Pine Cone's View, 12x12"
I love balancing between realism and abstraction. I think for me it has a lot to do with the way I see the world. Our eyes supply basic information: color, shape, texture. The mind does a lot of filling-in based on what we already know. We don't actually see what we think we see. Maybe that's why everyone's truth is so unique. I attempt to bypass preconception. Sometimes I succeed.
I've got big walls to fill in August, so I have some 30x30" canvases in my studio.
I've cleaned and organized the studio. I've finished the little framing job I needed to do. I've written and edited my curriculum. I've gathered most of the supplies I need for the class I teach beginning on Monday morning.
I've heard heart-wrenching stories from students who used to paint but needed a job with health benefits. Or they went to art school and a professor wanted to know what the hell they were doing there. Or they've made a successful career in the arts, but don't know what they want to do now. They just want to paint but they are stuck, stuck, stuck.
"Will my lack of experience take up too much of the class's time?" "I have NO talent!" "I gave up so long ago, my paints all dried up." But they still want to paint. Some of us just do, that's all. But too many of us are self-effacing.
What I've learned from my students is that more than "how" to paint, many people need to learn it's OK to paint. This is sad - of course it's OK, it's just paint! I think what they're struggling to learn is that it's OK not to be perfect ... OK to make some mistakes ... OK to learn from them - or just to paint over them!
Which brings me back to my clean and organized studio, and the 30x30" canvases that are now looking at me. Blankly.
Pine Cone's View is a synthesis based on a series of plein-aire paintings I made at Pemaquid Point. It's on exhibit right now at Saccarappa Art Collective, along with the plein-aire paintings. This is the direction that jazzes me. It's both representational and abstract. But it's only 12x12". My canvases are 30x30". Deep breaths...
Students, I'm with you - so with you, in fact, I'm one of you! On Monday we're going to give ourselves permission to paint what we paint. Then we'll keep painting until we paint what we want.
