The Relentless Urge to Create: the Work of Earl Joseph Martell
comments (27) May 25th, 2009
Jeffery Rudell, contributor
147 users recommend
A distant galaxy, a microscopic organism, a masterwork of high modernism, or a manifestation of chance?
Photo: Earl Joseph Martell
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Q: How long have you worked at Home Depot, and during that time, how many of these pictures have you managed to snap?
A: I've work at Home Depot for one year exactly as of Memorial Day Weekend. During that time I have snapped hundreds upon hundreds of photographs. I take the pictures pretty quickly (with customers waiting there's no time to worry about lighting or focusing or motion blur). I have about a 60% salvage rate in that 40% of the images are either unfocused or poorly lit. Still, I'm left with hundreds of great pictures.
Q: On your business card you describe yourself as a Monmouth County (New Jersey) Plein Air Painter. For someone engaged in the 19th-century tradition of outdoor painting—the very precepts of which seek to explore and exalt the luminous effects of natural light and atmosphere—what led you to undertake a project so diametrically opposed to those precepts, a project to photograph chemicals, in a can, under fluorescent lighting, in an interior space, from an aerial perspective that effectively negates any sense of atmosphere? How did you come to begin photographing these "Paint Pictures" in the first place?
A: I was born in Northern England where I lived with my family: my mother, my father, and my two older sisters. In 1952 we moved to Berlin then on to Holland for three years where I learned to speak Dutch, then back to the UK, followed by Kansas, Seattle (during the 1962 World's Fair), Athens, Greece (where my daily ride on the school bus took me past some of the most important and recognizable ruins of the ancient world), then to Turkey, Central France, Hawaii (where I was training to be an aviation technician in the Marine Corp), and California (1971). Along the way I always pursued art, even in high school. I have, in fact, been painting for 40 years, though seriously for only the last 16 of them. I've spent my life becoming better trained with my tools, more highly skilled in my technique, and more disciplined in my approach. In a very real sense, life has prepared me to see beauty no matter where I look.
Q: I have to ask, what do these photographs represent to you? Are they works of art in their own right, exercises in color, creative experiments, or work-day diversions?
A: I sort of think of them as exercises, akin to Chopin's Etudes; beautiful in themselves but for me they are visual exercises, a way to hone my understanding of color and effect; sort of a way for me to keep my creativity "limber."
Q: Do you remember the first time you decided to photograph one of these images? What led you to pick up a camera?
A: Back when I attended Brookdale Community College in Lincroft (New Jersey), I had a teacher who taught me about the early Flemish tradition of underpainting and glazing. The technique yields a very beautiful effect and I remember looking into a can of high-gloss latex paint, with a splatter of pigment seeping into and dispersing around the emulsion, and I thought, "Early Flemish underpainting...it looks like early Flemish underpainting." It was beautiful and so I wanted to capture it. The pigment dispenser uses 16 different colors, but the combinations and ratios of those 16 hues lead to an almost limitless range of fascinating and arresting expressions. This is what I do. It's part of how I'm put together. Taking these pictures, capturing and documenting these beautiful things...taking these pictures helps keep me alive.
Q: I think there might be a perception that many of the people who work at Home Depot are themselves "handy" or, to a lesser degree, maybe, "crafty." Your work seems to cross into the realm of "art." Do you know of any coworkers who are similarly endeavoring in an artistic vein?
A: I do. I work with a very talented muralist whose work is really quite good. He has that great ability to capture and tell a story (a vital skill in a muralist). I also work with a woman who is a painter. However, it can be difficult to make a living in the arts and so we all have jobs at Home Depot in addition to our creative pursuits. This happens to a lot of creative people; they need to do something to earn money. The key, as far as I'm concerned, is to never let your primary passion—your art—become secondary to your job. It's a difficult thing to accomplish. It is very easy to become exhausted by the struggle of making work, selling work, marketing work, staying passionate about the work, and earning a living.
Q: Let's talk about that a little more, how do you stay in touch with the creative side of yourself when you're working all day with customers and coworkers and management. How do you retain your commitment to painting?
A: One of the things I learned in college is that education is not necessarily about taking something in (as in gathering information) but is often about just opening yourself up, being receptive to the world around you, allowing yourself to see what is already there. This is what makes me tick. I haven't always found a way to make it pay the bills. Painting means more to me than anything else I do, or have done. As long as I remember that, I seem to be fine.
Q: Clearly I think these pictures are extraordinarily beautiful and exuberant. As if that weren't enough, I also love your plein air landscape paintings. Tell me, what drew you to landscapes?
A: Landscapes move me. They move me in a very strong emotional way and I wonder why that is. While I am painting I am always trying to figure out what it is in the sky and the clouds and the land and the rise of the hill and the reflection of the water that gets me so excited. Unlike the Impressionists, I am not trying to capture the fleeting moment. I am trying to capture the place...the emotional essence of...the place, and that effort is what provides the electricity in the exchange between artist and landscape in plein air painting. My life has trained me to recognize that sense or essence of a place and I've learned how to get it into my brush and onto my canvas. When this happens, when the sense of place really resonates from the canvas, I know I've succeeded. When it resonates in someone else's heart, too, when they like the work I do, well, that's the greatest satisfaction I can feel.
Q: I always ask people whether they believe the urge to create—to make something beautiful or useful—is something that is inate in people (or in some people) or whether they think it's something that can be acquired or developed. Which side of the question do you come down on?
A: I say, realize what you've got, what you've been given, what's in front of you, and either embrace it and move forward or settle into something less than your truly authentic life.
Q: You always have a smile on your face, you always seem eager to engage with people, and you always seem perfectly content wherever you happen to be; my grandmother would have called it a certain "generosity of spirt". How did you get to be such an optimist?
A: I was always a highly resilient kid...lively...you have to be when you move as many times was we moved. I have been guilty of following my own interests for most of my life. And, I tend to trust my heart more than my intellect. I've never thought of myself as an optomist but I am an enthusiast. I mean, I'm alive and there is an enthusiam that radiates from that knowledge.
Q: Where can readers find out more about you and your work?
A: I have some of my plein air paintings up on my blog and readers are welcome to take a look at the work there (www.earlmartell.blogspot.com). If readers like what they see, I'd love to hear from them. I'm always interested in hearing if my work has resonance for others.
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Comments (27)
Pete
supporting Uk canvas paintings
Posted: 3:00 pm on November 1st
The color you mixed for me today was on the mark!
Thanks!
Posted: 9:19 pm on September 6th
I have known Earl Martell for nearly 20 years, and he is one of my dearest friends. He has an irrepressible enthusiasm for life and an uncanny ability to find beauty in even the seemingly mundane, and capture it, whether through painting, photography, collage or other media. I am the proud owner of several of his works, and when I look at them, they brighten my day. Because of him, I now am able to see the world in a different way.
Posted: 10:50 pm on June 8th
I have known Earl Martell for nearly 20 years, and he is one of my dearest friends. He has an irrepressible enthusiasm for life and an uncanny ability to find beauty even in the seemingly mundane, and capture it, whether through painting, photography, collage, or other media. I am the proud owner of several of his works, and when I look at them, they brighten my day. Because of Earl, I now see the world in a different way.
Posted: 10:45 pm on June 8th
I have known Earl Martell for nearly twenty years. He has an irrepressible enthusiasm for life and an uncanny ability to seek out beauty and capture it, whether through painting, photography, collage, or other media. I am the proud owner of several of his works, and when I look at them, they brighten my day.
Posted: 10:40 pm on June 8th
Posted: 6:06 pm on June 6th
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Posted: 8:46 pm on June 3rd
Loving all things paper and trying to keep creative with it (could be my Japanese family background) I have so enjoyed everything you have offered on this site.
Posted: 5:26 pm on May 31st
Posted: 10:37 pm on May 26th
Posted: 2:13 pm on May 26th
Thank you, Earl....you are so very blessed.
Debbie Paddack-Kloby
Posted: 1:59 pm on May 26th
Posted: 10:46 am on May 26th
Posted: 10:25 am on May 26th
Posted: 7:49 pm on May 25th
Thanks for sharing, and I will be sharing this with friends.
Posted: 7:09 pm on May 25th
Posted: 3:04 pm on May 25th
Posted: 12:09 pm on May 25th
Posted: 12:05 pm on May 25th
Posted: 11:45 am on May 25th
Thanks for sharing his work with us!
Posted: 10:31 am on May 25th
Posted: 6:02 am on May 25th