By Lynda McClanahan

I’m working on the frame intended for “Vulture Serenade” while the piece is away at the photographer. There’s often a mixture of relief and anxiety when a big project is finished. I pour myself completely into whatever I’m doing and since art is pretty much all I do these days, there’s a gaping hole in my life whenever the drafting table is empty. Painting frames helps.

“Vulture Serenade” was prompted by an invitation from the Vanderelli Room to make a piece on the transformational power of loss. I used to think that creating something at the suggestion of another was difficult, but these days, it doesn’t seem any different from creating something completely on my own. It’s like reverse-engineering a river system. You start with the ocean, move on to the river, and end up standing next to the creek in your own backyard. 

I keep a file of images that have already attracted the imagination so the first thing I do before beginning a project is to comb through it for something which jumps out. My theory is that all of the images are, by definition, in sympathy with my own subconscious mind and maybe even the wider, deeper recesses of the minds of others. Experience has taught me that the image that won’t go away even when I want it to is always the right one to follow. This time it was the popular painting traditions of Persia, in Iran.

Every culture has its own variation on the theme of pretty ladies getting up to whatever pretty ladies get up to when they’re alone, but for some reason, this one really stuck with me. There are a gazillion similar works to be found on the web, many of them reverse-painted on glass, which gives them a crisp, luminous look. The layout is always wonderfully strange, more like applique work on a quilt than a traditionally composed painting. In this example, all the fruits and flowers are simply plopped on top of the carpet, as if each object were created separately and then sewn into place. The patterns are sophisticated and finely done, but they also work toward flattening the plane, a technique I like and use often. There’s a freedom in disregarding perspective and scale which I find utterly delightful and somehow more true. In real life, the wine glass would be three feet tall and the pear is big enough to cover the lady’s face, yet it doesn’t affect the power or message of the painting in the least. I’m fairly certain there is more than one hand in evidence here. How else to account for such a sloppy-looking cat? As in much of medieval art, a master probably did the main figure and left everything else to assistants. One of them may have been a bit pesky too, because those red velvet curtains which enfold the figure’s head like a crown have a bit of a labial look. This thing was designed for pleasure of all kinds.

Once I had the basic idea (figure, interior, musical instrument, animals) I sat with it for a few days. I was confident that the Persian piece was pointing to something, but exactly what that something was, I hadn’t a clue. The period just before an idea flashes forth feels like praying for the answer to a story problem. Just as in math, if a solution is assumed, it always appears. I always get my idea.

I soon discovered just how elongated the main figure was and marveled at how the source artist had somehow made it all work. I shortened the lady’s lower half by at least a third, yet it still retains the strange, off-kilter foreshortening effect of the original. Good thing I like strange. 

I retained the patterning of the original but have shifted away from an idealized version of pleasure in favor of just taking pleasure in the way things actually are. The human condition is ripe for contemplation, but it’s the kind of meditation that only yields results if undertaken honestly. Nature’s book is full of wisdom, but you can only get it if you read to the very end. A former teacher used to say, “The world is a bedroom, not a courtroom,” but I’d say there’s a lot of rough play going on in that room, however beautiful its bedspread and curtains. 

All of my paintings are designed to lure viewers in with an idea and to hold them close once they get it. Anyone who gazes for more than a moment will soon discover I’ve gotten there ahead of them, no matter where they look. I’m in every single inch of this painting, and so are you.

Lynda McClanahan is a contemporary folk artist living and working in Columbus, Ohio.  Awards include a 2022 Greater Columbus Arts Council Support For Professional Artists Grant, 2019 Ohio Arts Council Individual  Excellence Grant, 2018 Greater Columbus Arts Council Resource Grant,  2015 Puffin W. Foundation grant,  2013 Ohio Arts Council purchase award, and a 2010 Greater Columbus Arts Council fellowship.  Lynda is also a musician, church soloist and busker.  When not making music or art, Lynda maintains an urban garden, preserves food and makes wine. See more of her work at Lyndamcclanahanart.com