.
Let's also just say that I'm not sure what the painting above is or represents, but I am sure it's beautiful. Its explosiveness may or may not be menacing, but for certain it makes the painting undeniably alive.
Let's just say that usually the first or second weekend of November I publish a blog post that goes into some detail about Scott's latest work, especially as it reflects some emergent, unifying, compelling theme, method, palette, or subject matter that I manage to write "into a ball/ To roll . . . toward some overwhelming question." (I often quote from T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" in these blogs.) This year, despite my resolve, time got away from me and no such lengthy, substantial blog post materialized.
Let's just say that the fact that this post pales in comparison to some of yesteryear's longer, more reflective blog posts does not mean that Scott's work pales in comparison to what he's shown in the past. Frankly, it's vibrant and very interesting.
Let's just say that Scott's tendency, as a person and a painter, has always been to embrace rather than to ignore or minimize darkness. He experiences it as rich, deep, fertile, and giving. Consequently, for him, it is almost always luminous.
Let's just say that some of the luminous darkness Scott has been trying to render is literal. Scott does a fair amount of plein air painting when we visit our cabin in easternmost New York state, and one of his favorite subjects and spots is the shaded stream that runs through the woods close to our cabin. For a long time, he was dissatisfied with his efforts to convey the quality of light he experiences in the often shadowy, nearly hidden places he chooses along the stream. Only recently has Scott been beginning to feel that he's getting the light right.
Let's just say that when the subject of his paintings is a discernible human figure, luminosity can both emanate from it and surround it. In the drawing-like painting to the right--it's done in etching ink applied with a brush--the serene African-American woman exudes composure and certainty. Her temples and forearms glow in light from no particular source, given that she appears in no particular context or space. She holds tight to, even kisses, something wiry, delicate, perhaps formerly coiled, and most definitely mysterious. What is it? Might it bruise or tear her hands? Ultimately, persuaded by her inner light and the outer light around her, we trust her choice to love what she loves.
Let's just say when the subject is a human figure in a muscular relationship to a context or background, sometimes a space and sometimes a place, the figure often seems to be either emerging from or submerging in, even hurtling into, a darkness of undisclosed nature and origin. Often present in these paintings is intense blackness that devours light and then glows with it. But from whence comes this almost unworldly shimmering light, this luminosity?
Let's just say that, in part because the colors in some of these paintings also appear prominently in the images captured by the Hubbell telescope, I always experience these paintings as expressions of the eternal and endless scheme of things and our certain place in it. Both light and luminosity come from a place where the scientific and the spiritual have never been separate. Thus, these paintings capture and radiate the numinous luminous, which holds, blesses, and births.
Let's just say that Scott's latest work is provocative, evocative, and downright beautiful. Come down to his studio this weekend to experience the luminous, or at least to see the his paintings, his drawings, and the light.
