Blog Archives
Q: You started the Bolivianos series in 2017. It has been 8 years since you created The Champ. This endeavor of focussing on a series for almost a decade’s timeline shows that you embody stability as against many artists who tend to hop on to the next inspiration they find. How has discipline, stability, focus and punctuality defined your works apart from being inspired by Bolivian culture for the series Bolivianos? (Question from Vedica Art Studios and Gallery)
A: My first series, Domestic Threats, lasted fifteen years, and my second, Black Paintings, lasted ten. Stability and related qualities are likely natural parts of my personality, reinforced by my previous professional life. My prior careers as a Navy Commander, commercial pilot, and Boeing-727 Flight Engineer undoubtedly helped develop discipline, stability, focus, and punctuality. Details matter deeply to me; as a Naval Officer for twenty-one years, “attention to detail” was paramount. From my earliest days as an artist, I have been meticulous and dedicated to inventing new techniques and refining the craft of soft pastel.
I dislike wasting precious time. As a goal-oriented person, I continually strive to accomplish as much as possible. These qualities were influenced by my Navy career and further deepened by the tragic loss of my husband onboard the plane that crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11. I understand firsthand that life can change in an instant. Whenever I finish one task, I immediately look around and ask, “OK, what’s next?” I devote my studio time to pushing myself and pastel to new technical heights. There’s always more to accomplish as an artist!
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 635
Bourges, 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.
When we focus on the future, we do one of three things. We fantasize, which involves big dreams that are mostly for fun and entertainment; we dwell, which involves focusing on all the bad stuff that might happen – this was the official pastime of my hometown – or we hope, which involves envisioning the future while recognizing the inevitability of challenges. Interestingly, more hopeful people anticipate setbacks along the way and work to remove them. And yet I always imagined that hopeful and optimistic people are just born that way…
The Book of Hope: A survival Guide for Trying Times, Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams with Gail Hudson
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 350
Ahmedabad, 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.
Seeing is not a passive awareness of visual data, but an active focusing upon it, “touching” it. Arnheim writes, in language that echoes the Hindu notion of seeing and touching: “In looking at an object we reach out for it. With an invisible finger we move through the space around us, go out to the distant places where things are found, touch them, catch them, scan their surfaces, trace their borders, explore their texture. It is an eminently active occupation.”
Diana L. Eck in Darsan: Seeing the Divine Image in India
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 207
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.
More than in any other vocation, being an artist means always starting from nothing. Our work as artists is courageous and scary. There is no brief that comes along with it, no problem solving that’s given as a task… An artist’s work is almost entirely inquiry based and self-regulated. It is a fragile process of teaching oneself to work alone, and focusing on how to hone your quirky creative obsessions so that they eventually become so oddly specific that they can only be your own.
“What It Really Takes to Be an Artist: MacArthur Genius Teresita Fernandez’s Magnificent Commencement Address,” by Maria Popova in “brainpickings”
Comments are welcome!
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