Jonathan Machen

About Jonathan Machen

I went to college in Boulder and studied art and art history at the University of Colorado. My ‘Degree’, which I received in 1987, is a B.F.A in studio art and art history. But there is more to the story than that!

I have been a plein-air artist since I was 16 years old. Growing up, in Los Alamos, New Mexico, I was surrounded by scientists who pursued the scientific method, but I was also surrounded by the extraordinary geology of the Pajarito Plateau. As I grew older, I gradually began to recognize the dynamic beauty of northern New Mexico, and wanted a way to express what I was experiencing. I began to teach myself how to draw. At first, my experiments were all failures, since I did not understand how to translate the perspective seen by the human eye to a two-dimensional piece of paper. 

At the same time, I developed an interest in meditation, and was able to link that with drawing outside. Frederick Franck’s book ‘The Zen of Seeing’ influenced me profoundly. Franck talked about using that observation of the world for something much deeper.

I also had been a fan, all through my years growing up, of the cartooning of Charles M. Schulz, the creator of Peanuts. How could simple line drawings evoke so much emotion and understanding? Not only did Charles M. Schulz use a single pen line in his successful work, but another artist caught my eye: Earl Thollander, whose books of his pen-and-ink drawings from his travels around the country became available at the Los Alamos Public Library. I was fascinated by his line work and the expressive way he shared what he observed.  

I decided to use pen-and-ink as a vehicle for artistic exploration, and so my earliest plein-air experiments were all done directly with a thin line of ink, using a rapidograph technical pen. Many people could not understand my approach, which by it’s very nature called for something radical: putting a line down that you can’t erase, thereby ‘erasing’ the notion of success or failure.

I used that risky proposition to accompany my forays into observation. After much practice, I was able to incorporate into my compositions a sense of what I was experiencing: perspective and composition.  Plein-air pen-and-ink became my road map.

I also studied with other artists who practiced plein-air, including Gayle Fulwyler Smith.

For years, I drew directly in pen, even challenging my teachers once I got into college and started taking traditional art classes. What you see, outwardly, in a simple pen-and-ink line drawing is not a traditional, completed statement of art; rather, it is a record of a meditative, quiet moment experienced in stillness, with all observational faculties oriented to the presence of what can be experienced in a particular moment of time. 

In short, art for me became a devotional act, and I kept it up. My process lent itself to exploring and drawing in odd places: a sketchbook and a pen are easy things to carry into the wilderness, or on bike adventures about town, or just about anywhere one might want to tap into that meditative mind.

Many friends of mine during this period learned to humor me when on outdoor adventures, where I often announced I was going to go off and sketch for awhile. I thank them for all their patience. 

After many years of this approach, I began to use what I had learned from all this observation to complete much more inclusive drawings, including drawing in pencil and chalk on toned paper, or even directly on wood, and attempting much larger pieces on-location. My process and equipment has therefore evolved over the years, as one needs different equipment to go bigger, as well as to be able to use color directly. This approach allowed me to incorporate light and shadow into my drawings, for a more painterly approach; and bring along oil or gouache paint. 

Somewhere along the way I also managed to combine my interest in portraiture with a social/political ‘reflective mirror’ style, often using the principles of collage to make commentaries about our complicated world. My output now cycles between observing the landscape as I have always done, as well holding up a mirror to the social and political fabric we find ourselves bound by.