A little more on my history: My artist friends can attest that my earliest work was, to say the least, ēmo. A small sampling below:
I played tenaciously with chiaroscuro.
At times losing the the lit edges entirely in the light and the shadow
edges in the shadows. I used to joke it was because there was no drama
in my mundane life that I felt a need to interject it into my art. ...? Who can say that?? Certainly not me. Not at the time anyway. My father had died around that time and I had learned that he had covered for my mothers Alzheimer's like a pro. I was left to care for her and that, boys and girls, was not mundane. It was maddening, horrifying, and a multitude of other feelings I'd rather not explore right now.
So as I progress through this retrospective period and analyze the daylight out of my work, I ask you, what is said about an artist through his/her work? Look at Edvard Munch and The Scream. On the other hand, consider Georgia O'Keeffe's work. Is it color that we first respond to? What do brush strokes, choice of brush, or subject matter have to say? What can be said about how we interpret and relate shadow and light? How much can really be said without saying it at all?
I've certainly traveled a few miles from my ēmo (short for emotional, by the way. An older buzz word for those who prefer to wear all black including black fingernail polish, black eyeshadow and so forth - as I understand it) fruit. I, myself, was never ēmo. Not even close. I was a soccer mom. With a perm. And a station wagon. Actually, no. By then the station wagon had evolved into an Acura I'm happy to say. All in all I was, by and large, the average American homemaker, caring for her elderly mother. One of many. One in a crowd. A army of housewives, invisible to the world, caring for their elderly mothers dieing in care facilities. Dieing on the inside and the outside. Losing touch with the world and themselves. But I digress.
I was never ēmo. Certainly not when I painted Bluepearry. Nope. By then I had come to terms with my reality. I had bonded with the congregation of housewives across the world crushed with the reality of losing reality. I had bonded to my reality and accepted it for what it was. I was now able to paint happy, rich, colorful little worlds on my little 6x6 canvases in the privacy of my 10x12 studio just behind my yellow house. I could paint the same pear until it was worthy of the compost pile yet you would never see a scar or a bruise on one of my little pear paintings. You would never know it was getting to the melting stages. Decaying. I would paint the heck out of that thing.
I still like chiaroscuro. It no longer comes naturally for me though. Or maybe I should say, I'm not drawn to it like I used to be. That was an era. A moment. That was then.
Today I list my Bluepearry. The background is warm which is fairly odd to me. And the foreground is cooler. Even odder. I've begun painting warm shadows and cool light. I prefer that now, actually. It's happy, I think. And I think the pear is in charge - if you want to go there. Or maybe it just looked right to place it as such and randomly scatter the little blueberries about. It is what it is. But I wonder what, if anything, it has to say..
1 comment:
I still love your paintings and I like having a peek inside your thought processes. You are a good writer.
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