If you were challenged to create the same thing for 100 consecutive days, what might that be? For island artist and longtime resident Jeffrey Zheutlin, the answer was obvious: paintings. The artist set his goal in April and met it on July 7. Now, all 100 paintings will be exhibited in a solo show at Lapis and Luxe, opening at 6 p.m. Friday, Sept. 3, and running through the month.
Zheutlin, who graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1981, has been an artist in residence for over 15 years in Karen Person’s eighth-grade classroom, teaching close to 50 students annually how to draw self-portraits. Add to that number those who attended Vashon Allied Arts’ art camps, Harbor School students plus Vashon Community Care residents, and Zheutlin’s legacy of teaching self-portraits grows exponentially.
But the artist’s roots remain as a landscape painter. Inspired by the scenery he saw as a hiker, Zheutlin yearned to capture the beauty on canvas. The 100 paintings evolved as a project to reignite his landscape painting — a project that began with paints in a backpack and a simple trek to KVI beach.
“I’ve been walking to KVI for 25 years,” Zheutlin explained. “I have a dog, so I often walk there. I did one painting, and it was so exciting I decided to do one a day.”
But painting outdoors is not always a simple task. Conditions constantly change, which meant Zheutlin had to stay focused and paint quickly, finishing each painting in one to one-and-a half hours.
“Every one was done en plein air with no touch-up after they were finished,” he said. “I learned to paint clouds. They don’t stay still for you. In an hour, it’s a completely different sky than when you first sat down.”
Seated on an old truck tire half-buried in the KVI sand, Zheutlin would look across the water toward the “ethereal bulk” of Mount Rainier. Like French impressionist Claude Monet, who first painted a series with the same subject matter — haystacks — distinguished by differing light and weather, Zheutlin chose the mountain, capturing it at all times of the day. If clouds hid it from view, then Zheutlin would shift his gaze northward, up the sound. Several paintings necessarily took place on a few trips, but the artist held fast to his daily objective.
Asked what he learned over the 100 days, Zheutlin quickly responded by first describing his medium of acrylic paints. The last time he used acrylics hearkens back to art school, where common consensus decried them as “the worst paints in the world.” Today, acrylics act like oils or watercolors, Zheutlin said, and he likes the results.
Next came learning to see again.
“What you see makes you an artist,” Zheutlin said, “and we don’t really look at things. I see better after painting — the light, color and shape. Painting the same thing everyday helped to hone my ability.”
And then there’s the daily practice itself.
“Mindfulness, learning how to be present — those buzzwords — that’s the practice of painting; it’s a meditative practice with the goal of painting,” Zheutlin said. “The most exciting thing ever, as a painter, is when you are present, right there where the brush touches the canvas and all of life goes away, and you’re right there. It’s a spiritual practice.”
As the spiritual helpmate of mindfulness, generosity also played a part in Zheutlin’s process.
In the end, he completed 101 paintings, donating the 101st to Vashon Center for the Arts’ September auction. He also will offer one painting for $1 in a raffle the night his show opens.
In the meantime, the artist looks forward to seeing the paintings hung — in order — on the gallery wall, adding with a laugh, “All 100 will be there. There’s a lot of them.”
