Inside of the Carriage House Studio
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 6:37AM 
I try to paint every day. I find it a sort of ritual. Putting paint on the pallet, yellow ocher, burnt sienna, naples yellow, titanium white, burnt umber and ultramarine blue. These colors are all dear friends of mine. Putting out dabs of paint and mixing up areas of color for the days painting feels good. Maybe it is like a fisherman piling in his nets into the boat in a very particular way and pushing off from the shore in hopes of a good catch. I have been pushing this boat off from shore for over twenty years now and hope to continue for many more years.
There is something about the process of creating a painting that continues to intrigue me. The careful building up of layers day after day that lead to a beautiful and confusing mystery. Some times it seems the paintings come with more questions then answers. The paintings require a relationship with the viewer. You need to build looking muscles. Looking at a painting is a mystical encounter something like the way the children get to Narnia in the CS Lewis chronicles. One day there is no back to the wardrobe and their next steps go from the wooden bottom of the wardrobe to the deep fluff of new snow. The next day there is just a wardrobe and no snow, no other world to explore. Some times a painting is just canvas and paint, on another day it takes you into a whole other way of seeing the world and the shift may be at first imperceptible. Maybe you wont even now that you have been changed by the painting until much later.
Paintings are best when you live with them. Visiting a gallery or museum is not the same as waking up to a painting that hangs over your bed, to a painting that quietly relinquishes its beauty by your desk at work, sifts its other worldly combination of colors into your dinning room. I long for my paintings to find homes and at the same time it breaks my heart for them to leave and I think this is the way it is supposed to be.
Making paintings is one way to bring love and beauty to a world so often growing dry and brittle. Putting a painting in your living room is like installing a fountain in your garden. Before you know it people will be dropping by to soak in the beauty and you will find your life having to expand to let them in.
Reader Comments (3)
Oh well said Rick. I concur wholeheartedly. I work with the drawn line rather than paint, but the same strange alchemy applies. Maybe "No back to the wardrobe" would be a good title for an exhibition!
(I'm sorry but I am blog and flickr-less at present, but this new year should be bringing both to our lives.There's a tiny bit about me at this link to a gallery I show with -two tiny pics- and a little montage of images with the second link- all the best- N.)
http://www.janmurphygallery.com.au/artists.php?aid=28)
http://www.voicemap.net/getfile/94d91f34-ca66-4736-ae7c-38a65794a80b/bannerNicola.aspx
Thanks for that note and link to your work at the gallery so far away.
I like what is written for you artist statement/bio I feel that you are a sister kindred spirit. We need family where ever we can find it these days in order to keep the fires lit.
Looking forward to seeing more of your work.
Rick...
Hola! I have really enjoyed reading about and looking at the photos of your growing family. You should be proud of the life you have constructed there. I hope you are! Seeing your artwork/s again has been a real treat! I really do enjoy the paintings of yours that grace our walls..I look at them each day and marvel...along with the artworks of Glen Davies and Peter Bodnar. It has been too long since we last spoke. Keep on painting and living well!
J.R. Morrison