To be an artist, a person must draw from all she knows, feels and believes in order to create something beautiful. To paint well, a person must have more than technique; she must have a vision of the essence of what she is painting. It is not a good idea that turns our work into art, but the selection, balance, and design of the ideas and emotions we have. A painting begins with a sense of awareness. A painter must be taken by things that anyone else would just walk by. We must see paintings in our everyday lives. We begin a painting by noticing, feeling, wondering, remembering, yearning.
I paint because I love to paint—it’s fun for me. Painting to me is being conscious of living, taking in the world around me and creating something from what I experience. I take a moment in time—an image, a memory, a place, a thing—I hold it in my hands and declare it a treasure, something worthy of my time and energy. Then I try to replicate that treasure and its story in color and texture, shape and design. By painting those moments in time, I can reclaim it for myself and share it with others. It gives me a way to hold onto my world—those special times and places and people and things—and share them with others.
In the past few years, I have studied with impressionists and abstractionists. I have developed a great appreciation for their art. I am realizing that art is much more than painting what I see. It’s trying to create the impression of space and light and the feeling the artist has while viewing the study.
Painting is a way to record a bit of life and make it significant. An artist is in the habit of finding significance in the simple, ordinary things in her life. Theodore Roethke put it like this, “If our lives don’t feel significant, sometimes it’s not our lives, but our response to our lives, which needs to be richer.”
To be an artist, a person must draw from all she knows, feels and believes in order to create something beautiful. To paint well, a person must have more than technique; she must have a vision of the essence of what she is painting. It is not a good idea that turns our work into art, but the selection, balance, and design of the ideas and emotions we have. A painting begins with a sense of awareness. A painter must be taken by things that anyone else would just walk by. We must see paintings in our everyday lives. We begin a painting by noticing, feeling, wondering, remembering, yearning.
I paint because I love to paint—it’s fun for me. Painting to me is being conscious of living, taking in the world around me and creating something from what I experience. I take a moment in time—an image, a memory, a place, a thing—I hold it in my hands and declare it a treasure, something worthy of my time and energy. Then I try to replicate that treasure and its story in color and texture, shape and design. By painting those moments in time, I can reclaim it for myself and share it with others. It gives me a way to hold onto my world—those special times and places and people and things—and share them with others.
In the past few years, I have studied with impressionists and abstractionists. I have developed a great appreciation for their art. I am realizing that art is much more than painting what I see. It’s trying to create the impression of space and light and the feeling the artist has while viewing the study.
Painting is a way to record a bit of life and make it significant. An artist is in the habit of finding significance in the simple, ordinary things in her life. Theodore Roethke put it like this, “If our lives don’t feel significant, sometimes it’s not our lives, but our response to our lives, which needs to be richer.”
