2 posts tagged “o'keeffe”
The days you work are the best days.
Georgia O'Keeffe
And working is what I have been doing.
Painting in acrylic and watercolor, ink drawings, charcoal, and clay sculpture. Also a little plein air and cloudscape. How can you not respond to this astonishing landscape, so overwhelming and immense, continually changing.
There is a constant sense of wonder.
I have been painting indoors and out, working on 3 large canvases at once, after stretching 5 canvases the same size. The idea I had planned on has, of course, completely changed since my arrival. But that's fine.
I hope to have finished 2 small clay sculptures. One is done, but has yet to pass trial by fire. The other is nearly done. My days alternate between my home studio (painting) and Santa Fe Clay, where I've rented studio space. That has worked out quite well, although there's never enough time to get it all done.
I had one night of camping on my land near Taos. My car, an Element named Georgia (for guess-who, who used to paint in her car) was very happy to be there in the quiet, serene sagebrush across the Rio Grande Gorge from Taos.
Never enough time!
Back to work now.
I hope to have finished 2 small clay sculptures. One is done, but has yet to pass trial by fire. The other is nearly done. My days alternate between my home studio (painting) and Santa Fe Clay, where I've rented studio space. That has worked out quite well, although there's never enough time to get it all done.
I had one night of camping on my land near Taos. My car, an Element named Georgia (for guess-who, who used to paint in her car) was very happy to be there in the quiet, serene sagebrush across the Rio Grande Gorge from Taos.
Never enough time!
Back to work now.
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.
Art is knowing which ones to keep.
- Scott Adams quotation from http://www.artquotes.net/
I may be in the middle of a mistake right now, but I am fascinated by the process. One never knows until some time in the future whether one's time is judiciously spent. O'Keeffe threw away heaps of canvases, those that she deemed unworthy or unsuccessful.
I've been pouring and scraping and spattering paints which sounds completely wild, but it's actually very deliberate and intentional. The question is now what to do with these luscious, sensuous and dynamic surfaces.
They're piling up.
If one allows the time for the answer to emerge it usually does, based on many factors- experience, training, logic, doggedness, hard work. It can be an active process, or an epiphany.
I love the Merriam Webster definition of epiphany: (1): a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something (2): an intuitive grasp of reality through something usually simple and striking (3): an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure
However, being buried and surrounded by incomplete projects can be overwhelming and stultifying. Ideas flow much more quickly than I am able to test them.
I have a practical, urgent need to FINISH things.
One thing at a time as much as possible, with the reward of experimentation as a tantalizing carrot.
Here's one that I finally finished. It is also an experiment... to put the nest on pulsing color.
Completion is my word for the year.
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