[This post is the last in my series on Ken Potter, his impact on my life, as well as the California Style of watercolor painting.]
Recently I have been rereading Ken’s letters, and contemplating the advice he gave to my younger self (then at the beginning of my art career). His letters were always hand-written, sometimes inside a card printed with one his beautiful watercolors, like the example below.
In many ways, Ken and I were opposites: he lived in the moment, and his work was all about spontaneity and improvisation. "Bold and free, Bold and free!" he shouted over my shoulder as I worked nervously at my easel, agonizing over every detail with ooh-too-much care. "Precision-ism" is what he called my work. He said I was becoming a "Precisionist" who created "colored drawings" rather than "paintings". His point was valid; the truth is I liked to draw more than I liked to paint, and my paintings tended to be overworked. I was never able to be naturally spontaneous. Ken was a proponent of the “California Style”, or “California School” of watercolor painting, which emphasized bold brushwork and bright transparent colors. Ken’s version of the California Style, which he sometimes referred to as “Watercolor Expressionism*”, emphasized an extemporaneous spur-of-the-moment approach, flinging paint across the stretched watercolor paper, letting it land where it may, and responding to the paint the way an improvisational jazz musician responded to the music. In contrast, I had become enamored with classical art training, especially the atelier approach to art education, where I spent many hours meticulously rendering every detail of a plaster cast or figure study. As artists, Ken and I were like two different species of animals.
I have very high regard for the California Style of watercolor painting, and especially Ken’s version of it. I admire the bold, loose brushwork; I envy the ability to be spontaneous. But in the end, I took a different direction. I think Ken was disappointed, especially with the commercial emphasis of my work. He told me, “There is nothing wrong with being a commercial artist”, but I sense he would have liked to see me pursue a different direction. Nevertheless, I am grateful for Ken Potter and his advice to me; he set a very high bar and taught me respect for the craft.
Ken spoke of the suppression of Regionalist painting, and I was too naïve at the time to understand the politics of the art world. Now I understand that the California Style was a type of Regionalist painting, which was perhaps seen as a rejection of Modernist trends, hence it may have been overlooked by mid-20th century academia. Fortunately, recent generations of art historians are recognizing the contributions of the Regionalist painters. There is a good history of the California Style of Watercolor here and here. Also, I recommend Gordon McClelland’s books (here and here). Finally, below is a rare video which was recorded by Frank Zamora, featuring Ken at work.
*Ken sent me a typed paper entitled “Watercolor Expressionism”, from a lecture he gave at the Palos Verdes Art Center in 1991. In the paper, he set down his ideas on painting. I doubt Ken ever used a word processor (which was relatively new technology at the time), and his typed paper contained various handwritten corrections/revisions. I think his ideas were probably more fully developed within the pages of the McClelland’s book (especially see “Chapter 4: Art Creation and Personal Reflections”).
