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Painting The Soul Of My Home

Bernard Buffet

Bernard Buffet

View of the City, Rick Beerhorst

View of the City, Rick Beerhorst

Charley Toorop

Charley Toorop

City,

1.  In a general sense, a large town; a large number of houses and inhabitants, established on one place.

2. The collective body of citizens, or the inhabitants of a city; as when we say, the city voted to establish a market, and the city repealed the vote.

(From the American Dictionary of the English Language, Noah Webster 1828)

I have gone through different seasons of painting my city. When I came back to Grand Rapids after graduate school in 1987 I did a number of small paintings and drawings on site around the city as a way to re-aclamait myself to my home. I began the City As Muse project last January which concluded with ArtPrize '14. Now I am working on a new painting of the city along the river beside the Fulton Street bridge. The more I do these works, the deeper I feel connected to this place. It is as if the city itself has a soul, like a person has a soul. I feel like the city is much more than brick and mortar, concrete and asphalt. There is something within that pulses with life, a dynamic living thing, always changing, rising and falling. And even when a city like Detroit looks like it may be dying, there is always the potential of a rebirth out of the ashes.

I remain captivated by our city as I draw and paint it. Painting and drawing the place where I live makes me care about it more and at the same time feeds my sense of belonging to this particular place at this present time.

Monday 11.10.14
Posted by Rick Beerhorst
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The world needs the full color version of you and so do you! Lets work together to get your creative practice back on track. Why not make 2019 the best year yet.