Inspirations: Origin 1
After the Funeral
This is the first of many in a series of paintings explaining where the inspiration originated, this should keep me busy while the weather outside bars me from getting out on the kayak. It’s actually getting cold and windy enough to not go kayaking.
This is the road right near Firewheel park center-it was before they finished putting in the ramps and stuff for the George Bush-it’s been a bit altered but you get the basic idea. The day I saw it was after my grandmothers’ funeral. There was a sadness and solemn state of the sky and out of the grey a whole flock of mourning doves raced through the image.
I felt it was almost like a metaphor for her soul moving on-okay this is the way artists, writers’ think or see things-lots of metaphors-okay maybe just me but I felt that moment when everything stops for a split second and the image pretty much paints itself. This scene was actually sketched and lived as a sketch for just a day or so. The immediacy of the pastels allowed me to start and finish the image in a matter of days. It was important that the sky captured the viewer and lead them in through the scene with the help of the road going into the distance. It is a mass of metaphors-even though I don’t like specific metaphors in a painting but I had just been to a funeral and you tend to be all symbolic and nostalgic after -okay again, maybe it’s just me but a funeral brings out my philosophical side and the obvious metaphors just kind of painted themselves-I guess the only way to get past the metaphors being so shamelessly obvious is the fact that it was a real scene and I wasn’t trying to be all philosophical, sometimes reality just begs to be captured and the images and symbols just jump out in real time.
Which brings me to the intention of most of my paintings-I don’t set out to create a haunting image or disturbing scene but depending on my mood and circumstance those feelings usually meld in the design. I almost feel haunted by nature, I find myself excited about those dark misty days, I enjoy violent storms and ghost stories-I guess all of these feelings and images just naturally become part of my paintings. The secret to what would consider a successful painting is when the viewers feels the sadness or the loneliness of a scene without it being obvious why they feel the loneliness-it’s that intangible feeling that I strive so hard to capture.