The holidays are officially over now. Our "children", now young adults, have gone back to their lives, the house is empty of all distraction this morning, and it is raining. The perfect day to paint. Yet, getting back into the groove of solitude is not so easy. Visual artists, even if they work others at times, must make peace with the solitary pursuit of creative work. I have spent time this morning doing yoga, planning my next workshop, and looking at travel packages online...casting about to find a way out of facing the inevitable solitude that is both friend and foe.
During the past month I have been working on formulating a unique oil painting surface, doing the work in segments over the holidays and am coming down to the wire on my deadline for an upcoming show at Hill Design + Gallery in which all of my Agave Series will be featured together for the first time. It is exciting that all of these original paintings will be shown together. I feel as though they are children of sorts who have been sent out into the world without the pleasure of the company of family. Some of them have found homes and some have returned from a variety of venues. I worked on the four new paintings in this series when it was rainy. I felt the call of Hawaii where we lived previous to our move to the Austin area. I wanted to capture the feeling of the ocean that was crashing on the shores of my artist's memory. I didn't have to work hard to get the feeling on to the canvas. In fact, there seemed to be no getting away from it. Although intense color is one of my artist "trademarks", the cool muted tones of the new work describe things oceanic.
I think I just heard the faint rustle of wings... my muse settling in for the day? Happy painting to all.
No comments:
Post a Comment