It’s time to get going on all the new projects I’ve given myself! EAA newsletter, Friendship Bridge committee, Colorado Watercolor Society, Foothills Art Center and of course Art Students League–oh and don’t forget the promise of working out and loosing those holiday pounds!
Art Exhibition
European Reflections
Bring the colors and style of the beautiful Mediterranean into your life with the latest bright and refreshing art of Genesee artist and Evergreen Artist Association member, Pixie Glore. After studying and painting throughout Europe for 12 years, Pixie has now returned to Colorado to share with you her incredible adventures. Through oil and watercolor, explore the vineyards of France, the Spanish countryside and of course the beaches of the Mediterranean. Each brush stroke brings with it the bright, fresh, colors of Europe and the lessons she brings home from the Masters of the Impressionist movement.
Come spend an evening and share with her, the beauty of historic Europe. www.pixiesart.com
Reception: Friday November 6th, 5PM to 9PM at the Vista Club House in Genesee
20% of sales goes to the Friendship Bridge Charity.
Come and treat yourself or a loved one to a truly special gift and help the women of Guatemala at the same time.
From Robert Genn Twice-Weekly Letter of May l6, 2009, came a thoughtful post that was sent in by
Pam Ryan of Wilmette, Illinois. She attached a letter she received from an anonymous juror
The juror went on to say: “It’s vital for any artist to nurture and protect that which makes their vision unique. One needs to go inward instead of outward and learn to trust your own inner guide.”
“If you have one rule to follow,” she wrote, “I suggest cultivating a dialogue with your inner voice, listening to the clues your own images offer.”
I love to listen to artists explain their work. I have a sculptor friend who makes the most amazing creations and has a long story full of symbols and imagination about each piece. From wood, stone and metal, theater and worlds emerge. He and his work are almost the same. He’s fascinating, and people love him and his work.
I wish I had more words to explain my pieces, but somehow I can’t quite get them out. I’m going to work on that, and not just for other people, but for myself. I think I miss a lot of self awareness if I jump from piece to piece without thinking about why I painted that particular work. For example, I am fascinated by women of Tibet that I am currently painting–particularly their smiles, their great big smiles. I have a huge emotional response to a person who lives in such hardship and yet keeps her children and even her village together, and still somehow seems to be able to be happy, even if it is for a moment. Perhaps it is those moments that keep her going. I think perhaps it is my own search for happiness that makes me seek these women out. From my cushy sofa, my problems seem so trite, and I want to smile like they do–Oh how I admire them!
Wouldn’t it be nice if all you had to do was paint every day and not think of anything else? Who ever said we had to sell anyway? Is that the only measure of success? You go to art school and no one ever takes a business class so we’re mostly pretty clueless about selling. We get out here in the real world and wait for the studio door to open with a gallery owner begging for our work. “Here, I’ll take this one and that one and the next five you haven’t painted.” “While I’m here, I’ll treat you to lunch.” — Ok, dream on. The truth is we slog our paintings back and forth across town to this show and and that exhibition and sell something every once in a while. You get in a good gallery and then the next thing you know, it closes–can’t make it. So we keep hauling our work around while it stacks up in the back of our studios. We give some to chairty and to our friends, but still the stacks keep growing. Bonfires begin to look enticing–during a full moon, with strong libation, we could toss and hurl the canvases and paper to the ancient art spirits. But, “maybe not” we think, afterall that’s kind of like committing sucicide of the heart and we’d have to endure the hangover.
I felt like I was traveling through a Da Vinci landscape. The mountains in the distance were a cool blue with undulating hills covered in patchwork fields. We would drive around a bend to see a hilltop village defending chartreuse vineyards below. Colorful workers could be seen bent over rows of grapevines that were beginging to turn yellow. The weather was perfect, with just a touch of crisp coolness. Our car twisted and turned along the “Chainti trail” above Sienna, while I sketched the ever changing shapes of the landscape out the car window. We stopped here and there to buy wine and take pictures. The villages were so cute that we felt like we were in a Disney movie set, and naughty bakeries enticed us in to challenge our will power. Tuscany is truly one of the most beautiful places we’ve been and it’s not hard to understand how the Renaissance was born here.
When asked how I get such bright colors I can only answer with–”I see them.” I love to be outside, to hike, ride horses and just be. I can only be in my studio, hidden away from the world for so long before I need to have sky above and earth under my feet. With watercolors on early travels, I first started to see the depth of nature. I wasn’t sure what all these colors were, but began to paint them because it was fun. Years later I studied about color from books and took an impressionist workshop from Susan Sarback. I finally figured out that I wasn’t having flashbacks, that the colors were really there!
All of us have learned to block out sensory input until we don’t believe it is there. With training, anyone can see again, like we must have when we were babies. Ever noticed a baby stare at something–they’re not seeing the object with a name, they are looking at all the shapes and colors on it and around it. As we learn to label things, we block out the excess sensory input and only notice what is needed to explain the object. I suppose we must do this or we would be overwhelmed. Artists that paint from nature, be it still lifes, landscapes or people, learn to un-name things and again see the colors and shapes. As you relax and look– a green leaf becomes a myriad of colors and shades, a white wall becomes a rainbow. The world at that point is infinitely beautiful and an adventure to discover. The grandiose and the minute are whole new worlds waiting to be seen. How lucky we are to learn this. Now, go start “seeing.”
This is one of the thousands moods of the mountain behind my sister’s place. The pasture is just off her back porch and the horses are often standing there looking in on us hoping for a carrot.
With a short stay in Utah, I find myself being drawn to my roots as a cowgirl. I am loving the sparkle glittering off belt buckles, the fringe dangling from cowboy chaps and the dust puffing up under my boots as I kiss a favorite horse. My sister raises Paso Finos (a beautiful gaited horse–you don’t bounce) on the south edge of the Great Salt Lake. There’s lots of open space here with views in every direction. She is an expert horse trainer who uses the horses natural instincts and gentle psychology to create a bond between man and animal.
As an artist, I see the beauty and colors of the west waiting to splash themselves across a white canvas. Browns, blues and pinks become inquisitive horses sniffing the head of a small girl while childhood laughter echoes in the background. Horses teach this artist that I am more animal than human, that I too am timid, frightened, brave, playful and sometimes dominate or “alpha.” They also remind me that a painting is so much more if it has these emotions I see so clearly in them and find hiding in me, if I only pay attention.
Back in the States!
It’s nice to be back in America after nearly a year away. Things happen so smoothly here! You can get food any time of the day or night for starters. People are friendly and say hi in the street. The television has a million channels! The streets and buildings are all clean and cute. Ok, I’m in culture shock, like always when I first get back home–I love it! It takes a while for me to get critical again, just need to see the local news a few times.
I didn’t bring my paints this time because we are traveling constantly, visiting family that had the gaul to live all over the country. I would love to set up the easel on a few corners of Boston, it’s such a vibrant city. I remember taking rubbings in the old cemetery some thirty years ago, but now it’s not allowed. Sad. Many of our founding fathers are buried here and it would be fun to do some kind of a collage with the results. oh well. It’s hard to site see without thinking about art, at least I have my camera. I think I’m up to about 4000 digital shots in my iPhoto now. I know I won’t be in a rocking chair on my front porch when I’m old, I’ll be standing at my easel.
