3 posts from December 2006
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It's a lovely day in Vermont with the sun shining in the south windows. No need for a fire in the woodstove. The temperature is troubling... quite warm... all traces of our first snow have vanished even in the shadows. The ice in our little puddle/pond garden is a transparent black skiff floating away from the rock edges. As global warming begins to affect the economy skeptics are beginning to take note. Too warm for snow, no skiers, no tourists... not good for Vermont in the winter.
Here is a new painting that I began recently. It is far from finished. It's a bobolink's nest, a bird which nests in nearby meadows, and all over the eastern half of the northern hemisphere. They weave long tendrils of grass into beautiful little bowls on the ground in
early spring . I always worry whether the young have fledged at haying time. The eggs are warm burnt sienna with speckled blotches in burnt umber.
The mountains in the painting seem to be the Greens, but they look a lot like the Sangre de Cristos in the moon light. By the time I'm done with the image, their origin will be clear.
Maybe.
Maybe not. It doesn't really matter.
I was out walking in the night a few months back and saw irridescent clouds gathered around the full moon. Thin but shapely forms with luminous purple, pink, blue and greenish colors.The warmth and brilliance of the color surprised me. The full moon is always such an overwhelming and beautiful presence in the night. It exudes energy.
I'm working on that sense of presence and energy
For a long time I deliberately made art that was about difficult issues... nuclear holocaust; the environment; politics; personal angst... It seemed an indulgence to make something beautiful or entertaining. I'm not making political art these days, but sometimes those concerns which are so deeply rooted in my heart emerge anyway. The answers are less clear... the issues are more complex.
My goal now is to make something beautiful and communicate inter-connectedness.
Global interconnectedess. Grace. Respect.
The painting (working title is Mountain Nest) is fairly large. 72" x 36". It's very satisfying to make something somewhat large that speaks emphatically of grace and mystery.
Serenity.
A difficult state of mind to achieve during the holiday season.
In this difficult time.
On this troubled planet.
I'm so sleep deprived I sent out an invitation to people for an opening on December 24rth!!! (it's on the 17th)
I just checked the calendar for a Sunday date... How pathetic! I suppose it would be even more pathetic to try to hold the opening on the 24rth!
Here is a new painting that I began recently. It is far from finished. It's a bobolink's nest, a bird which nests in nearby meadows, and all over the eastern half of the northern hemisphere. They weave long tendrils of grass into beautiful little bowls on the ground in
The mountains in the painting seem to be the Greens, but they look a lot like the Sangre de Cristos in the moon light. By the time I'm done with the image, their origin will be clear.
Maybe.
Maybe not. It doesn't really matter.
I was out walking in the night a few months back and saw irridescent clouds gathered around the full moon. Thin but shapely forms with luminous purple, pink, blue and greenish colors.The warmth and brilliance of the color surprised me. The full moon is always such an overwhelming and beautiful presence in the night. It exudes energy.
I'm working on that sense of presence and energy
For a long time I deliberately made art that was about difficult issues... nuclear holocaust; the environment; politics; personal angst... It seemed an indulgence to make something beautiful or entertaining. I'm not making political art these days, but sometimes those concerns which are so deeply rooted in my heart emerge anyway. The answers are less clear... the issues are more complex.
My goal now is to make something beautiful and communicate inter-connectedness.
Global interconnectedess. Grace. Respect.
The painting (working title is Mountain Nest) is fairly large. 72" x 36". It's very satisfying to make something somewhat large that speaks emphatically of grace and mystery.
Serenity.
A difficult state of mind to achieve during the holiday season.
In this difficult time.
On this troubled planet.
I'm so sleep deprived I sent out an invitation to people for an opening on December 24rth!!! (it's on the 17th)
I just checked the calendar for a Sunday date... How pathetic! I suppose it would be even more pathetic to try to hold the opening on the 24rth!
I started this blog stating that I'm an artist, and then uploaded photos of myself painting instead of my art work. So here is a painting. 66" x 33" acrylic on canvas. It is my most recent finished painting.
I began it in April, while visiting in Santa Fe, though I had planned it out somewhat before I got there. But, art is about communication, and part of that communication is between the artist and the art work. I work on it for a bit, and then listen to what the painting has to say. My muse has a private conversation with the canvas or clay, and the color and the composition. Sooner or later, the next step becomes obvious.
I begin with a black surface, and slowly the colors illuminate the composition, and the image emerges from the darkness.
When I work with clay, I begin with a simple coil process, essentially building a coil pot that turns into a figure. Sometimes the full torso, sometimes partial. This diva needed a bird. She holds a nest. A canyon wren is sitting in the palm of her hand.
I began it in April, while visiting in Santa Fe, though I had planned it out somewhat before I got there. But, art is about communication, and part of that communication is between the artist and the art work. I work on it for a bit, and then listen to what the painting has to say. My muse has a private conversation with the canvas or clay, and the color and the composition. Sooner or later, the next step becomes obvious.
I begin with a black surface, and slowly the colors illuminate the composition, and the image emerges from the darkness.
When I work with clay, I begin with a simple coil process, essentially building a coil pot that turns into a figure. Sometimes the full torso, sometimes partial. This diva needed a bird. She holds a nest. A canyon wren is sitting in the palm of her hand.
I am an artist.
I always said I would be one when I grew up.
Thinking of the stages through which we pass enroute to becoming/being an artist... Climbing that long, inward ladder of introspection, as we hone skills and accumulate tools with which we create. Art is communication, whatever mode or style or medium we choose. Representational, or the varying degrees of abstraction; performance, song, dance, sculpture... Opaque transparent or translucent; exuberant or somber. It's all about the message.
Having spent many, many years teaching art to children, I was always amazed by how the individual personality of each child shouted out off the paper, often far more coherently than they could express themselves verbally.
Blogging... about as verbal an activity as one could indulge in. An artist's blog: another form of communcation. New to me, as I sit here with 30 years of journals on the shelf next to me.
Public "journaling"... here I go...
As we enter the long dark of Vermont winter, I peruse imagery to add to the blog, I am remembering the warmth and spirituality of Machu Picchu where I spent 10 days last summer, leading a group of artists through the Sacred Valley of the Inca. It will be wonderful to be there again next spring and summer.
I always said I would be one when I grew up.
Thinking of the stages through which we pass enroute to becoming/being an artist... Climbing that long, inward ladder of introspection, as we hone skills and accumulate tools with which we create. Art is communication, whatever mode or style or medium we choose. Representational, or the varying degrees of abstraction; performance, song, dance, sculpture... Opaque transparent or translucent; exuberant or somber. It's all about the message.
Having spent many, many years teaching art to children, I was always amazed by how the individual personality of each child shouted out off the paper, often far more coherently than they could express themselves verbally.
Blogging... about as verbal an activity as one could indulge in. An artist's blog: another form of communcation. New to me, as I sit here with 30 years of journals on the shelf next to me.
Public "journaling"... here I go...
As we enter the long dark of Vermont winter, I peruse imagery to add to the blog, I am remembering the warmth and spirituality of Machu Picchu where I spent 10 days last summer, leading a group of artists through the Sacred Valley of the Inca. It will be wonderful to be there again next spring and summer.
