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| Work in Progress -- acrylic drawing 18x24 canvas |
What is the fine line that separates art from pornography? Can you feel it?
Sense it? What is vulgar to one person may be beautiful to another. I was
surprised and excited when I took my first drawing class with a live model. I
blossomed! My linear ink/brush drawing won first prize in an art show.
I took my sketches and
drawings; my prized paintings, to a family reunion and shared them with
relatives. My excitement waned as shocked and appalled faces looked back at me.
They were not only “not impressed,” they were disgusted.
Beauty is in the eye of the
beholder. Obviously, my relatives had never had much exposure to art. What they
saw and felt was shame for the exposure of the human form. I was crestfallen.
Every emotion and skill I had discovered in myself was frowned on by those who
knew me. My best was not good enough. I was viewed with disdain.
Did that deter me? Yes, for
awhile until I rediscovered myself and the beauty of all God’s creations,
including the human body.
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| Work in Progress -- "Fish Market--You Buy?" |
During the transformation of
the German people under the leadership of Hitler, Heinrich Heine made this
observation: “Where books or art is burned, they will in the end, burn people.”
We must protect our freedom
of expression. In China they cannot use the Internet freely or speak freely.
Sometimes in government’s efforts to control and protect, they end up
extinguishing freedom. Just like blowing on a lighted candle, they diminish the
light of truth and the power of the individual to choose.
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| Work in Progress, 18x24 canvas, Fishmarket |
Here are some of my favorite
quotes by famous artists: Enjoy!
"When
my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at
work. I told her I worked at the college- that my job was to teach people how
to draw. She stared back at me, incredulous, and said, "You mean they
forget?"
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Howard Ikemoto
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The
more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes abstract.
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Paul Klee
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"Good
art is not what it looks like, but what it does to us."
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Roy Adzak
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"A
painting is never finished - it simply stops in interesting places."
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Paul Gardner
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"A
line is a dot that went for a walk."
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Paul Klee
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It took
me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.
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Pablo Picasso
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Art
washes from the soul the dust of everyday life.
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Pablo Picasso
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It
takes a very long time to become young.
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Pablo Picasso
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There
are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others
who, thanks to their art and intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the
sun.
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Pablo Picasso
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If
people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so
wonderful at all.
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Michelangelo Buonarroti
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"If
you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your
attitude. Don't complain."
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Maya Angelou
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An
artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision."
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James McNeill Whistler
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"Every
artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his
pictures."
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Henry Ward Beecher
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It has
bothered me all my life that I do not paint like everybody else.
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Henri Matisse
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I do
not literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me.
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Henri Matisse
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I found
I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other
way-things I had no words for.
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Georgia O'Keeffe
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Art is
not what you see, but what you make others see.
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Georgia O'Keeffe
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"The
source of genius is imagination alone, the refinement of the senses that sees
what others do not see, or sees them differently."
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Eugene Delacroix
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"I
am an artist… I am here to live out loud."
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Emile Zola
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"Painting
is easy for those that do not know how, but very difficult for those that
do!"
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Edgar Degas
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"Art
is not what you see, but what you make others see."
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Edgar Degas
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"No
amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of
imagination." Edward Hopper
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| "Hey, Coconut Mon" (part of my African series) |
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