Category Archives: An Artist’s Life
Travel photo of the month*
*favorite travel photos that have not yet appeared in this blog
In Oruro with Rodrigo Paz, the President of Bolivia
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 699
Panorama of Barbara’s Studio
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the advanced there are few. You are an artist and it’s too late to back out. You have no choice, now or in a year or two, but to take aim upon your life and discard all the debris that holds you back from doing what you know you have to do.
Letter from Ted Orland to Sally Mann in Art Work: On the Creative Life by Sally Mann
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 698
With “Overlord,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 70” x 50”
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
When you learn to trust your own voice, it is like stepping up to claim your rightful place in the universe. Remaining true to yourself as an artist is one of the most difficult things to do: temptations to compromise are everywhere. It is through standing in the fire that you build and maintain your core essence. You cease to be afraid of your largeness, your power. You begin to wield your audacity in service of a vision that is larger than yourself. In doing so, you empower others to do the same. Every day, that call to rise to your highest self comes for you, and you get to choose. You can step over the threshold to locate the voice that you know, deep in your gut, has been becoming you… for years, or even decades. ‘Here I am,’ it says. ‘You sought me out. You are finally ready. Let’s do this!’
– Kate Kretz in Art From Your Core: A Holistic Guide to Visual Voice
Comments are welcome!
Q: What makes you lose track of time — and find yourself again? (Question from Bold Journey)
A: When I’m having a productive day in the studio, I’m fully present and absorbed. Working in soft pastel on sandpaper, I become immersed in solving technical problems and improving the painting on my easel. Hours pass unnoticed, and I often need to remind myself to stop for lunch. Nothing exists except the work and my relationship with it. Most artists know this feeling of flow—a state of being that’s both natural and essential to creative work.
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 697
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Serendipity (or synchronicity) is an occurrence of events that appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection. The concept of synchronicity was developed by psychiatrist Carl Jung in the early 1900s. He defined it as ‘meaningful coincidences.’ They seem like ‘signs’ or ‘clues’ from the universe that provide missing pieces to your puzzle. Your brain is busy trying to solve your Art problem. You are open, tuned into what your unconscious already knows, and is trying to help you access. Thousands of thoughts a day pass through your brain as you navigate the world, but you suddenly see, hear, or think a flash of something that triggers your unconscious to put on the brake, and call out, ‘Wait! Stop! That’s it! That’s what we need!”
Kate Kretz in Art From Your Core: A Holistic Guide to Visual Voice
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 696
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Although it’s important to make communities with like-minded people — people who are your age, your generation, who are working on projects that have resonance with yours — I am a firm believer in crossing generations to find mentorship and inspiration, and a sense of furthering the craft. So I’d say that as you begin to seek mentorship, be creative about where you look. Look in unlikely places, and make it more likely that you will cross boundaries and reach a wider, more culturally and intellectually diverse audience.
Anna Deavere Smith in Letters to a Young Artist: Straight-Up Advice on Making a Life in the Arts — for Actors, Performers, Writers, and Artists of Every Kind”
Comments are welcome!
Q: How do you think your recent trip to Bolivia will affect your work?
Reference photo from my trip to Bolivia
A: I have been back in the United States for one month and I know from past trips that there is always a long gestation period as I reflect on colorful new experiences, new sights, sounds, etc. My three and a half-weeks in Bolivia were non-stop, intense, and just full of so many high points. Bolivia is a fascinating country with profound cultural riches, and exceptionally warm and welcoming people. I experienced new friendships and events that were way beyond anything I could have imagined. In short, there’s a lot to process!
In the immediate aftermath, back in the studio I am deliberately selecting more vibrant colors and bumping up the contrast and drama in the painting on my easel (“Gatecrasher”) as I attempt to reflect some of what I saw and experienced in Oruro during Carnaval. I have begun to plan a pastel painting based on the mask pictured above, which I photographed in La Paz. We shall see what new work is created over the coming months and years. For now, it’s exciting to be reenergized and to have new subject matter with which to work. And, at this early date, I can barely conceive what our new Bolivia documentary will be like!
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 695
Barbara’s paintings on exhibit in Mumbai, India!
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Artists are known to feel intense highs and lows. Being a channel for such copious amounts of emotion is overwhelming. The input we absorb and the output we emit can feel as though it might annihilate us, as if our hearts might explode with joy, or be crushed with sorrow. We were all handed a special gift at birth, a fire to be tended. It flares and wanes over the course of our existence. We spend our livings trying to keep it burning and fed, without allowing it to consume us.
Kate Kretz in Art From Your Core: A Holistic Guide to Visual Voice
Comments are welcome!
Q: Many artists can’t bear to face “a blank canvas.” How do you feel about starting a new piece?
A: That’s an interesting question because I happen to be reading The War of Art by Steven Pressfield and this morning I saw this:
You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study. He applied to the Academy of Fine Arts and later to the school of architecture. Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I’ll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas.
I’ve never understood this fear of “the blank canvas” because I am always excited about beginning a new painting. When you think about it, every professional artist can say, “In the history of the planet no one has ever made what I am about to make!” Once again I am looking at something new on my easel, even if it is only a blank 40” x 60” piece of sandpaper clipped to a slightly larger piece of foam core. Unlike artists who are paralyzed before “a blank canvas,” I am energized by the imagined possibilities of all that empty space! I spend up to three months on a painting so this experience of looking at a blank piece of paper on my easel happens four or five times a year at most. Excluding travel to remote places, which is essential to my work and endlessly fascinating, the first day I get to spend blocking in a new painting is the most exhilarating part of my whole creative process. This is art-making at its freest! I select the pastel colors quickly, without thinking about them, first imagining them, then feeling, looking, and reacting intuitively to what I’ve done, always correcting and trying to make the painting look better.
Comments are welcome.
Pearls from artists* # 693
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Earlier I wrote that I as an artist must concern myself with painting and not waste energy on trying to decipher other people’s intentions or motives. I still believe this to be correct.
(My main purpose in life is to paint, this is my profession. I am most happy when I am alone in the studio working. The other problems of politics exist outside my studio.)
note: I am not sure of this. I am sure of one thing that I am most happy when I am alone working in the studio. The distance between art + politics is one of grey. I have thought of my involvement in art as being one of combat—the paintings are weapons designed to destroy oppressors i.e., the establishment. Art is none of This! Art is Art.
A painting does not represent anything but itself. It shouldn’t look like anything else or make for any allusions. A painting is a painting just as a Rose is a Rose! May God bless Gertrude Stein!
Jack Whitten Notes From the Woodshed
Comments are welcome!
barbararachkoscoloreddust.com 