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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* # 683
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Clichéd subject matter can be a symptom of shallow understanding. Experiencing our subject matter firsthand helps us absorb complexities and discover surprising insights, leading to enriched outcomes. Envision a painting of a tree copied from a found internet photograph. Then, imagine the possibilities of a work executed by a person who loves to climb, sit under, caress, plant, and nurture trees, one who has observed their qualities through downpours, windstorms, and the Fall twilight filtered through leaf layers. They don’t just see, but feel these living, breathing giants straining to grow toward the sun, cooperatively respecting their neighbor’s space high in their crowns, and communicating with their community underground. Inspiration is not just gleaned through the eyes but through our entire bodies, intellect, and feelings.
Kate Kretz in Art From Your Core: A Holistic Guide to Visual Voice
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Q: What’s the most unusual place you have exhibited your art? Was it worth it?
A: In 2004 I exhibited in a group show that was hosted as a fund raiser for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Artists who had had breast cancer were invited to present our work. The show was titled, “Art of Survival,” and was held in a breast surgeon’s office in West Long Branch, NJ. I had absolutely no expectations of selling anything and reluctantly participated, thinking, “More people are likely to see my work in this show than would see it in my studio during the same period.” Who could have foreseen it, but I sold a $15,000 painting to the surgeon who had organized the exhibition!
Sadly, several years later, the curator of the exhibition informed me that Beth, the breast cancer surgeon, had died from the same disease.
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Pearls from artists* # 679
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
PC: In your painting, you’ve always kept this speed of movement. One senses that you work something out slowly, deep down, that it’s hard work, but there’s always something fresh about its expression
HM: That’s because I revise my notion several times over. People often add or superimpose completing things without changing their plan, whereas I rework my plan every time. I always start again, working from the previous state. I try to work in a contemplative state, which is very difficult: contemplation is inaction and I act in contemplation.
In all the studies I’ve made from my own ideas, there’s never been a faux pas because I’ve always unconsciously had a feeling for the goal; I’ve made my way toward it the way one heads north, following the compass. What I’ve done, I’ve done by instinct, always with my sights on a goal I still hope to reach today. I’ve completed my apprenticeship now. All I ask is four or five years to realize the goal.
PC: Delacroix said that too. Great artists never look back.
HM: Delacroix also said – ten years after he’d left the place – “I’m just beginning to see Morocco.” He needed the perspective. Rodin said to an artist, “You need to stand back a long way for sculpture.” To which the student replied, “Master, my studio is only ten meters wide.”
Chatting With Henri Matisse: The Lost 1941 Interview, Henri Matisse with Pierre Courthion, edited by Serge Guilbaut
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Q: What’s on the easel today?
Work in progress
A: I’m in the early stages of a new 58” x 38” “Bolivianos” pastel-on-sandpaper painting.
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Q: How do you decide when a pastel painting is finished?
“Magisterial,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 58” x 38” in progress
A: During the months that it takes to create a pastel painting, I search for arresting colors that work well together. The goal is to make a painting that I have never seen before and that leads the viewer’s eyes around in interesting ways. To do this I build up and blend together as many as 25 to 30 layers of pigment. I am able to complete some areas, like the background, fairly easily – maybe with just six or seven layers of black Rembrandt pastel. The more realistic parts of a pastel painting take many more applications. In general, details always take plenty of time to refine and perfect.
No matter how many pastel layers I apply, however, I never use fixatives. It is difficult to see this in reproductions of my work, but some of the finished surfaces achieve a texture akin to velvet. My technique involves blending each layer with my fingers, pushing the pastel deep into the tooth of the sandpaper, and mixing new colors directly on the paper. Fortunately, the sandpaper holds plenty of pigment so I am able to include lots of details.
Before I pronounce a pastel painting finished, I let it sit against a wall in my studio for a few days so I can look at it later with fresh eyes. I consider a piece done when it is as good as I can make it, when adding or subtracting something would diminish what is there. Always, I try to push myself and my materials to their limits, using them in new and unexpected ways.
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Q: Do you ever use other people’s photographs as reference material for your paintings?
Some Reference Photos
A: For a number of reasons, I never use anyone else’s photographs as reference material. It seems wrong on many levels. Besides the fact that it is theft of intellectual property, it would mean I did not have the all-important experience of finding and making the photograph. Each reference photograph is the beginning of an idea for a future pastel painting. How each photograph even comes to exist – the travel and adventure behind it and the memories and stories that result – is an essential first step in my months- and even years-long creative process.
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Q: What’s on the easel today?
Planning my next painting
A: In preparation for my next large “Bolivianos” painting, I made this preliminary charcoal drawing.
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Pearls from artists* # 647
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.
My life is a collage, with time cutting and rearranging the materials and laying them down, overlapping and contrasting, sometimes with the fresh shock of a surrealist painting. I wonder if traditional perspective is a necessary discipline for the art student, for over the years my life has taken on its own pattern and formed its own rules, adapting events and chronology in the sifting process of memory. As a mature artist, I can take liberties with perspective. We are not made of straight lines. As Picabia said: ‘Our heads are round so that thoughts can change direction.’
Eileen Agar in A Look at My Life
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barbararachkoscoloreddust.com 
Q: What kind of internal conversations do you tend to have when you are in the process of making art? (Question from Vedica Art Studios and Gallery)
Jan 10
Posted by barbararachkoscoloreddust
A: When standing at my easel creating a pastel painting, I focus on formal properties: composition, shape, color, and line. I always strive to produce a painting I’ve never seen before. Even as (perhaps especially as) the creator, I want to be surprised by the final result. My studio days are spent thinking, looking, reacting, and adjusting colors and composition as I refine increasingly tiny details, ensuring all elements work harmoniously. I determine which areas need to recede or advance, which require intricate details to appear three-dimensional, and which are better left as flat areas of color.
These countless adjustments ensure viewers’ eyes are guided around the finished painting in intriguing ways. I often recall something collectors of my pastel paintings shared: they mentioned a New York Times review of a Nan Goldin exhibition, in which the writer stated, “All of the pleasure circuits are fired in looking.” The collectors agreed this is exactly how they feel when viewing my work. Artists live for appreciative comments like these!
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Posted in 2026, An Artist's Life, Creative Process, Studio, Working methods
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