acceptance

I have come to terms with a lot of things, because, when all's said and done, there's really very little one can do about a lot of things. You just accept them. The point is you just have to keep on working and you just have to keep on living. (Jim Dine)

Jim dine

Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat. (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

do artist need safety nets?

Thoughts on risks

playing it safe and

being uncomfortable

The outside wold pressures you into a mold, but if you don't accept that - you gamble with life. Call it gambling. (Louise Nevelson)

The only way to be absolutely safe is never to try anything for the first time. (Magnus Pyke)

fire within

Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire. (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)

Alfredo Liongoren)

I work in bursts of energy... like mad fires let loose into nervous breakdowns. And it affected everyone in my life. Perhaps it was God's design to give me a wife who was trained as a psychiatric nurse. (Alfredo Liongoren)

living on the edge....without boundaries

benda

For me art is a continuous discovery into reality, an exploration of visual data which has been going on for centuries, each artist contributing to the next generation's advancement. I wanted to go a step further and extend the boundaries. (Audrey Flack)

Today's thoughts

Artists speak in a visual language which includes: color, line, shape, texture, surface, space, lightness and darkness. As artists we incorporate the elements of balance, movement and unity to further define our work. Art is a visual narration.

Abstraction allows man to see with his mind what he cannot physically see with his eyes... Abstract art enables the artist to perceive beyond the tangible, to extract the infinite out of the finite. It is the emancipation of the mind. It is an explosion into unknown areas. (Arshile Gorky)

The artist journey

cbenda

When I paint, the ocean roars. Others merely paddle in their bath. (Salvador Dali)

My whole life has been spent walking by the side of a bottomless chasm, jumping from stone to stone. Sometimes I try to leave my narrow path and join the swirling mainstream of life, but I always find myself drawn inexorably back towards the chasm's edge, and there I shall walk until the day I finally fall into the abyss. (Edvard Munch)

And I said, 'Well, who cares? I'd rather do it and see what it's all about.' I don't want the safe way. The safe way limits you. (Louise Nevelson)

portrait of the lake from all directions

cbenda

BEST Advice

Guston

Studio Ghosts: When you're in the studio painting, there are a lot of people in there with you - your teachers, friends, painters from history, critics... and one by one if you're really painting, they walk out. And if you're really painting YOU walk out. (Philip Guston)

Advice

Degas



The secret is to follow the advice the masters give you in their works while doing something different from them. (Edgar Degas)

David Hockney

It is very good advice to believe only what an artist does, rather than what he says about his work. (David Hockney)

evolution of an artist

What does this mean.? I google it and came upon this article.
I need to get a clear notion of what i think but for now read on.

Evolution of the Artist

by Annabell Shark
(her first paragraph)

Trying to impress someone in New York City by saying that you are an artist has become almost laughable. Being an artist in this society carries with it the connotations of irresponsibility, laziness, adolescent romanticism, parasitism, and a pervasive lack of funds. Only by showing in a well-known gallery and selling your work for sizable sums, will you rise above the social stigma the word "artist" elicits. But up until the l9th century quite the opposite was true: artists were, from prehistoric times onward, not only considered vital to society, they were once functionally the purveyors of magic powers and essential conduits of religious indoctrination. By the l500s, as European society was exploding with cataclysmic changes brought on by the Renaissance, certain artists had risen to positions of great nobility. Today’s disparagement of the artist is a modern phenomenon. Perhaps it need not be so.
and her last.....Many in the 19th century were disgusted and disillusioned with this turn of events (only in the present has this relationship between art and money become pervasively acceptable, most remarkably by the artists themselves!). What then developed from the disillusionment with bourgeois moral values and the commodification of art was a new element in society: the Bohemians — the disillusioned, disgruntled, idealistic artists and writers who insisted on maintaining their own vision, most often at the expense of physical survival. Despite their deeply felt antagonism to the bourgeoisie, Karl Marx referred to them.
complete article can be found at
http://www.slowart.com/articles/evolution.htm

Hats off to the buyers of Art

Hats off  to those who buy Art.

For those who are considering it:

Buy Art. Buy art now.  Buy art because it is good for America. Buy art because it is good for the economy. Buy art because it fosters creativity.  Buy art because when you do you support the arts, you support individuals who live in your community and make communities a richer place.

Recently, I attended an art fair. The art fair was located in a quaint town on the water with lots of local and regional artists whose work was on display. The booths were diverse as was the art. There were wood carvers, jewelers, photographers, painters, weavers, widget makers, wooden toy makers, and more. The town was hopping; there were street vendors, musicians and food booths. It was something to do on the weekend. It was a place to meet friends, browse cool stuff, shop and enjoy the day. It is important to remember that these venues which are all across the nation; in towns and cities, rural communities and summer resorts, are dependent on having something to see. Without the artists and the performers that special something that enhances a community would be missing.  

So remember the next time you need to buy a gift, want  a new piece of jewelry or are decorating your home,  visit your community art center, look for a local artist, or visit an  art fair and BUY ART.  Remember when you find an artist whose work you like but may not be able to  afford, contact them, they may have a variety of pieces in a variety of prices and it is always nice to hear from the audience.

 

One of the Group of seven

Arthur Lismer

Imagine a glorious full moon coming over the tops of the spruce, big and yellow, shedding a mysterious light on everything... the moonlight had colour, you could see to paint and be able to appreciate the colour of things. (Arthur Lismer)

unsatisfaction

emily carr self portrait

You always feel when you look it straight in the eye that you could have put more into it, could have let yourself go and dug harder. (Emily Carr)

de Kooning

Worth the Trip am sure......( wish I was going)

de Kooning: A Retrospective

September 18, 2011–January 9, 2012 at MOMA

This is the first major museum exhibition devoted to the full scope of the career of Willem de Kooning, widely considered to be among the most important and prolific artists of the 20th century. The exhibition, which will only be seen at MoMA, presents an unparalleled opportunity to study the artist’s development over nearly seven decades, beginning with his early academic works, made in Holland before he moved to the United States in 1926, and concluding with his final, sparely abstract paintings of the late 1980s. Bringing together nearly 200 works from public and private collections, the exhibition will occupy the Museum’s entire sixth-floor gallery space, totaling approximately 17,000 square feet. 
http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1149

What you do when you paint, you take a brush full of paint, get paint on the picture, and you have faith. (Willem de Kooning)

Intimacy

Mark Rothko

The reason for my painting large canvases is that I want to be intimate and human. To paint a small picture is to place yourself outside your experience, to look upon an experience as a stereopticon view or with a reducing glass. However you paint the larger picture, you are in it. It isn't something you command. (Mark Rothko)

Milton Avery ---and I am in awe

Milton Avery Autumn

I try to construct a picture in which shapes, spaces, colors, form a set of unique relationships, independent of any subject matter. At the same time I try to capture and translate the excitement and emotion aroused in me by the impact with the original idea. (Milton Avery)

Emily Carr

I think that one's art is a growth inside one. I do not think one can explain growth. It is silent and subtle. One does not keep digging up a plant to see how it grows. (Emily Carr)

There is something bigger than fact: the underlying spirit, all it stands for, the mood, the vastness, the wildness. (Emily Carr)

what happens when you paint.

ice age-benda

 "It isn't canvas that you approach for your focusing. It is a place…A very important part of this whole thing lies in whether this canvas, which becomes this place, also becomes a world."
Milton Resnick

possibilities

Every man who steeps himself in the spiritual possibilities of his heart is a valuable helper in the building of the spiritual pyramid which will someday reach to heaven. (Wassily Kandinsky)

In the back of my mind.....

There is at the back of every artist's mind... the landscape of his dreams.; the strange flora and fauna of his own secret planet; the sort of thing he likes to think about. This general atmosphere... governs all his creations, however varied. (G. K. Chesterton)

Garden of earthly delights

cbenda

I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind. (Emily Bronte)

Psyche

We must be able to let things happen in the psyche. For us, this becomes a real art... Consciousness is forever interfering, helping, correcting, and negating, never leaving the single growth of the psychic processes in peace. (Carl Jung)

Tribute--Cy Twombly

I sit for two or three hours and then in 15 minutes I can do a painting, but that's part of it. You have to get ready and decide to jump up and do it; you build yourself up psychologically, and so painting has no time for brush. (Cy Twombly)

My line is childlike but not childish. It is very difficult to fake... to get that quality you need to project yourself into the child's line. It has to be felt. (Cy Twombly)

going the distance and believing

May you find in yourself enough patience to endure and enough simplicity to have faith... (Rainer Maria Rilke)

c ruhl benda

If two things don't fit, but you believe both of them, thinking that somewhere, hidden, there must be a third thing that connects them, that's credulity. (Umberto Eco)

thoughts on being and becoming

To be identified with your mind is to be trapped in time: the compulsion to live almost exclusively through memory and anticipation.Eckhart Tolle

If you set yourself a goal and work toward it, you are using clock time.  You are aware of where you want to go , but you honor and give your fullest attention to the step that you are taking at this moment.  If you then become excessively focused on the goal, perhaps because you are seeking happiness, fulfillment, or a more complete sense of self in it, the Now is no longer honored.  It becomes reduced to a mere stepping stone to the future, with no intrinsic value.  Clock time then turns into psychological time.  Your life's journey is no longer an adventure, just and obsessive need to arrive, to attain, to "make it."  You no longer see or smell the flowers by the wayside either, nor are you aware of the beauty and the miracle of life that unfolds all around you when you are present in the Now.

Eckhart Tolle

The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been. (Madeleine L'Engle)


I never feel age... If you have creative work, you don't have age or time. (Louise Nevelson)


We don't beat the reaper by living longer, but by living well, and living fully - for the reaper will come for all of us. The question is: What do we do between the time we're born and the time he shows up. (Randy Pausch)


It takes a very long time to become young. (Pablo Picasso)

My favorite non Art quote

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read. Groucho Marx

3 by de Kooning

I paint the way I do because I can keep on putting more and more things in – like drama, pain, anger, love, a figure, a horse, my ideas of space. It doesn't matter if it differs from mine, as long as it comes from the painting, which has its own integrity and intensity. (Willem de Kooning)




I The attitude that nature is chaotic and that the artist puts order into it is a very absurd point of view. All that we can hope for is to put some order into ourselves. (Willem de Kooning)




What you do when you paint, you take a brush full of paint, get paint on the picture, and you have faith. (Willem de Kooning)

de Kooning

Materials

I put my trust in the materials that confront me, because they put me in touch with the unknown. It's then that I begin to work... when I don't have the comfort of sureness and certainty. (Robert Rauschenberg)

Robert Rauschenberg

Knowing and not knowing

You can count how many seeds are in the apple, but not how many apples are in the seed. (Ken Kesey)

Paul Cezanne

obsession

I don't see how you can create and not have the feeling that it is the most important, all-consuming thing. (Grace Hartigan)

Accept

I have come to terms with a lot of things, because, when all's said and done, there's really very little one can do about a lot of things. You just accept them. The point is you just have to keep on working and you just have to keep on living. (Jim Dine)

Jim Dine’s “Blind Owl” (2000), charcoal and oil, is among the modern works collected by Eugene V. Thaw and his wife, Clare.

follow your heart

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. (Steve Jobs)

j renee' benda

Humility

I believe that the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I do not mean by humility, doubt of his own powers. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not in them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful. (John Ruskin)




The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel. (Piet Mondrian)

We are all beginners

The beginner's humility and openness lead to exploration. Exploration leads to accomplishment. All of it begins at the beginning, with the first small and scary step. (Julia Cameron)

Every new canvas, lump of clay, piece or wood is a new beginning. Every new day is a new creative opportunity to be embraced. It starts with a single mark, decision or practice.

Is painting dead?

Sometimes I wonder.
As a painter when I look about it feels that there is so much contrived art.
I ask myself what is left?
Then I came across this quote:

Maybe poets express more directly a sense of sympathy for other human beings. Painting is a little bit more of a retreat from human beings in real life; painting is more about the extreme moments when speech doesn't help anymore. (Francesco Clemente)

Francesco Clemente

More on time

We work not only to produce but to give value to time. (Eugene Delacroix)

Paul Gauguin

The public wants to understand and learn in a single day, a single minute, what the artist has spent years learning. (Paul Gauguin)


People have inquired about how long an art piece has taken, as if it has more value the longer it takes to create.
I often say it has taken me 30 years to paint that picture. Everything I did or learnt was leading up to that creation.

how we spend our time

Two hallmarks of a healthy life are the abilities to love and to work. Each requires imagination. (Sigmund Freud)



Art is a continuous activity with no separation between past and present. (Henry Moore)

Henry Moore

Creativity occurs in the moment, and in the moment we are timeless. (Julia Cameron)

difficulty, discovery, and destiny

To fly we have to have resistance. (Maya Lin)

In 1981, at age 21 and while still an undergraduate, Lin won a public design competition for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, beating out 1,441 other competition submissions.[8] The black cut-stone masonry wall, with the names of 58,261 fallen soldiers carved into its face,[9] was completed in late October 1982 and dedicated on November 13, 1982.[10] The wall is granite and V-shaped, with one side pointing to the Lincoln Memorial and the other to the Washington Monument.[9]

You will learn to enjoy the process... and to surrender your need to control the result. You will discover the joy of practising your creativity. The process, not the product, will become your focus. (Julia Cameron)



All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there. (Rumi)

What we desire

Every artist would like to live in the central organ of creation... Not all are destined to get there... but our beating hearts drive us deep down, right into the pit of creation. (Paul Klee)

Paul Klee The Red Balloon 1922

By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired. (Franz Kafka)

 I wouldn't mind having a new computer right now!

Broken computers and other tales of woe

I have a refrigerator that is 20 year old. It cost a quarter of the amount of  my 6 year old  Apple computer.
Why is it a 6 year old computer is obsolete. I can't even get the parts to fix it. What do I do with it?
My work Dell lap top at three years old  is approaching old age.  This is a crazy system. I understand technology is rapidly changing, but I have a great monitor which I can't use and some other features that I should be able to use but are gone forever.  If I spent $2000.00 on a washing machine I would expect it to last forever.  I recently bought a 1997 Honda accord with 80,000 miles on it. I am sure that it will last longer that my next computer ( which I haven't purchased yet).

The reason I am writing about this is that it has impaired my ability to  upload photos and posts on this blog.
I will try to get going because I still  have lots to muse about. But I still don't have a new Apple.  :(

Dreams

I dream my paintings, then I paint my dreams. (Vincent van Gogh)

Impossible Dream lyrics by Mitch Leigh from Man of LaMancha
To dream the impossible dream


To fight the unbeatable foe

To bear with unbearable sorrow

To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong

To love pure and chaste from afar

To try when your arms are too weary

To reach the unreachable star



This is my quest

To follow that star

No matter how hopeless

No matter how far



To fight for the right

Without question or pause

To be willing to march into Hell

For a heavenly cause



And I know if I'll only be true

To this glorious quest

That my heart will lie peaceful and calm

When I'm laid to my rest



And the world will be better for this

That one man, scorned and covered with scars

Still strove with his last ounce of courage

To reach the unreachable star

Spaces

What art offers is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit.
(John Updike)

Space is the breath of art.

Frank Lloyd Wright

Trust

I am not sure why I picked this photo. Perhaps it is because even though it snowed last night I trust spring is just around the corner. Or maybe that before this flower grew in my garden I trusted that one seed planted in the soil with water and sun would yield something so awesome.

The highest art... sets down its creations and trusts in their magic, without fear of not being understood. (Hermann Hesse)




Trust your intuition, your inner knowing; allow yourself to be immersed in the process of creation as a joyous and sacred dance of materials; neither listen to critics nor be one; leap into the dark secure in the knowing that wherever your feet touch down will be the right place at the right time. (Burnell Yow!)

Journey

That's the best thing about walking, the journey itself. It doesn't matter much whether you get where you're going or not. You'll get there anyway. Every good hike brings you eventually back home. (Edward Abbey)

Helen Frankenthaler

Helen Frankenthaler was born in New York City on December 28, 1928, the third and youngest daughter of a noted justice of the New York Supreme Court and his German born wife.  She attended the exclusive Brearley School in Manhattan and the Dalton School where her art teacher was Rufino Tamayo.  He suggested that she go to Bennington College to study painting;

Every canvas is a journey all its own. (Helen Frankenthaler)

Choices

Every picture one paints involves not painting others. (Robert Motherwell)

Always go with the choice that scares you the most, because that's the one that is going to require the most from you. (Caroline Myss)

Strength

Liberty Leading the People

Delacroix depicted Liberty, as both an allegorical goddess-figure and a robust woman of the people, an approach that contemporary critics denounced as "ignoble". The mound of corpses acts as a kind of pedestal from which Liberty strides, barefoot and bare-breasted, out of the canvas and into the space of the viewer. (wikipedia)

encouragement

The essential support and encouragement comes from within, arising out of the mad notion that your society needs to know what only you can tell it. (John Updike)

influences

One never knows what one is going to do. One starts a painting and then it becomes something quite else. It is remarkable how little the 'willing' of the artist intervenes. (Pablo Picasso)