GolfScapes

James D. Altenstadter

I know, and yet, I dare to be the flagstick.

I bend and yield, and yet, remaining upright, I persevere.

The flagstick is my pal. I am a duffer. Well, at least, I can dress like a golfer.

Ready to play some golf, I strain to see the flagstick in the distance. It beckons, but it is the landscape of the golf course that I find alluring. It is the rolling, undulating, sensuous, and tactile surfaces that engage me. The course is an expansive, organic, outdoor sanctuary of stained glass sky and clouds installed above the skyline of the near and distant mountains. I find the emerald grounds subtle and serene.

The flagstick is out there beyond me. I know its dimensions. It is upright, somewhat stiff, but yielding as it reveals the tugs of the wind upon its attached flag. By it I judge the direction, strength, and fickleness of what lies ahead. The flagstick is integral to the hole and cup in which it stands. It is the signature of the place where I've come to play.

The flagstick is functional, of course. It provides essential orientation. Sometimes it shows the line of play is straight ahead. Sometimes it indicates the preferred line is oblique, tangential. Sometimes it is temporarily hidden from view, but other clues always suggest a forward seeking line to it. It is used for reference, a device for estimating the distance yet to be covered. It points to the goal, but it is not the goal, of course.

I recall with fondness the golf I've played here before, even if only in a dream. It is a remembrance of being in harmony with Nature. It is a memory of personal triumphs and failures and unpredictable puzzlements, often self-created through errors of judgment or execution. I revel, though, in venturing into the unknown, or perhaps the unknowable, beset with hazards and yet somehow finding the way fair, when staying within the boundaries of play. The strokes made are not subordinated to the overall impression of the place, for they are always counted (and, that is, all of them are counted).

It is the illusion of being in control of what is seemingly straightforward, but isn't, that is compelling and confounding. But what ought to be a simple game turns out mostly to be complex in an unlimited number of variations. Still, there is a an overarching sense of place, of having been here before in the recalling of images of a few great strokes in the past. With great anticipation, I await this chance to stroll a favorite course, perhaps even playing with a semblance of good golf or, at least, making that one stroke that will be good enough to bring me back again.

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The intentions I hold in my mind while painting, or golfing, is to learn something new of lasting value, to take simple delight in the pleasure of playing, and to perhaps reach a set goal. Balancing these three aspects in the creative process of painting landscape meditations absorbs my full awareness. It is the striving to express a visual impression of the sense of a place and of a time that is personally interesting to me. Through an energetic expression of texture with simple, flowing shapes, I celebrate the surface textures of the painting. I delight in the expressive values these textures bring to a painting. I choose to let the gestures of painting show in the finished work, without subordinating or hiding them.

I prefer to execute strokes in painting, just as in golfing, quickly and intuitively, going along with creative impulses, once a commitment to a stroke is made. I try to keep an open, beginner's mind. I cherish a playful and spontaneous approach. Paralysis and analysis would be fatal.

To paint well is to be in a special state of mind, same as is true in playing golf well. I find short periods of contemplation an effective means of gaining a state of mind that allows an inner visualization to form itself. Before attempting any painting or golfing experience, I like to feel calm and ready to be assertive with the strokes to come, but not overly excited or aggressive, letting the play come to me. It is a feeling of being ready to play with mental intensity, yet physically relaxed. It is a feeling of being in the zone; that is, when it happens. There is a sense of spontaneity, yet a sense of a firm commitment to the selected stroke. This state of mind is hopefully maintained throughout the alternating cycles of close-up execution of strokes and backed-off pondering in the moments in between them.

In order for painting to be a playful art form, a few self-imposed limitations are helpful. After all, golfers have rules to follow too. Without these limitations I wouldn't know where or how to start, or how to proceed. Each time, before I begin to paint or golf, I always affirm my acceptance of these limitations and the personal responsibilities they impose. This means I'll accept whatever adversity or providence comes my way, with equanimity. This means I'll exert my best efforts at all times. And I'll honorably respect the nature of the materials and implements I'll work with.

Painting as well as golfing, involves techniques and equipment. I find myself practicing and experimenting a lot beforehand. I aspire to someday paint and golf with apparent effortlessness, but never without a sense of adventure. The processes involved would seem to be straightforward, but I'm often left straddling the line between the illusion of control and the accidental, whether good or bad.

I prefer to paint outdoors under a vast, nurturing sky. And with gratitude, the game of golf is still played outdoors. I embrace the contingencies of painting and golfing outdoors: the elements of changing light, heat and cold, wind, rain, dust, rain, and other wild things and the interruptions they sometimes bring. Nonetheless, I find the activities of painting and golfing naturally meditative.

I intentionally spend lots of unreserved time contemplating these pastimes. I find these introspective times of quiet solitude to be restorative and healing. For me, painting, and in some ways golf too, is a way of personal storytelling and an honest way of sharing my unique feelings of a place, whether that place is real or imagined. I simply don't know what truths may lay within me, until I push some paint around the support, or chase a golf ball around the course, and then step back to take it all in.

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In the series of GolfScape paintings, which are studies of remembered and imaginary places, I associate the placement of the flagstick and its flag with a guiding human presence. I choose not to place human forms in the paintings; instead I choose to let the circumstantial evidence of the gestures and textures left behind in the art work, along with the drawn flagstick, suggest a human presence.

My emotional response to the visible acts of having pushed and rolled paints and gels around the support, is that of an organic sky and an earth full of flowing energy. The tactile surface textures suggest to me an image of eternal change and renewal and a connection of all things, whether seen or unseen. But there is also an intention to invoke a serenity that encourages, or perhaps compels, an extended contemplative viewing of the art work. The art is intended to be subtle enough to allow a long relationship with the viewer. The desired response is that of a golfscape of wide-open character that is honest, even though commonplace, and a feeling of strength through its simplicity and spaciousness.