A Question and Answer with Gregg Fretheim

The following interview with Gregg Fretheim about his recent trip to Africa was taken in Bloomington, Minnesota on December 4, 2009.

What was the general outline of your trip?

Before I left I decided to go to South Africa where the old Zulu villages are in the east and the game reserves in that area have the black rhino. I planned to fly into Johannesburg and go to the Mkuze reserve and then stay on a private game reserve called Abu Madi. I knew from correspondence between the reserves that transportation was going to be tough so I knew getting any sort of rides was going to be rough but I just had to take it from there.

Did you give yourself a certain amount of time to acclimate yourself once you arrived?

I spent four days in Johannesburg to adjust myself and I didn’t want to be in any rush. I went to Swaziland and stayed overnight and then went down to Mkuze and stayed in a little town called Ubombo. It’s definitely a different world. It’s scrub brush and Tshaneni (Ghost mountain) rises in the distance at the end of the great rift valley. I didn’t know a lot before I left. But as you see more and more it’s like a book that opens up for you. My main stay was the animals and painting the animals because I haven’t done that.

Did you have any idea how you were going to paint the animals?

No. There are painting groups from England that offer trips but I didn’t want to go with a group. They’re very expensive as well. I wanted to maximize the time I had to paint these animals. I saw what some other people were doing and they were very brief sketches of the animals, very brief, so I thought I’m going to be lucky to get a chance to paint any of these animals, and how am I going to see them?

Rides with a professional into the bush can cost anywhere from 200 to 500 dollars a day. I couldn’t afford that so that might be a problem. I corresponded with Martha at Abu Madi and she said they could bring me to a watering hole and have a chance to see the animals in the morning and evening but I really had no idea how it was going to work at all. Everywhere else I tried was very expensive or they didn’t know what I wanted.

So the idea was to drop you off somewhere in the reserve and leave you and pick you back up later?

The idea was to bring me down to a watering hole in the morning, where there’s protection, and the animals come in and I can paint this. Martha told me when I was there in the morning at the watering hole behind protection I would have a chance to paint them. It worked out really well. My driver, Bongani, brought me to the watering hole in the morning and picked me up about five hours later. We became good friends and after a while was bringing me with him to help with his work, so I was able to go on the reserve almost everyday.

So what was the protection?

The sleeping area was inside heavily electrified wire. And when I got to the watering hole the protection area was a small box with a slit in it and no wire. They had three or four major watering holes, one had a fence, the others had these boxes with slits on the ground that you could crawl into.

So there was enough room in this box to setup your easel?

Yeah, at an angle. I had to look either one way or the other. They had a little chair in there but there wasn’t a whole heckuva lot of room. I had to position myself at one end and look out that way which obstructed much of the view so I had to watch for animals only from the angle I was looking at.

Did you find that worked for you?

Oh it did work. It was exhilarating. I’ve never painted with that level of exhilaration before. The anticipation and these animals....

How close was the box to the watering hole?

About 40 to 50 yards away. Some animals were very close, about 20 feet away. I had imagined what it would be like, but this was really different.

Can you describe a scene in front of one of these watering holes as you’re watching it from the box?

So you’re in there waiting, and you hear them coming. You hear the gravel on the road, or they’re breathing and you know something’s coming close and you get ready. Hopefully they will come in. A lot of the animals sensed something quickly. Zebras did - I had only 20 or 30 seconds to get a small sketch of a zebra. They lifted their heads, sensed something wasn’t quite right, and took off. Other animals, the impala came in large groups, would just hang out at the watering hole and that gave way to other animals feeling comfortable. Wildebeests, warthogs, monkeys, came in with the impala laying around and that was nice because it gave me the chance to do many small studies of different animals. And it was special when animals did come by. I spent days, literally days, in this box where nothing came by and I could only hear the animals around me.

And how would you describe the result?

The result is a combination of landscape painting and cave painting. It’s kind of a floating world to get the impact and image of these animals. It’s as fast as I’ve painted to get that image. They were always moving so it was quite a challenge. The exhilaration to being so close to these animals is intense, and some of them are absolutely humongous, and you feel so small in that box, and the reason for that box is protection.


Did you feel protected in that box?

Yeah, but my mind went to wander and knew the black rhino, as schizophrenic as it is, has been known to attack trains, so if it would sense something...it very well could be trouble. Once out on a road in the reserve a black rhino took a charge at our car, we revved our engine, it lifted its head and ran into the bush and hid. Over the next couple days we were hearing stories about a black rhino charging white cars. At the watering hole the rhinos stayed at a far distance. I was hoping to get one close to paint, the tracks showed it had been there during the night. But I was happy to get a sketch of one even at quite a distance. Also, the box had to be checked every morning for snakes, especially for mambas or a spitting cobra, so that was a concern.

So with this intense exhilaration did you feel, looking back at the work you produced, something different?

Yeah, for open air painting it goes to another level. There isn’t even the convenience of the slow sun that moves. This is rapid fire. It must almost feel like a combat situation, it’s like hunting these animals as they come within range to be able to paint them. And the sounds and size of these animals...I’ve seen them at the zoo...but when the driver says I’ll be back in five hours to pick you up, it’s like...well, I’m here with my paintbrush and my easel, if something were to happen, it could be trouble. Everything worked out very well. It was different from a lot of my work. Not having time really pushed me into other areas, all rules and ways I had done landscape before were completely thrown out. It was almost like survival trying to get the animal on the canvas.

I want to move on now to a different subject but one that you’ve touched on before. You’ve previously talked about your approach, or an approach, to painting when you’ve said to go beyond the technical. But for many people that seems like a contradiction. For example, if a painter heard, ‘It’s not about the technical’, they could rightfully say, ‘How can it not be about technique? It’s involved everywhere from mixing the paints to catching the light to the brush strokes. It all seems technical.’

It is for the student. When you start out you study the masters and you see the masters only in technical and not in cause and effect. When I often go to galleries and artist’s web sites, I see a claim that they are Impressionist, Realist, etc. So, can an artist today lay claim to a period of historical art?

I suppose they can but I think it’s more just feel good wishful thinking. I just don’t think that anyone today will be in the history books next to C. Monet. Impressionism, the period, already happened. When you’re a student you start out studying through historic periods like Impressionism, Realism, Pointillism, Cubism, etc. Then, as a painter now, you won’t be living the historic cause and effect of Impressionism but just looking at the technical. The student in their studio can study the period techniques for twenty or fifty years but some artists may feel that they want to break out of that technical bondage to find themselves. This is the hardest question the artist has to ask himself. How do you do this and am I brave enough to go against schools that have their own rules and the artists that created groups of past historic periods?. How does one get out of the technical bondage of the past?

I believe one way is doing the same thing the Impressionists did during their time. They broke away from thinking nature by getting out of the studio where each individual can record nature in their own interpretation, wow, did it work.

You can try starting with small student size canvasses and start going larger and larger. This will be hard to finish, but you won’t be thinking technical, because you won’t have time. You’ll go past the technical and start painting what you see. Some great things will start happening. Stick with it and don’t be afraid. You’ll start finding yourself.

A few days after hearing this I, that is David Frank, was reading from the diary of the Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz. A passage there bore a keen resemblance to the topic above, and I post it as reminder that the issue at hand is as much an individual one as it is a generational one.

I said to Eichler (a young Polish painter):

“I am amazed that Polish painters do not try to exploit their trump card, which is their Polishness, in art. Are you going to imitate the West forever? Prostrate yourselves before painting, like the French? Paint with gravity? Paint on your knees in great deference, paint timidly? I acknowledge this type of painting, but it is not in our nature because our traditions are different. Poles have never been especially concerned with art. We were inclined to believe that the nose was not for the snuff box but the snuff box for the nose. We preferred the thought that ‘man is higher than what he produces.’ Stop being afraid of your own paintings, stop adoring art, treat it in a Polish manner, look down at it, wield it, and then the originality in you will be freed, new avenues will open before you and you will gain that which is the most valuable, the most fertile: your own reality.”

I could not convince Eichler, who had invested a great deal of energy and effort in creating a solid Europeanism for himself, and he merely looked at me in that by now familiar way, as if to say: how easy it is to talk! Painters and sculptors are crushed by the enormity of technical difficulties and so they concentrate on their struggle for the perfect line, color: they do not, generally speaking, desire to extricate themselves from their workshops. They underestimate the fact that a new way of seeing allows them to undo several knots that would otherwise not get untied. When I, therefore, demand of them that they be people who paint, they want only to be painters. I am confident, however, that today we have room in ourselves for thoughts about art which are more specifically ours and more creative.

Do not waste your precious time in pursuit of Europe. You will never catch up with her. Don’t try to become Polish Matisses, you will not spawn a Braque with your deficiencies. Strike, rather, at European art. Be those who unmask. Instead of pulling yourselves up to someone else’s maturity, try instead to reveal Europe’s immaturity. Try to organize your true feelings, so that they will gain an objective existence in the world. Find theories consistent with your practice. Create a criticism of art from your point of view. Create an image of the world, man, and culture which will be in harmony with you, because if you can paint this picture, it will not be difficult to paint others.1

1Gombrowicz, Witold. Diary Volume I. Trans. Lillian Vallee. Northwestern University Press, 1988.

Above is a photo of a friend helping hang paintings for Gregg Fretheim's last gallery show in 2002.

Coming Soon

Interviews with two travel painting stalwarts, Michael Kluckner and Gregg Fretheim, are forthcoming. As I write, Michael is enduring the heat and dryness of "Outback Oz" (Australia) and challenging it with his watercolors. We look forward to touch in with him after the dust settles. Earlier in the year, Gregg traveled to South Africa to paint the wildlife and landscape on safari. Expect an interview to be posted with Gregg in the next few weeks. If anyone has a question for either one, here's a chance.

Keep painting and keep traveling.

A Brief Biography: Sheila Thornton

Sheila Thornton is an artist living in Los Angeles, CA. She earned her BFA in industrial design at the Columbus College of Art and Design in 2000. Since then, she has spent half of the last 9 years traveling in various parts of Europe, Africa, North and Central America, and Asia, always with a sketchbook or paint set at hand. Presently, Sheila is planning her next trip to Alaska in the fall.

Sheila has agreed to a few questions about her travel painting and below are her answers.

A Question and Answer with Sheila Thornton

What mediums do you take when you travel? Oils, watercolors, pastels, etc.? What equipment do you bring?

I usually stick to pencil, ink, watercolor, oils, and/or water soluble oils. There are four 'kits' that I take with me, in any combination, depending on where I am going and how long I plan to stay.

The first kit is what I carry with me in my purse everywhere I go. It consists of: a mechanical pencil, water brush, eraser, fountain pen with water soluble brown ink, and a small sketchbook. This allows me to quickly sketch with pencil, refine the image with the brown ink, and quickly brush in values with the water brush. Then after a few minutes, I can go back and erase any unwanted pencil once it has dried.

The second kit I will take in addition to the first kit for shorter trips lasting 1-2 weeks or less. It includes a small watercolor set, permanent fine line markers, a 6" x 8" sketchbook with thicker paper, and a blue 'shop' paper towel. Now I can add washes of color to my drawings done with pencil, fine line marker, or the water soluble ink.

The third kit is for when I plan on working outside in oils, making small 6" x 8" sketches. This is usually for domestic travel, since it is worrisome to fly internationally with oil paints. These paintings take anywhere from 1-3 hours to complete, so this trip will likely be specifically for doing several oil sketches. This is when I take my wonderful 'Belly River' Alla Prima Pochade box, lightweight tripod, 'survival items', and oil set, all contained in a small backpack. The oil set consists of oil paint, brushes, panels, Gamsol in a jar, paper towels, and a few plastic grocery bags for garbage and anything leaky. The 'survival items' include: a hat, sunglasses, sunscreen, insect repellent, water bottle, snacks, and iPod.

The fourth kit is what I take for international travel, and is what I took with me to the Philippines. It includes a handmade cardboard pochade box with wet-panel carrier, a small set of water-miscible oils, a plastic water jar, brushes, a painting rag, and gessoed cardboard panels. This set is lightweight, ideal for backpacking, and best of all, everything fits inside the box and weighs less than 5 pounds!

What preparations do you make for a trip?

For my international backpacking trips, usually just book my flight online, arrange for any visas, and book my first night's stay. I'll read about and study the countries to have an idea of the places I'd like to go and paint, but for me, independent travel is about flexibility and freedom, so I don't plan a schedule. I enjoy learning about a place and it's people and painting is a fulfilling way to engage in this wonderful process.

What are your favorite subjects to paint when traveling? What is the most difficult subject you have painted?

People are my favorite subject to paint. But while traveling, I enjoy painting landscapes more because it captures the sense of the place, and it is fun to get lost and explore! People are the most difficult to paint because it is unusual to find someone willing to sit long enough to paint them.

Has travel painting presented you with any particular troubles in regard to painting itself, whether it be completion, interruptions, finding materials, etc?

I'm usually good about finishing paintings, even if they are done quickly. And, I haven't had any problems finding materials because I take everything I need with me.

Sometimes it can be irritating if people want to talk to you excessively while you are painting. Or when throngs of kids crowd so close, you can't move your arms to paint! But those are of little concern in comparison to the excitement of painting. If I get too distracted, I quickly finish up and move on. There's no point in struggling with a situation, as this will show up in the painting!

The weather sometimes pose challenges. I've had a few paintings disintegrate on me, when monsoon rains began and dissolved the water soluble oils I had just painted. Also, strong wind and cold weather can cut short a day of outdoor painting. And probably one of the biggest nuisances for me in tropical climates is mosquitoes!

What are the major differences for you between studio painting and painting in open air?

With studio painting, I have all the comforts of home, control over working conditions, and a virtually limitless time frame for painting. Since I prefer to work from life, I generally will work on still life and portraiture in the studio, which is slower paced and meditative. With painting outside, there are many variables, such as the changing light, weather, and movement of people and things. For me, this makes painting out of doors a fast and engaging activity, full of possibilities.

Because of your Filipino ancestry did your experience remarkably differ when you began to paint in the Philippines for the first time compared to other places?

Yes, there was definitely a sentimental feeling I had while painting in the Philippines. Since it is my mother's homeland, and I have such a vast amount of family there, I never know who I could be related to, so I pretend they are all relatives, which makes it that much nicer.

A Brief Biography: Tom Laukkanen

Tom Laukkanen has been pursuing his art his entire life, and in the last decade he has traveled through a wide swath of the United States with paint supplies stowed in easy reach. He has painted in the Southwestern States of Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona; in Ohio, New York, and Ontario, Canada; along the Missouri River in Montana; prairies in South Dakota; and an array of landscapes and climates in his home state of Minneosta. Tom frequently paints portraits of individuals interwoven into his life.

I had the opportunity of interviewing Tom recently and excerpts from some of that discussion are posted below.

A Questin and Answer with Tom Laukkanen

The following interview was recorded between painter Tom Laukkanen and David Frank on 21 January, 2009. Tom resides in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA.

I’m curious about the first, I guess you could say, sparks that ignited your interest to begin putting paint on canvas?

My dad being an art teacher, he brought home markers all the time, so he would give me a blank tablet of paper to do whatever I wanted on. The first memory I have of painting, my dad and I went out in the back yard and sat on our picnic table facing our neighbors house, and we did a watercolor of an apple and crabapple tree. As I did the painting, I remember looking to my dad for guidance and he would do the brushstroke, and I would emulate it. I don’t have that first painting, but I do remember the process, and I remember at one point my dad put a little red in for the apple trees and I said, "That doesn’t look like an apple." The apples were in full bloom at that point, and he said, "It doesn’t have to look like an apple." Then I remember taking the red paint and making the same stroke as my dad and thinking, "This is interesting."

It planted in my brain that there’s something else to putting down on the paper exactly what you perceive an apple to be. I wasn’t deep in thought about what that red stroke meant, but that was the first spark that really stirred something in me that I can’t explain. I try to capture that today in my work.

When did you first consider yourself to be an artist?

I always considered myself an artist from an early age. I always spent time drawing and throughout high school I spent an immense amount of time on it. In college the focus shifted onto the classroom setting and partying and all this...

Were you going to school for art at the time?

No, I thought it was something separate. I never even considered it. It was just something I did. I always had my paints with me in college, through unsuccessful attempts to finish paintings, I always kept it around. I think it was in my mid-to-late 20's that I remembered I was an artist. Not when I became, but I remembered it. It always stayed with me but was always put on the back-burner. It just became clear there was something missing in life that I always enjoyed, and it was art. It wasn’t always necessarily the end product but it was the production, the introspection involved in knowing yourself when able to do art, really figuring out what art meant to me and trying to strive towards that.

What was that void that developed and on what level does art reside now in your life?

It wasn’t a void. It was being lost; it wasn’t missing. It was just disorientation. I feel with my art I can become orientated with myself and strive for what’s better for myself and I can let go of those things and turn inward towards myself and figure what’s going on in my life, kind of like meditation. Then the void isn’t necessarily filled but it’s centered to a knowledge of what that void is. So when I act out towards other people, you know, in love or hate, I find that in my work I connect with those feelings and if I can express that inwardly I can come out of the experience being able to express that better outwardly towards other people in my everyday interactions because I’m not letting myself go. I’m not letting go of what’s important to me and that way I can relate better to what’s important to other people as well as myself. I know that feeling that void is just being disorientated for myself and other people.

Is this disorientation something you deal with, or feel, or sense quite a bit even since that time where you re-found your art, or is it something that once you grasp hold of it you have it locked firmly in your grasp? Or is it something more of a struggle?

It’s always a struggle. I find myself losing grip often with keeping things in the right perspective with how I want to live my life. I find that to be a constant. It’s not something I necessarily dwell on, but I know it’s there. There’s times when I’m caught up with work or other people, and I lose sight of the art and then it will call. It will call to me - I need to paint. It seems when I get back to painting and producing I connect with myself and therefore connect better with other people. It’s not necessarily something I always have a hold on, but it’s always within my grasp.

What mediums do you work in when you travel? And why do you work in those?

I started out working in acrylics. They have opacity and the coverage is great. If you make a mistake you can paint over it. Another thing is, it dries quick, since it’s water based. It’s clean. Unlike watercolor you can paint over mistakes.

I had two experiences with acrylics that were disappointing. One time I was in a real dense fog in Kelly Island State Park in Ohio. I felt like I was capturing things, and it was going great, and the fog turned into a light mist, and the painting had nearly everything washed off the canvas. In Arizona a year or two later: the weather was perfect, the sun was shining, 85 degrees, but it was so dry the minute my brush hit the canvas the paint was gumming up, and I couldn’t work with the product. It didn’t matter how much water I put in it. I talked to some people about it and decided I would start using oils.

The first time I used oils was in New Mexico. I brought both acrylics and oils along and some canvases I had borrowed. They were pre-ground in raw sienna, and I started painting over these ground canvases with my acrylics and apparently they had been ground in oil because my paint was beading up. I took out the oil and started working and haven’t looked back since. There are other difficulties - dry time is always a factor and it’s messy. But I can work in snow, I can work in a light mist. It’s never failed on me.

Where do you see your art progressing? What are your ambitions for your art? What challenges are you facing now?

My art will go wherever I go. We travel not only through space but through time. I think sometimes the word ‘travel painter’ speaks of someone traveling through space, but we forget we’re also traveling through time and whether I’m stuck in the same place, if I’m stuck here, time is still moving on, and my painting will follow. I paint the river bottoms near my house, and I paint the people in my life and the experiences that document my place in time and not just my space where I’ve been and where I’ve occupied, but the moments I’ve occupied. I hope my art follows me through time. That’s the one thing that’s constant. My space is forever changing because time doesn’t allow it to stay the same, it doesn’t allow me to stay the same. Whether I’m stuck in a studio, I think I’ll always be a travel painter because it’s time and space. Here I am, here it is. Here it was. That’s it. Hopefully I can keep it honest to myself and not try to dictate to other people what my art should be.

If other people can see something in it that connects with them, that’s great, but I’m not trying do anything but carry it with me. Sometimes I carry my art with me, and sometimes it carries me. It’s my magic carpet. It takes me through time and I take it.

A Brief Biograpy: Kathryn Stedham

Kathryn Stedham began nearly two decades ago exhibiting her work in the eastern United States. Since that time she has traveled extensively throughout the Orient: to Japan, South Korea, and China; to Cambodia and Thailand, where she was witness to the 2004 Asian Tsunami while painting along Tonsai Beach. Her paintings and monoprints have been displayed publicly and privately in the United States, Canada, and Japan.

Kathryn is currently the Executive Director at Spiro Arts in Park City, Utah. She helped build, both literally and more abstractly, the fledgling program from a century-old mining camp to a "state-of-the-art" residency for visual artists and writers. In the light of achievement, Kathryn humbly concedes the inclusiveness an "Executive Director" encompasses, which includes "office manager, pencil-sharpener, chauffeur, [and] maid." In 2008, the program provided seven artists residency to pursue their work.

Kathryn is soon to travel to Costa Rica and renew the role of a travel painter.