A transcription of a conversation with Jonathan Davis, watercolor artist, Niccolo Bechtler, creative artist and Joy Bechtler, artistic director for Operanauts
Jonathan Davis: This is one of the first watercolors I did. I almost exclusively work with watercolors now because of that painting. It was just an art project that my art teachers had us do. She was teaching us how to do the basics of watercolor and she wanted us to do either a cityscape or a landscape. We had to use wet-on-wet, which if you look at the sky, you can tell that I used. [Wet-on-wet] is where you initially put down a layer of water on the paper, and then you drop the paint in and it expands out and you get an interesting effect with it. Then she also wanted us to do wet-on-dry, where you put a layer of watercolor on dry paper. If you look at the buildings you can kind of tell that’s where it is very intentional.
My inspiration for the painting itself is what I try to imagine. I had three different things that I had in mind. Growing up I watched “Aladdin” a lot, and it is sort of similar to “Amahl” and I always loved the architecture [in the animated movie], the domes and not being squared off, and I [also] thought about the city and the squared-off and muted [tones], and I thought about Tokyo and the lights and the modernization. So it was a blending of the classical, the historical architecture as well as with the modern.
Niccolo Bechtler: I’m glad you mention that because that’s actually my favorite thing about it and one of the things I noticed when I saw it for the first time, even though I didn’t understand why it was. But I think it has something to do with the color that makes it feel like Tokoyo. I’m glad you mention that because it totally comes across. Also that sign with the characters on it, too…
JD: Those are not real, so anyone who actually sees this, it is not Japanese.
The way you set up a painting, you want to have several different focal points and you want to have them in different areas of the painting. So if you set them up in different angles it helps your eye travel around the painting. I had the close-up, which is the sign, and I had the dome over here, so your eye would travel around the painting, and your eye will naturally come back to the center. Something my Uncle Rich [Davis] taught me, he taught me the basic grounds for art, he said that he always said that you want your lightest light next to your darkest dark. So I think the lightest light in this painting is going to be those characters in the red, and I have it off to the side so that your eye travels to the center and then you see the dome and it allows your eye to travel.
NB: So even if this painting wasn’t inspired by Amahl and the Night Visitors I think it works really well for it. So I was wondering if you had any thoughts on why that might be or how it could relate.
JD: Well interestingly enough, Amahl is put back so far in the past, but it has stood the test of time. And people still do it on a regular basis. I think it’s cool that you are using this [painting] because it is kind of taking something old that has come to the modern age and is still a blend of history and modern. The story itself is simple but it translates beautifully into the future.
Joy Bechtler: We’re taking your painting as inspiration, [performing] “Amahl” like an old “mystery play” and we’re taking the outside feeling of that painting and putting it inside the church. It is really the painting that has inspired the staging and the community-focus for this particular version of “Amahl.”
JD: That’s beautiful. That sounds like you are taking something that has a rich history, you’re not distorting it in any way, but you’re bringing it into a modern style, which I think is great. If you look at all forms of art, it is always someone trying to express their feelings and … to put their spin on it. I think that’s beautiful and that’s why I love art. It can be uniquely mine, but it is also up to the interpretation of the audience.
I talk with my friends about this too. It’s nice to have the reason that I make the art, but when other people tell me what they got from it, and if it’s something totally different from what I intended, I love that! I don’t feel I need to talk at all unless someone wants me to. Each individual can interpret a piece of art hundreds of thousands of ways.
JB: The back-story on the composer is that there was a piece of art when he was growing up that was on his mantel that inspired him to compose “Amahl and the Night Visitors.”
NB: And, it comes back around to this painting.
JD: Yeah, and that’s how it goes, man, with art in general.
NB: I guess we’ve just about touched on all the questions I had set up already. But I wanted to talk about the timelessness of the painting for a minute more. That is one of the things that I think is interesting about it. You have awnings over the storefronts that look “old-timey” or even Middle Eastern and then a lot is also like New York or Tokyo skyscrapers from today. So was there a reason you were going for that timelessness? What was the thinking behind that?
Yes, totally, that is a really good point about how you can get a relatability out of keeping it vague to a certain point and maybe that is what makes it work so well for Amahl too, that it has enough pieces from different reference points as you say, that you can apply to it what works for the situation which in this case is this opera. Yes, I think it goes with it really well. It’s funny because I’ve been looking at this painting, it’s been kind of around the house for so long, it’s cemented in my brain at this point. It’s really interesting to walk through it and where it came from. I do like it a lot.
JD: I’m glad, man. I’m actually quite flattered to be honest. I did not expect it. I need to start painting some of the Alaskan landscape we have up here. My wife is a very talented photographer so we’ve talked about doing some collaboration. I was thinking maybe she’d take a photo and mess with the filter a little bit, and I could paint the same thing and lay it on top.
Watercolor for me is perfect because it is controllable but it has just enough creative chaos to it. I think I know what’s going on and then it creates something else, and I think okay, that’s awesome. With acrylic and oil, it’s beautiful but it’s exactly where the artist puts it and wants to lay it down. With watercolor, it can kind of take its own path, and you have to go on the journey with it and then you shift a little bit and go down a different path that is more beautiful than you ever expected.