Encounter: Albert Handell Studio Oil Painting Workshop

This weekend, I'm attending a four-day workshop at Albert Handell's studio in Santa Fe. It's a small group of just four students, which means each of us gets a big piece of the pie. I remember taking a workshop from Albert perhaps 20 years ago, and there were 15 or 20 of us. That piece of pie, though nourishing, was small. It's a real treat to have so much pie it's hard to clean your plate.

Better yet, this is pie with ice cream. Albert has a spare bedroom, and he invited me to stay with him. I don't think this is an offer he extends to everyone. Albert and I have become good friends over the years. I've helped him run workshops both back east, in Lubec, Maine, and also out west, in Sedona, Arizona. (We're doing another one in Sedona this November.) Working with a professional--and  one of our true living masters--is a real pleasure.

Plus, Albert has another side. He loves documentaries. Yes, one might say painting is to Albert like earth, air and water are to an oak, but he relishes a historical documentary on, say, the Battle of Midway or the Diaspora. Over dinner, more often than not, the conversation turns away from painting to an interesting fact he picked up from the History Channel. In that way, he's like me, and we enjoy talking about a variety of subjects.

But he will talk about art and the art life and his paintings, if you ask. About his mother, who gave him his first French easel. About his days at the Art Students League and learning under Frank Mason. About the three framed, beautifully executed sketches on his dining room wall, each of which seems to feature an antique automobile from the 1950s. "That was my first car, a Pontiac," he explains.

One thing I'm learning this week is that mastery of painting is about the small things, not the big things. It's about a touch of pure ultramarine blue. The scratch of a knife. The understanding that finishing is not the point. And that these small things become a Big Thing.

Here are a few of the paintings I'm working on this time. I'll post the final versions later

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