5 posts tagged “art”

It's already been several weeks since our wild ride down the back bone of the Taconic Mountains to Williamstown MA, and the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute to see: Circles of Influence, O'Keeffe and Dove.

It was wonderful to see old friends by O'Keeffe such as
The Lawrence Tree painted in 1929. 
When the Wadsworth Atheneum acquired the painting in 1981, O’Keeffe commented that, “The painting was done so it could be hung with any end up.” The painting is presently hung in keeping with the artist’s strong early preference, which she stated on numerous occasions, instructing that the tree should “stand on its head.”
The painting is in the collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum

At the Clark they had hung it with the trunk on top. Very fun.
The show addressed the interaction between the two artists. Very interesting to see how their work was correlated and how they respectfully fed off of each other's imagery. Initially O'Keeffe, the younger of the two, responded to Dove's development of abstraction, but as her work rapidly matured Dove's imagery obviously begins to respond to hers.
All very interesting.

Gotta love Groucho.

The children who chose to spend last week with me were all older than five, but still fully connected to the creative source that gives them the ability to make spontaneously beautiful art.

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!

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.