Floating Couple with Baby and Deer
acrylic on canvas, 30"x40", 6/19
Detail
Detail
Floating Couple with Flowers
acrylic on paper, 18"x24", 6/19
Floating Couple in Pencil
pencil on Strathmore paper, 9"x11", 5/19
Flower of Life
acrylic on cold pressed paper, 9"x12", 4/19
These few pictures, record the recent evolution of my visual ideas. I chose these px's, out of many, to summarize an artistic exploration of several visual, artistic, ideas. The top picture shows my latest picture, the emergence of a painting, the flowering, the growth, of an artistic stream.
My work continues to lead me along a wide and wandering path of visible invention. I will be 75 years old soon. Art has been my most steady friend. Always available, like a listening ear, but visual, a conversation with myself. Making art, expressing the essence of my existence, an escape from the box of conformity, to mold my mind, to reinvent myself, as I transverse this particular (and peculiar) time/life of unique experience. A piece of paper, a canvas, is a small piece of real estate, where I make up the rules. A white rectangle of material offers unlimited freedom of expression. Yes, it is about me, me, me; but I want to communicate, to reach you, and you and you. To let loose the babble of my mind.
Here am I. What ever that means. Here I am reaching out to communicate with you. We are all both the same and different. Our individual minds are a blob of almost incomprehensible jelly packed with a jillion neuron wires sealed in a bowl of bones. Art is a way to transport ideas from my bone bowl to your bone bowl. (OK, that was funny. Sometimes I just cant help myself.) We are each alone until we courageously perform authentic communication.
OK, enough of that cacophony.
These four pictures are a summary of the progression of ideas. Starting with the bottom picture, and progressing to the top picture.
I became interested in the "Flower of Live". A basic pattern that is part of "Sacred Geometry". I watched a lot of You Tube videos. I played with the pattern, using a compass and other devices that had lain useless for years in a studio box. The Flower of Life penetrated my dreams. I awoke slowly in the morning with visions of the flower dancing in my head. The videos explained that the flower pattern illustrated how everything, material and immaterial, fits together.
The bottom acrylic painting illustrates the pattern.
Next, I played with pencil on paper. As I sketched, casually, I wanted my art to be happy. Much art is angry. Ugly art is trendy. There is too much anger in the world. Buddha said, "That which you attend to grows". I want to grow joy.
I reexplored the work of Marc Chagall. His floating couple is joyful. I riffed on his couple. Making simple lines and shapes. I wanted it graceful.
The couple wanted a baby. So I brought in Keith Haring to birth a baby. Then the baby needed a friend, a sitter, while Mom and Pop floated ecstatically in the heavens. A gentle deer volunteered and was added to the picture. A protective tree grew grounded and womb like, around the deer and baby.
Chagall and Haring reached across the years to help me with this series. We are so blessed to have a glorious banquet of art history to enrich our lives and art.
