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The Emotion of Passing
Mono no aware is a Japanese term reflecting the poignant awareness of the impermanence of people, objects and seasons. It is the savoring of cherry blossoms, knowing those delicate blooms will pass in a matter of days. It is the awe and sadness of autumn trees, knowing their leaves will soon to fall to the earth. It is the realization that this might be the last time – The last bowl of soup you share with your aging mother, the last time your baby will suckle at your breast. That emotion inspired my process in a series of paintings. Beauty in Brokenness [tryptich of 3 pots of flowers – 24×24 each]…
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The Mona Lisa Smile
I viewed the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris in 1973. Like most, I was intrigued by that smile. There is a back story, of doubtful authenticity, but it could be. Purportedly, Mona Lisa had been grief stricken at the loss of a child… but, as the story goes, she had given birth again just prior to sitting for DaVinci for this now famous painting. That smile, enigmatic and gripping, does reflect complex emotions that indeed could be due those profoundly impactful events – the loss of one child and the subsequent birth of another. The human experience is fraught with complex emotions… every moment of joy is tempered…
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Alberto Giacometti
October 1901 – 11 January 1966) Giacometti, was a Swiss sculptor and painter. He is best known for his gaunt, rough hewn figurative sculptures. The sculptures are wonderful, but I am particularly drawn to his paintings. Defining the bones in a face and exploring emotional depth; of that, he is a master. When I saw his work, I understood it. I am in NO WAY as talented as he, but definitely approach painting portraits with a similar sensibility. That encourages me to keep going and to spend the rest of my life moving toward mastery. Watch Alberto Giacometti painting a portrait.
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Meaningful Marks
When I was 4 years old, I was browsing my mothers’ magazines. She was in the kitchen preparing food. I wanted to know what the words captioning the pictures meant. To my unschooled eye they looked like Greek letters – intriguing but indecipherable. I found an interesting word – longer than most of the words on the page. I marked it with my finger, ran to the kitchen to ask my mother, “What does this mean?” Preoccupied with her task, she impassively read, “Machine. That word is machine.” Returning to my reading chair, I held my finger tight on the word so as not to lose my place. “Machine, Machine,”…
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Thinking…
“What no wife of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when he’s staring out the window…” Burton Rascoe, Journalist That applies to the life partner of every Creative. Good thing my good man, gets me, because my favorite exercise is to stare out the window and think. Life manifests, in my mind, like a word cloud – sometimes heavy with rain, about to deluge me. Sometimes dry, airy and elusive, baffling me. Every now and then, I just have to sort it all out.
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Isabella, Restored.
Her life ended in tragedy …. strangled by her husband for the shame she had brought upon the family. An affair. Though she repented she never was able to win back the favor of her husband, who ultimately slayed her. The portrait was a signal of her repentance… and new status in the eyes of God. The original was over-painted during the 19th century. The distinctive, but not classically beautiful, queen was forged into an image more in keeping with the ersatz puritanism of the day…. Her long nose reconstructed into a pert little thing… Her hooded eyes rounded, doe-like… her beefy hand trimmed and more delicate. In the original…
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Art Unmasks Us
Why is it subjects of art often express pain and loss? While social media hypes our happy, flawless, filtered lives; art looks behind the curtain at our pain and loss. Art that expresses inner pain drops our mask, for a moment. It gives us a safe place to be comforted and understood without being exposed. It reflects how a divorce, a miscarriage and misfortune of every sort feels. It is our inner sobbing, wordlessly written. This beautiful sculpture by Allison Streett is of a woman who has suffered the loss of a baby. It expresses poignantly what loss of every stripe feels like. https://www.allisonstreettstudios.com/#/loss/
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Brian Rutenberg Interview
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Children Creating
Experiencing the artistic process, forges the paths that lead to other discoveries in all disciplines. It primes the mind for breakthroughs in science, literature, math, carpentry and cooking… My eldest grandchild, Vivian, 10, was fascinated with creating art. Her interest has morphed into designing and building structures and writing books, for hours on end. Winona, 6, has always been and remains driven to paint and draw. Millie, 4, dabbles, but has a great sensibility and is adept at discerning images in random lines and shapes – pareidolia. Together they run a Wildlife Refuge [Among other things, they compassionately capture and relocate Chipmunks from under our deck to the woods behind the…
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The Artistic Process
A student of Herb Jackson describes his process. extracted from Excavations; Roger Manley … Almost nothing turned out an immediate success, but one learned to work WITH, not ON a painting. Each painting went through stages as the images gradually refined and emerged. Deliberate and dedicated effort to artmaking was a revelation… the whole process of exploring new approaches, reaching dead ends, finding creative solutions and editing and refining to reach a satisfactory result – that is all the steps that are always part of true art-making… We’ve all seen hack artists… wielding sponges and palette knives to crank out chalets and mountain lakes or stands of bamboo in a…
