Category Archives: France
Pearls from artists* # 681
Giverny by DH, 2023, in David Hockney 25, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
If you want to lose faith in the concept of “good” art, just consider all the artists who were brushed aside as feckless losers in their own day – El Greco, Van Gogh, Monet, Gauguin, Cézanne, the list goes on – only to get their own museum wings and their paintings plastered on tote bags today.
Bianca Booker in Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey Among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Friends Who Taught Me How to See
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Travel photo of the month*
Ménerbes, Provence, France
*favorite travel photos that have not yet appeared in this blog
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Travel photo of the month*
*favorite travel photos that have not yet appeared in this blog
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Q: What’s on the easel today?
Work in progress
A: I recently returned from a trip to the South of France so I have not been working in my studio as much as usual. Here is the latest progress on “Showman,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 26” x 20”.
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Travel photo of the month*
*favorite travel photos that have not yet appeared in this blog
With friends on June 5th at the opening of La Rupture du Désir, Vedica Art Studios and Gallery, Paris, France
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Pearls from artists* # 637
St. Malo, Brittany, France
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
After periods during which one has actively tried to solve a problem, but has not succeeded, the sudden right orientation of the situation, and with it the solution, tend to occur at moments of extreme mental passivity… A well-known physicist in Scotland once told me that this kind of thing is generally recognized by physicists in Britain. “We often talk about the Three B’s,” he said, “the Bus, the Bath, and the Bed. That’s where the great discoveries are made in our science.”
In my experience travel helps, too!
Wolfgang Koehler quoted in Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art by Stephen Nachmanovitch
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Pearls from artists* # 635
Dinard, Brittany, France
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
The body of writing takes a thousand different forms,
and there is no right way to measure.
Changing, changing at the flick of a hand, its various
forms are difficult to capture.
Words and phrases compete with one another, but the
mind is still master.
Caught between the unborn and the living, the writer
struggles to maintain both depth and surface.
He may depart from the square, he may overstep the
circle, searching for the one true form of his reality.
He would fill the eyes of his readers with splendor, he
would sharpen the mind’s values.
The one whose language is muddled cannot do it;
only when mind is clear can language be noble.
Lu Chi quoted in Free Play: Improvisation in Art and Life by Stephen Nachmanovitch
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Pearls from artists* # 634
St. Malo, Brittany, France
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Sometimes I think, “Well, why on Earth do I feel hopeful? Because the problems facing the planet are huge and if I analyze them carefully, they do sometimes seem impossible to solve. So why do I feel hopeful? Partly, because I’m obstinate. I just won’t give in. But it’s partly also because we cannot accurately predict what the future might bring. We simply can’t. No one can know how it will all turn out.
The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times, Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams with Gail Hudson
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Travel photo of the month*
St. Malo, Brittany, France
*favorite travel photos that have not yet appeared in this blog
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Travel photo of the month*
Chartres Cathedral, Chartres, France
*favorite travel photos that have not yet appeared in this blog
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