And yet another year of promise begins...

Well it has been a while. I might even say too long if I hadn't been busy creating during these past months. And with good reason...solo show coming in April. Still, as exciting as that is for me, the creating part hasn't really been about the show. It has really been about being inspired. Frankly, I just can't get enough of it. A rock is no longer just a rock...I feel like I've connected with something bigger than me. Each rock I choose soon becomes a monument to some creative process that has me enraptured.

MAESTRO
Oil on canvas, 24" x 36" (2012)

Although the paintings may not do justice to the thousands of years that go into the creation of a rock, I have this deep hope that they may awaken the observer to become as enthralled as I find myself when admiring the natural beauty that surrounds us, even in the tiniest of stones. Truly, I marvel at the complexity of it all.

Featured are two of the paintings I've been working on. I was hoping to post many more pics but I seem to be having the same problem shared by many...I can't upload my images. Of the two paintings featured here, one is accompanied by the stone that inspired it and the other is not. In the case of the other paintings I've been working on, some have the stone embedded, some are embellished with metals such as copper mesh, while others are surrounded by wooden frames. They will not all make it to my show but I'll worry about selection later. Then decisions on framing will take place and whether or not to present the inspiration stone with them.

DECOMPOSITION
Oil on canvas, 16" x 20" (2012)

As I always say, and fervently hope, I will try to post more often for I see it as the perfect journal to keep track of my creative endeavours.

And now the time has come to catch up with those blogs which I have so enjoyed and from which I have drawn so much inspiration, and , sadly, which I have woefully neglected.

Namaste.

Speaking Natural Abstract

I started drawing and painting some thirty years ago yet in 2006 I called my first real solo exhibit "In search of a voice". Although I had been painting just as a hobby you'd think I would have found my personal style in all those years. I even completed a four year degree in visual arts...Yet only now do I feel I can speak.

I'll admit, I mumbled a few words in this language every now and again but I always fell short in the vocabulary. The syntax and grammar left a lot to be desired as well. And now, today, I feel like a babbling brook. My language of choice-Natural Abstract.

I have often created inspired by what I saw as the abstract in nature but it was always just a piece or two. In no time at all, my inspirations seemed mundane. Then a few weeks ago I held a small river rock in my hand and I really looked at it, I read ever line and crevice, I really felt it's story.

Then I held another, and another, and another...and it became evident that each stone has it's own story.

Suddenly, I have a studio full of rocks and stones, full of ideas and inspirations...And I am the story teller.

As you might tell, I treat each stone as a unique artifact. The only common denominator is that they are all oil paintings. As for the composition, I let each stone tell me how it wants to be expressed. Some want to be part of the painting, some just want to accompany it, while others just want to inspire and return to the earth from whence they came. Others I feel so connected to that they will become my personal treasures, my personal rock collection.

Recently I heard a quote on the radio that seems to fit how I've been feeling "I love ideas because ideas are always pregnant". Are they ever! I had the idea to paint what I observed in one stone and twelve paintings later, I see no end in sight.

(All images and text in this blog are protected by copyright by virtue of their publication.)

Fragments, Resistance, Passion and Shadows

Most of my days are made up of fragments, bits of this and that, intertwining but not quite connecting. The fragments are often in motion, falling away, leaving shadows in their wake - shadows that haunt, shadows that disguise, shadows that cripple - preventing forward movement.

Fragments is this oil painting, a pictorial record of how life appears at times. Red for passion:  passion for my family and my home; passion for my two littles kittens, Mim and Pip; passion for nature - fauna and flora; passion for earth and all it's glorious bounty; and passion for creativity, however it chooses to express itself. Still with all that passion, I resist living life to the fullest.

Fragments
20" x 30" oil, slate and paper on canvas

Fragments are oftentimes obstacles, cold and grey like slivers of hard slate dappled with blood, sweat and tears. They fall all around and avoiding them can be hazardous...so you let them fall and you accept the shadows they cast. Fragments, like words, can cut and diminish. Fragments, like incomplete thoughts, keep you suspended. Fragments of life, love and loss...

Still, every now and again you tune in to the passion and once again you rise and greet the day with enthusiasm. That day is at hand!