“I’ll take weeks out doing drawings, watercolor studies, I may never use. I’ll throw them in a backroom, never look at them again or drop them on the floor and walk over them. But I feel the communion that has seeped into the unconscious will finally come out in the final picture.” Andrew Wyeth
Visual art is a dialogue between the creator and the viewer. The story we choose to tell as artists is very individualized and personal. Each of us, like the viewers that look at our work, come with a different set of life experiences that have made us who we are. Therefore, how we depict even the same scene is going to be different. What motivates us to paint is also different, and it is important to be true to ourselves.
Some artists come to their work, to work out a problem in their personal life, and find relief. Other artists come to express their feeling about a subject that cause discontent in the world, and want to make a statement. Some come to record history. Some to find peace. Others to express a feeling. No matter what we choose to say, or the way we decide to depict it, there is a certain amount of intimacy in the work an artist produces. It takes courage to put feeling on paper. What motivates your dialogue? What kind of story are you telling? Can you appreciate the stories that others tell?
Perfect Morning
Sometimes I chose the dialogue to be realistic, and sometime I choose it to be abstract. I look, I see, I feel, I create, and for me that usually starts with a pastel painting. While painting, frequently I am mentally seeing and feeling a lot of what lies beneath the objects that I am painting, to later use in an abstract. The dialogue between viewer and artist can can take many forms, and express a variety of thoughts and feelings.
Stream Bed
“And suddenly for the first time I saw a painting…It became entirely clear to me that art in general is much more powerful than I had realized and that, on the other hand, painting can develop just as much power as music possesses.” Wassily Kandinsky