Foreign territory

What happened to the winter, and the time when I should have had to post?  It has been way to long since I posted here and it feels like what happens when whe stay too far away from our own creativity. I am in foreign territory, I need to get reaquainted with it.

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)