Blog Archives
Pearls from artists* # 696
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Although it’s important to make communities with like-minded people — people who are your age, your generation, who are working on projects that have resonance with yours — I am a firm believer in crossing generations to find mentorship and inspiration, and a sense of furthering the craft. So I’d say that as you begin to seek mentorship, be creative about where you look. Look in unlikely places, and make it more likely that you will cross boundaries and reach a wider, more culturally and intellectually diverse audience.
Anna Deavere Smith in Letters to a Young Artist: Straight-Up Advice on Making a Life in the Arts — for Actors, Performers, Writers, and Artists of Every Kind”
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Q: What’s on the easel today?
Work in progress
A: I continue working on “Gatecrasher,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 58” x 38.” In February I was privileged to visit this mask on exhibit at MUSEF La Paz in Bolivia. It was my second visit to the museum; the first was in 2017. Even more so this time, I was bowled over with how spectacular this particular mask is in person. Plus, I had forgotten its huge size. So I am absolutely determined to bump up my game and even more inspired to make this painting as strong and powerful as I possibly can!
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Pearls from artists* # 693
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Earlier I wrote that I as an artist must concern myself with painting and not waste energy on trying to decipher other people’s intentions or motives. I still believe this to be correct.
(My main purpose in life is to paint, this is my profession. I am most happy when I am alone in the studio working. The other problems of politics exist outside my studio.)
note: I am not sure of this. I am sure of one thing that I am most happy when I am alone working in the studio. The distance between art + politics is one of grey. I have thought of my involvement in art as being one of combat—the paintings are weapons designed to destroy oppressors i.e., the establishment. Art is none of This! Art is Art.
A painting does not represent anything but itself. It shouldn’t look like anything else or make for any allusions. A painting is a painting just as a Rose is a Rose! May God bless Gertrude Stein!
Jack Whitten Notes From the Woodshed
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Pearls from artists* # 686
*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: I’ve never met many people; I’ve never much sought out older painters, first because I didn’t want to disturb them and then because what an artist says is so insignificant, I find, compared to what he does. The same phrases can so easily fit different things when you’re talking about the visual arts.
You can’t describe them. All you can do is create a kind of analogy using words. But even then the words have to reach the same part of the spectator that’s ready and waiting for them.
Henri Matisse in Chatting With Matisse: The Lost 1941 Interview, Henri Matisse with Pierre Courthion, edited by Serge Guilbault
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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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Q: What’s on the easel today?
A: I continue working on “Gatecrasher,” 58” x 38,” soft pastel on sandpaper.
Comments are welcome!
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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Pearls from artists* # 675
Working
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Before, I’d never really had a taste for anything much. The things people wanted me to do left me cold. But the moment I had that paint box in my hands, I felt that this was my life. Like a cow given a sight of grass, I just headed straight into it, to the understandable despair of my father, who’d put me through other subjects. I was entranced; this was it. Here was a sort of Paradise regained, where I was completely free, alone and at peace – whereas in other things that I’d been made to do, I’d always been a bit bored and ill at ease.
For me, it was the same experience, but with soft pastel. – BR
Chatting with Henri Matisse: The Lost 1941 Interview edited by Serge Guilbaut
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Pearls from artists* # 671
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
As a young woman—girl, actually; I was seventeen when I started taking pictures—it would appear that I didn’t have a thing to worry about from the gods. My total lack of promise is exhibit number one in the prosecution of my argument that it is work, and more work, that makes an artist. Proust became Proust that way, indeed furiously working himself to death. But you don’t have to do that—don’t kill yourself in your cork-lined room, don’t be Mozart dying from exhaustion at thirty-five, just put your head down and steadily, resolutely, pull the load.
Sally Mann in Art Work: On the Creative 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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