Category: Artist

This is me in front of the pastel and charcoal drawing I did that was accepted into the Chico Art Center’s 2014 National All Media show. The show is up now and runs through Sept. 12th. The piece is entitled “Self Portrait” and is like most everything I do these days. Expressive. Laboring painstakingly over a photographic likeness doesn’t interest me. I enjoy movement and color and line and drama. I guess that’s pretty obvious.

I was eager to submit three pastel drawings I made recently to the Orland Art Center’s Annual Group Show and then thrilled to have them all accepted. This was a juried show and there are 27 artists in the show. The artists are from all over California. The show runs from August 2nd through August 22nd. If you’re going up I-5 to anywhere and go past Orland it’s a 5 minute detour east off the freeway to downtown and the Gallery.

When I was an art student, I earned the honor to study with the acclaimed artist and teacher Virginia Myers in the University of Iowa intaglio printmaking studio. I loved her classes and I worshipped the teacher. I worked hard but sometimes I was a little flakey. One day a student asked Virginia how do you know if you are really an artist? Virginia looked straight at her and said, “An artist can’t stop herself. She really has no choice about it.” What an answer! I was mortified. I was definitely not an artist by Virginia’s definition. Even though I wanted to be an artist more than anything and felt like an artist more than anything, I wasn’t exactly clamoring to be in the studio. To be honest I spent more time doing other things than making art. I took consciousness raising classes, chased boys and took up meditation. Then one day, after chastising myself for wasting yet another day, I finally understood what Virginia meant. What she really was talking about was obsession. It didn’t really matter whether I was making art or not, because if I wasn’t making art, I was torturing myself about not making art. I couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t have any choice about it. So my choice was this: to be an artist who worked or one who didn’t.

Now that I am a working artist I look back on those days and think how what I was doing then was preparing me to be doing what I’m doing now. A real artist just is. Whether an artist makes something concrete or not you can always tell one by how they look at things. An artist doesn’t see things the way people of other pursuits see things. You’ll just have to trust me on this. We never get the opportunity to see how it feels to be in another person’s skin. But if you pay attention enough you will come to realize it is true.

 

seeker of truth – follow no path – all paths lead where – truth is here

ee cummings

I had so much fun drawing this drawing. I am still having fun looking at it and reflecting what next to do. What line where what shade there. The point is – to have fun. Now at my “advanced age” with my physical infirmities it seems ever more important to remind myself of this fact. Of course, tempered with a splash of reason. But fun, nonetheless.

The magic of drawing is in the strokes.  By strokes I mean the unique quality of the lines or other marks the artist makes.  Some lines jab while others meander.  Some markings are blurred while others are crisp.  The strokes convey in a tactile way the essence of how the artist comes to grips with the challenge of capturing an actual thing or manifesting an inner vision.  Making a drawing is a journey of exploration, and the marks are evidence of the journey.  When we look at a drawing, we can feel the energy that went into it in the particular lines and strokes.

“Self Portrait”

These are drawings that I submitted to the 2014 Orland Art Center Group Show. All were accepted. The show was juried and runs from August 1st through August 23rd, 2014 in Orland, California. Drawing people is my strong suit and I really like doing it. I don’t really like to draw photographically although I can do it. My thought is: why draw photographically when cameras abound? I prefer to draw realistically but add expression to capture the personality of the person. This is the advantage of being an artist. The artist can make choices the camera cannot. All the drawings are large: 24″ x 36″.

“Lucille”

“Martin”

“The Riddle”

From The Riddle a poem by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Always eyes east

Ponders she now—

As in devotion—

Hills of blank brow

Where no waves plough.

Never the least

Room for emotion

Drawn from the ocean

Does she allow.