Blog Archives
Q: You read books on Friedrich Nietzsche and other philosophers. How has philosophy and your personal experience shaped the latest series, Bolivianos? (Question from Vedica Art Studios and Gallery)
A: It’s difficult to pinpoint how philosophy specifically shaped my work because my curiosity spans so many subjects. Some critics have described me as a Renaissance woman, remarking on my wide-ranging and voracious reading. It’s true—I’m genuinely interested in practically everything!
In pursuit of making art, I have undertaken in-depth studies of numerous intriguing fields: drawing, color, composition, gross anatomy, art and art history, the art business, film history, photography, psychology, mythology, literature, philosophy, religion, music, jazz history, and archaeology—particularly ancient Mesoamerica (Olmec, Zapotec, Mixtec, Aztec, and Maya) and South America (the Inca and their ancestors).
Since the early 1990s, my inspiration and subject matter have come primarily from international travel to remote parts of the globe, especially Mexico, Central America, and South America. Travel is by far the best education! By visiting distant destinations, I have developed a deep reverence for people and cultures around the world. People everywhere are connected by our shared humanity.
These travels, supplemented by extensive research at home, are essential parts of my creative process. Research can be solitary and demanding, but I truly enjoy it. I want to know as much as possible, and this curiosity generates ideas for new work, propelling me into unexplored creative realms.
Foreign travel always expands our ways of thinking. This rich mixture of creative influences continually evolves and finds its way into my pastel paintings. Working, learning, evolving, and growing—I am perpetually curious and can hardly imagine a better way to spend my time on Earth!
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Pearls from artists* # 685
Another of my favorite books!
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
HM: The great benefit I took from visits with Renoir was realizing that even after a long working life, an artist’s curiosity could remain unquenched. The hope of some further progress, something to be added to his œuvre, was what kept Renoir alive. He was painting a “bathing” picture (now, finally, in the Musée du Louvre) and doing it with some difficulty because the picture was quite big and Renoir’s hands weren’t very nimble. But it’s only now, when I think about it, that I realize he must have found it hard; it would never occur to you when you saw him at his canvas – there was such intellectual urgency about everything he did.
Another big lesson I learned from visiting Renoir was that this man, riddled with pain and infirmity – his legs were so stiff he couldn’t walk a single step – could still be happy working and talking about his work. When you were with him for a while and he’d warmed to the conversation, you hadn’t the least sense that you were talking to an old man; his eyes were so full of life and intelligence that you forgot his age.
Henri Matisse in Chatting With Matisse: The Lost 1941 Interview, Henri Matisse with Pierre Courthion, edited by Serge Guilbault
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Pearls from artists* # 661
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Curiosity and wonder are essential to the art life. Curiosity drives us to look beneath the rocks that others pass by. Wonder helps us recognize the infinite potential of what we find there, so we might spin it into something remarkable. The concepts and visuals that attract me will likely not grab you, but therein lies the beauty. Your job is to keep excavating the things that intrigue you, feeding your head with new ideas. The objective is to build a singular mental stockpile of elements that make up your visual voice. Your brain then makes connections that others would never make because they have assembled a vastly different stockpile of ideas, images, experiences, concepts, beliefs, and concerns.
Kate Kretz in Art From Your Core: A Holistic Guide to Visual Voice
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Pearls from artists* # 644
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.
Making the work you were born to make is a radical act of resistance in the current social climate. It refuses to hold money or power as its highest value. It takes as much time as it needs. It demands quiet and stillness. It involves deep reflection and reverence. It prioritizes uncool traits of curiosity, wonder, and earnestness. It shuns the superficial, contorting to reach far beyond it for the significant. It answers to no one but itself and has not been diluted by corporate committee. It doesn’t pander. It can tell stories that make people uncomfortable. And, despite all attempts to frame it as such, unlike most other activities, art is not a competitive sport.
Kate Kretz in Art From Your Core: A Holistic Guide to Visual Voice
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Pearls from artists* # 632
*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 mind once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson ((1803 – 1882)
Ralph Waldo Emerson was more prescient than he can ever have realized. It was not until the 1960s that neuroscientist Marian Diamond discovered that exposure to enriched environments increased brain matter, specifically in the brain’s outer cortex. Prior to her landmark research, scientists believed that the brain remained static until it started to decline in older age. Diamond was the first to observe the brain’s neuroplasticity, yet her findings were disputed and rejected for many years. Today she is considered one of the founders of modern neuroscience.
Museums are the ultimate enriched environments, or super-enriched spaces, that are good for body, mind, and soul. Museums are dedicated to arousing our curiosity; engaging us in discovery and learning; and evoking our reflection, wonder, and awe. Artists (and Emerson) have known intuitively what scientists are now proving with rigorous research: aesthetic experiences affect us in extraordinary ways. In short, our brains are wired for art.
The Museum and the Mind by Susan Magsamen in Museum, May/June 2024
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Pearls from artists* # 627
In Hanga Roa, Rapa Nui (Easter Island), one of the most remote places on Earth!
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
We cannot afford to walk sightless among miracles. Nor can we protect ourselves from suffering. We do work that thrusts us into the pulsing heart of this world, whether or not we’re on the mood, whether or not it’s difficult or painful or we’d prefer to divert our eyes. When I think of the wisest people I know, they share one defining trait: curiosity. They turn away from the minutiae of their lives – and focus on the world around them. They are motivated by a desire to explore the unfamiliar. They are drawn toward what they don’t understand. They enjoy surprise. Some of these people are seventy, eighty, close to ninety years old, but they remind me of my son and his friend on the day I sprung them from camp. Courting astonishment. Seeking breathless wonder.
Dani Shapiro in Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life
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Pearls from artists* # 501
* 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 I talk about “creative living” here, please understand that I am not necessarily talking about pursuing a life that is professionally or exclusively devoted to the arts. I’m not saying that you must become a poet who lives on a mountaintop in Greece, or that you must perform at Carnegie Hall, or that you must win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. (Though if you want to attempt any of these feats, have at it. I love to watch people swing for the bleachers.) No, when I refer to “creative living,” I am speaking more broadly. I’m talking about living a life that is driven more strongly by curiosity than by fear.
... A creative life is an amplified life. It’s a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life. Living in this manner – continually and stubbornly bringing forth the jewels that are hidden within you – is a fine art, in and of itself.
Elizabeth Gilbert in Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
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Pearls from artists* # 480
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Walter Murch: As I’ve gone through life, I’ve found that your chances for happiness are increased if you wind up doing something that is a reflection of what you loved when you were between nine and eleven years old.
Michael Ondaatje: Yes – something that had and still has the feeing of a hobby, a curiosity.
M: At that age, you know enough of the world to have opinions about things, but you’re not old enough yet to be overly influenced by the crowd or by what other people are doing or what you think you “should” be doing. If what you do later on ties into that reservoir, in some way, then you are nurturing some essential part of yourself. It’s certainly been true in my case. I’m doing now, at fifty-eight, almost exactly what excited me when I was eleven.
But I went through a whole late-adolescent phase when I thought: Splicing sounds together can’t be a real occupation, maybe I should be a geologist or teach art history.
The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film by Michael Ondaatje
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Pearls from artists* # 369
Central Park, NYC
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Salieri wrote a memoir of his own, which his friend Ignacio von Mosel used as the basis for a biography, published in 1827. Salieri’s original document disappeared, but Mosel quoted parts of it. One anecdote is particularly winning. Salieri is recounting the premier, in 1770, of his second opera, “Le Donne Letterate” (“The Learned Woman”). The applause is vigorous, prompting the young composer to follow the audience out into the street, in the hope of soaking up more praise. He overheard a group of operagoers:
“The opera is not bad,” said one. “It pleased me right well,” said a second (that man I could have kissed). “For a pair of beginners, it is no small thing,” said the third. “For my part,” said the fourth, “I found it very tedious.” At these words I struck off into another street for fear of hearing something still worse.
Any creative person who has made the mistake of surreptiously canvassing public opinion will identify with Salieri’s fatal curiosity.
Alex Ross in Salieri’s Revenge in The New Yorker, June 3, 2019
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Q: What personality traits do you possess that have been most helpful in your art career?
A few of Barbara’s pastels
A: I suppose it’s curiosity about all sorts of things, but particularly about the creative process. I am forever curious about how my personal creative process might evolve and develop and where it might possibly lead. Making art is an ongoing source of discovery. The longer I am an artist, the richer the whole experience becomes.
Also, I possess an unwavering love of craft. Even after thirty years, I still enjoy experimenting with new pastels, pushing myself to use them in new ways, and endeavoring to create the best work I can.
Comments are welcome!
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