Friday, August 22, 2008

One Hour...



Late yesterday afternoon I found myself with an unexpected hour of quiet.  I had been longing to get into the studio all day and then like a gift...an empty hour appeared.  So I turned up some music and started these two small paintings.  I like to listen to music turned up pretty loud when I'm painting so an empty house is a rare but welcome occurrence.  I was able to finish them once my house was quiet again (it's good to be a night owl).  

A fellow blogger posted about the difficulty of writing an artist statement and trying to define your work as an artist.  It's harder than it sounds.  She posted a short list of questions which are supposed to help you to create a true statement...here's my attempt at answering them:

1.  What is your favorite tool?  Why?
The paintbrush is my hands down winner.  Layering on color and seeing where it leads a  piece is endlessly fascinating to me.

2.  What is your favorite material?  Why?
Beeswax is an amazing material which has a lush quality and depth of color which I haven't found in any other medium.  

3.  What do you like best about what you do?
Allowing my dream life or subconscious self to find a voice in the real world is deeply satisfying and somewhat mysterious.  Painting helps me see the dailiness of life with new eyes.

4.  What do you mean when you say that a piece has turned out really well?
To me a piece has turned out well when it works as a whole and I can look at it without picking it apart.  I am very critical of my work and end up destroying paintings I'm not happy with...

5.What patterns emerge in your work?
I definitely see the pattern of the seasons in my work. 

Have a great weekend!  



3 comments:

Leililaloo said...

This is great!! I was just looking for a way to help me understand what i'm doing. Thanks for posting it, i'll be aswering these questions soon to myself.

artslice said...

What a great set of questions! I especially like your answer to no.3... because I feel the same way - you said it better than I could, tho. :)

Lucky you, alone in the house with the music on loud. In a previous post you mentioned baking bread... got any good, easy recipes to share?

ps I'd like to add you to my link list, hope that's ok.

Happy Weekend!
Brenda

tangled sky studio said...

These are great questions and Janice has the link to the whole article that they came from...isn't it hard to narrow down the answers?
i've got a great easy bread recipe to share and will pass on the info brenda....