Crumpled Brown Paper 4
oil 11" x 14"
Crumpled Brown Paper 3
oil 8" x 10"
"In art the discovery is often gradual - a process of minor discoveries, in fact - riddled with uncertainties and the potential for making that which is discovered
vanish before your eyes, like a mirage."
Anne Dillard
In a way, that threat of all one has discovered suddenly disappearing, is the thrill that attracts. Can one beat the inevitable? Are you good / focused / driven enough to maintain material and mind with the intensity of observation required. Anyone painting long enough has felt it happen - that extra touch, the distracted moment and the structure goes flat, the air leaves the atmosphere, the color gets dirty. One of the earliest learning events is the simple recognition that it has happened. A hard won skill is figuring how to try to get back to the original crisp and poetic vision. A much later and more difficult skill is to stop and see and restrain the need to do more, to sustain the original vision. When one can get to that place of seeing and knowing and recognizing the poetry - the feeling is so wondrous and and exalted that it will keep you late at your work and awaken you early the next day.
