Goals Anyone?

Bluebells, 8 x 8″ monoprint
“Goals in life as in art should be specific in order to hope to attain them.”
- Raynald Murphy
Do you have goals, specific or otherwise, for your art? What things in life are better served with goals and which are not, or at least do not require them? Which camp does art [...]

Read Full Post »

How to Avoid Failure

Meteoric, 8 x 7″ monoprint, ink and pastel
“There is no such thing as failure. There are only results.”
- Anthony Robbins
We are in such a rush to judge. Perhaps artists are even more prone to this pernicious tendency because we are always trying to figure out if what we’re doing is any good. Should we do [...]

Read Full Post »

So Much From So Little

Cosmos, 6 x 6″ monoprint, ink and pastels
“My studio begins at the art supply store. I imagine all the paintings trapped inside those tubes of paint.”
- John Ferrie
One thing that amazes me about art is the variety and complexity of what can be created from the simplest of elements and tools.
I know of some painters [...]

Read Full Post »

Talking with your Art

Distant Shores, 6 x 6″ monoprint

“All painting is an accident. But it’s also not an accident, because one must select what part of the accident one chooses to preserve.”
- Francis Bacon
The process of painting is a wonderful play between unexpected results and calculated decisions. Nothing is more pleasing to the artist than to be surprised [...]

Read Full Post »

Painting Music

Jungle Rhythms, 6 x 6″ monoprint with ink and pastel
“Listening to Mozart when painting can make you believe in God.”
- J.M. Brodrick
I can’t paint without music playing in the background. But I’m very particular about what music it is. The music definitely informs my painting and if the wrong tunes are playing, the painting is [...]

Read Full Post »

A New Life

Cattails, 6 x 6″ monoprint
“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind is part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter into another.”
- Anatole France
I’ve been contemplating change a lot lately. Perhaps it’s the time of year to think about what and how [...]

Read Full Post »

Something New…

red balloon
escapes the child’s grasp
sunrise floats away

New Day, 6 x 6″ monoprint
“Poetry is good for unleashing images.”
- Paula Rego
I am planning on periodically adding short haiku poems I’ve written to my postings, as this is a poetic form I’ve become interested in. Traditionally the pairing of haiku with painting is known as haiga which appeared [...]

Read Full Post »

Doing Beauty

Shoji 1, 6 x 6″ monoprint
“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”
- Rumi
I’ve always loved this quote from Rumi – actually had it on my website homepage for years. What great words for an artist to live by. We “do” beauty, which makes the word more than an empty adjective.

Now beauty [...]

Read Full Post »

Avoiding the Straight and Narrow

Ikebana 1, 10 x 15″ acrylic, inks
“When the snake decided to go straight, he didn’t get anywhere.”
- William Stafford
Our artistic paths have a trajectory that is unique to each of us. About the only thing they have in common is that they are not straight, often to our dismay. It seems like we’d get to [...]

Read Full Post »

In Defense of Hope

Tropical Deconstruction, 6 x 6″ monoprint
“As artists our job is to keep the faith and help humankind to remember beauty and thus the promise of happiness. Our work defends hope, the most precious homeland for any soul.”
- Todd Plough
I love everything about this quote.
It says that what artists do matters. That notion may be hard [...]

Read Full Post »