Learning Lessons?

There was a time when I felt it was important to just draw, paint or do conceptual sculptures, so I wouldn’t confuse people to the type of art I was creating. My thinking was, by limiting myself in some areas, I would be able to cultivate and focus on my technique in each medium.  As each series was produced, I would learn, grow through my mistakes and successes in the pieces. My overall style strengthen, my personal confidence increased in the art I was creating and exhibiting. Then that big tree fell on my studio/house…my world, my art world came crashing down and the long road of starting over begain. I didn’t worry about art at all, because I was surviving day to day. Several Lessons occurred to me through the years of recovery and the rebuilding process…I learned to embrace change, to shake things up and stop thinking no limits…it all could be for the better.

A Good Thing

I wish the days were 34 hours long, or that I had a couple more hands and arms because I have accumulated quite a bit of “art” that is swirling around inside my head. My thinking hat is expanding with each new task, and that is causing me to push my entire thinking of the types of artwork that I can produce. It was almost 2 years ago that I decided to shake up my creative thinking process by making different choices in my life. As a visual artist I started volunteering at The American Theatre, a performance theatre in Hampton, VA., this small step to be exposed to other artists….dancers, musicians, actors and their forms of artistic expressions, was truly a wise decision.  

Motivation

After I have finished one piece of artwork in a series I have consistently felt …. “Ok, Now to the next piece?” My mind has already jumped to designing my next creation, busy contemplating every highlight, shadow, line, and the tones, the positive and negative spaces in the composition. I am totally absorbed in this never-ending state of creating that my brain has been obsessed with. Repeating this process of pouring myself into my work, harnessing my artistic energy into a structured and at times a very meticulous style can leave me feeling drained mentally as well as physically.  This exhaustion  has become a fantastic amazing motivational feeling to me and to be honest, I think...ok, I know, I am addicted to this cycle of creating pieces of art to be in a series! 
 

What’s Their World?

Artists are in mostly in their own world when creating their works of art. I think that artist’s have many styles of art that they will produce over their lives. I have found that it can be about their world or it can be how they see their world.  It can be serious or ridiculous….a release or maybe a bleeding out of emotions. What I discovered in designing “along the line” is that I was mixing up, combining my own personal feelings, yet I wanted something of the viewer…..to engage people to look at the larger picture, this electric, linked world we live in. What would people do if it was gone or is this too much already? I am a thinker, sometimes too much; thankfully being an artist allows me to liberate all those thoughts about this world and myself.



Creative path

I thought I would push myself by taking this project one more step down this creative path….So here is the video of “along the line”…. part of The Sketchbook Project World Tour 2012. Several years ago I was persuaded to do some very small artwork for some art exhibitions, most pieces would fall in the 6x8 inch and under. I had been drawing on a large scale and was eager to see if I could switch to a miniature. As the years and drawings continued, I was able to produce some tiny pieces. The smallest was a little over 1x2 ½ inches. I believe that all those small drawings got me ready for this project. The book is like 5x7 inches, and all the paintings inside are 4x5 inches. I learned over theses decades to be open and take chances with the art I am producing. The path is open wide for those who want to travel down it……

Good-bye

I mailed my book off to The Sketchbook Project yesterday. It was a happy good-bye.  I am not sad to let my book go, because I do want others to touch it, read it and think about the issues in the book. I don’t know what others feel when they look up into the sky or if they do. I wonder do others see the sky or the poles, wires, cables, lights, all the interconnected strings of our modern world. My relationship and attitudes concerning electricity, cable, internet even home/house and my art, my world was updated by a tree falling down.   This unseen but seen power that is generated passed long and contained by wood, metal and rubber encased cables that is used and dependent on every day by people, the invisible world blood.  Long held feelings were discovered, worked through and let go or better said…. mailed off! So, off I am….. on to the next series. I started painting on 3 new canvases last night.