Blog Archives
Pearls from artists* # 354
“Epiphany,” 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.
My earlier work had taught me that artistic activity is a form of reasoning, in which perceiving and thinking are indivisibly intertwined. A person who paints, writes, composes, dances, I felt compelled to say, thinks with his senses. This union of perception and thought turned out to be not merely a specialty of the arts. A review of what is known about perception, and especially about sight, made me realize that the remarkable mechanisms by which the senses understand the environment are all but identical with the operations described by the psychology of thinking. Inversely, there was much evidence that truly productive thinking in whatever area of cognition takes place in the realm of imagery. This similarity of what the mind does in the arts and what it does elsewhere suggested taking a new look at the long-standing complaint about the isolation and neglect of the arts in society and education. Perhaps the real problem was more fundamental: a split between sense and thought, which caused various deficiency diseases in modern man.
Rudolph Arnheim in Visual Thinking
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Q: What’s on the easel today?
Work in progress
A: I continue working on the latest in the “Bolivianos” series, “Poseur,” Soft Pastel on Sandpaper, 58” x 38.” I haven’t decided yet whether to put a pattern on the fabric.
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Q: Are you certain that the art materials you use are light- and color-fast?
“John,” Soft Pastel on Sandpaper, 22” x 26” (image), 1989.
A: Yes, I am. Recently I came into possession of a pastel portrait that I had not seen in thirty years. How fantastic to report that it looks exactly the same as in 1989 when I made It!
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Pearls from artists* # 345
Barbara working on an interview. Photo: Maria Cox
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
You begin your journey as an artist from sacred motives, with dreams and high hopes, and also, perhaps, from a place of painful turmoil or other inner necessity. From these powerful drives comes your conscious decision to pursue a life in art, your resolve to call yourself an artist whatever the consequences. You are the one nodding in agreement when the painter John Baldessari says, “Art is about bloody-mindedness. It’s not about living the good life. In the end, it’s just you and the art.”
Eric Maisel in A Life in the Arts: Practical Guidance and Inspiration for Creative and Performing Artists
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Q: What do you see when you look back at your early efforts?
“Myth Meets Dream,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 47″ x 38,” 1993
A: I see continuity in subject matter and in medium, surely. For thirty-three years I have been inspired by foreign travel and research. In addition, I remain devoted to pushing the limits of what soft pastel can do and to promoting its merits as a fine art medium.
Here and there I see details I would render differently now; not exactly mistakes, but things that maybe could be done better. Fortunately, I think, all of my work is framed behind glass or plexiglas, making it extremely difficult to attempt revisions.
Perhaps most important of all, I see the long personal road that has advanced my work to its present state. Each gain has been hard-fought.
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Start/Finish of “Viceroy,” Soft Pastel on Sandpaper, 26” x 20”
Start: erased charcoal drawing
Finished
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Pearls from artists* # 339
Untitled c-print, 24” x 20,” reference photo for “Shamanic,” 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.
I have no love for reasonable painting. There is in me an old leaven, some black depth which must be appeased. If I am not quivering and excited like a serpent in the hands of a soothsayer I am uninspired. I must recognize this and accept it. Everything good that I have done has come to me in this way.
The Journal of Eugene Delacroix, edited by Hubert Wellington
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Pearls from artists* # 329
“Acolytes,” 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.
A painting is not a joke. If you aren’t serious, every single time you cheat by not being serious, every time you cut a corner, you are making a record of your stupidity and you won’t be able to take it back. In the end the painting is the sum of everything you have put into it. Sometimes it’s a sum of stupidity. Something stupid can never be erased – if you put down black and afterward you put a red on top to correct it, your red will not be red.
Louise Bourgeois: Destruction of the Father, Reconstruction of the Father: Writings and interview 1923-1997, edited and with texts by Marie-Laure Bernadac and Hans-Ulrich Obrist
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Q: When and where did you start your career in the visual arts?
In the studio, Photo: Maria Cox
A: My journey to becoming an artist was circuitous. In the mid-1980s I was a thirty-something Navy lieutenant. I worked a soul-crushing job as a computer analyst on the midnight shift in a Pentagon basement. We were open 24/7 and supported the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Remembering the joyful Saturdays of my youth in New Jersey, when I had studied with a local painter, I enrolled in a drawing class at the Art League School in Alexandria, Virginia. I loved it! I took more classes and became a highly motivated, full-time art student who worked nights at the Pentagon. After two years and as my skills improved, I discovered my preferred medium – soft pastel on sandpaper.
I knew I had found my calling, submitted my resignation, and left active duty. On October 1, 1989 I became a professional artist. However, I remained in the Navy Reserve for another fourteen years, working at the Pentagon one weekend a month. On November 1, 2003, I retired as a Navy Commander.
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