 MOUNTAINTOP SUPPLICANT | WEIRD AND WONDERFUL When I stand at my computer to begin writing my weekly Art Notes, I almost always have an idea of what I want to share and celebrate with you. Occasionally, one of my feisty muses shows up, tosses my topic out the window, takes over the keyboard and proceeds to riff on a totally unexpected topic. Hence today, we’re considering “weird”. Back in Arkansas some musician friends of mine show up at my artist’s cottage atop Mount Seqouyah. The band is here to hang out and select a painting for the cover of their newest album of original work. Spending time with this bunch of man talents and their significant others is fun. Their energy is high. Their repartee lively. Their stories are amusingly |
stretched and edgy.
When they eventually get around to choosing their album art, they settle on “Mountaintop Supplicant”, painted near the end of my four-year wilderness sojourn. The medium is gouache. The directness and motifs are common to this time of my creating—pure, mostly primary colors; three majestic mountains, companions to a glistening river; a clear night sky adorned with an eyelash moon, colorful planets and vivid stars; a throbbing heart burning with passion that informs the intuitive eye.
How I came to paint this way I sometimes wonder.
When my children reach ages I feel I can devote more time to my creating, I assume my expressions will be soft and gentle renderings from a subtle palette—soothing, serene paintings that bring comfort and quiet pleasure—the kind of lovely, calming works that go over sofas. Not to be! So I give my paintings the lives they insist on having. Each work I make is brighter, bolder, more symbol rich and more weird than the last.
Weird is a descriptor worth contemplating when considering art and artists.
When they eventually get around to choosing their album art, they settle on “Mountaintop Supplicant”, painted near the end of my four-year wilderness sojourn. The medium is gouache. The directness and motifs are common to this time of my creating—pure, mostly primary colors; three majestic mountains, companions to a glistening river; a clear night sky adorned with an eyelash moon, colorful planets and vivid stars; a throbbing heart burning with passion that informs the intuitive eye.
How I came to paint this way I sometimes wonder.
When my children reach ages I feel I can devote more time to my creating, I assume my expressions will be soft and gentle renderings from a subtle palette—soothing, serene paintings that bring comfort and quiet pleasure—the kind of lovely, calming works that go over sofas. Not to be! So I give my paintings the lives they insist on having. Each work I make is brighter, bolder, more symbol rich and more weird than the last.
Weird is a descriptor worth contemplating when considering art and artists.
| There’s a picture quote going around on facebook from time to time and now hanging in my cottage studio and in my artCentral studio/office. The black and white photo is two young girls. From behind her hand, looking at the subject of their conversation, one whispers, “She’s an artist.” Her deer-eyed friend replies, “Ohhh! I thought she was just weird.” |  |
Sometime along the way, every artist will likely realize his or her perception of the world is weird, as in quite different from that of “normal” people. This awareness can produce an agonizing sense of anomie—that “Ah! no me!” place of not-belonging in the realms of regular perceptual values. To accept the weird of this sometimes lonely creative place is a real breakthrough to artistic freedom.
Come to Hyde House through March 28th and you’ll find fifty-two JRAC free expressions of the weird. They are simply wonderful!
Come to Hyde House through March 28th and you’ll find fifty-two JRAC free expressions of the weird. They are simply wonderful!
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