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Q: Do you remember the first pastel painting that you ever made?
First framed pastel painting, 1988
A: Yes, it was a small head-and-neck portrait of a live model in a figure drawing class at The Art League School in Alexandria, VA. I don’t know what became of it.
I also remember the first pastel painting that I ever framed because it is still hanging in my Alexandria house. It is dated 1988 (see photo) and was made in a one-week workshop with Diane Tesler at The Art League. The workshop was specifically to teach artists how to paint from photographs and it was my first time studying with Diane. I made the mistake of bringing, as reference material, a magazine photograph that was originally a perfume ad in the The Sunday Times Magazine. Diane tactfully explained that it was wrong to use someone else’s photograph instead of my own, but let me do it this one time.
So many years later walking by my painting I still think of Diane. She taught me a valuable lesson: do not use anyone else’s photographs, ever!
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 161
Whitney Museum
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
It is the artist’s innate sensitivity that makes him special and different from other professionals. Society expects the artist to be more compassionate and understanding in order to bring out that which will enlighten, inspire and encourage life in his work. His vocation should not just be for art’s sake.
Where the average person sees an old beat-up shark, the artist sees a symbol of beauty in aging and imagines bringing out those qualities that the shark has sheltered over the ages, by means of artistic creation. To the intelligent and sensitive artist, the homeless man lying on the street corner is a symbol that reminds us of what we, as a society, should be doing to better our living.
Sensitivity comes into play when leaves that appear to the general viewer to be uniformly green are seen by the sensitive artist to be different shades, tones, and subtle nuances of green. Without sensitivity, special and important characteristics of nature will be out of our sight and out of reach to the viewing layman. Only the obvious, the average and the common will reveal themselves to the insensitive artist. The endurance of certain works will depend on what the artist has captured with the help of his sensitivity and because of the ideas behind the work.
Samuel Adoquei in Origin of Inspiration: Seven Short Essays for Creative People
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 158
“Dichotomy,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 38″ x 58″
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
It is the artist’s innate sensitivity that makes him special and different from other professionals. Society expects the artist to be more compassionate and understanding in order to bring out that which will enlighten, inspire and encourage life in his work. His vocation should not just be art for art’s sake.
Where the average person sees an old beat-up shark, the artist sees a symbol of beauty in aging and imagines bringing out those qualities that the shark has sheltered over the ages by means of artistic creation. To the intelligent and sensitive artist, the homeless man lying on the street corner is a symbol that reminds us of what we, as a society, should do to better our living.
Sensitivity comes into play when leaves that appear to the general viewer to be uniformly green are seen by the sensitive artist to be different shades, tones and nuances of green. Without sensitivity, special and important characteristics of nature will be out of sight and out of reach to the viewing layman. Only the obvious, the average and the common will reveal themselves to the insensitive artist. The endurance of certain works will depend on what the artist has captured with the help of his sensitivity and because of the ideas behind the work.
Samuel Adoquei in Origin of Inspiration: Seven Short Essays for Creative People
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 62
“The Sovereign,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 58″ x 38″
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Yes, I’m formalistically obsessed. I see in a picture what I see in nature – everything has its place and is integrated. Like a tree or a human body, the image is put together for a greater whole. If you chop off something, you immediately destroy the organism. Form is crucial to what I do, and I believe that the form, in a way, creates the content. If you don’t have the form, you don’t get the content. If you get the maximum formal relationships in a precise, organic, metaphoric methodology, then you have a better chance of bringing out the content to its full degree. Of course, a picture doesn’t stand alone by its form. You can have forms that relate but offer no meaning. Ultimately, a picture is judged by its meaning, and I think that’s what a lot of people lose sight of.
Interview with Roger Ballen in Lines, Marks, and Drawings: Through the Lens of Roger Ballen, Craig Allen Subler and Christine Mullen Kreamer
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 60
East Hampton, NY
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
For an artist, it is a driven pursuit, whether we acknowledge this or not, that endless search for meaning. Each work we attempt poses the same questions. Perhaps this time I will see more clearly, understand something more. That is why I think that the attempt always feels so important, for the answers we encounter are only partial and not always clear. Yet at its very best, one work of art, whether produced by oneself or another, offers a sense of possibility that flames the mind and spirit, and in that moment we know this is a life worth pursuing, a struggle that offers the possibility of answers as well as meaning. Perhaps in the end, that which we seek lies within the quest itself, for there is no final knowing, only a continual unfolding and bringing together of what has been discovered.
Dianne Albin quoted in Eric Maisel’s The Van Gogh Blues
Comments are welcome!
