Art – an Emotional Response
Art Tells a Story – Surrealism
For many years I have worked to paint realistically so I could eventually bend it even just a bit. My paintings have an underlying theme of darkness, loneliness and separation.
It is intentional creating a feeling or emotion in art but just like creating words if the creative thinks of what they want to say the logical mind supersedes and all nuance is lost.
My Experimentation isn’t as much with painting as it is with writing for example, the use of music to separate the logic from the creative word. I have listened to music in the background that definitely affected the finished artwork but it was never specifically intentional.
Art from Dreams
I had a dream when I was very young- this is my grandfather and lightning hit the tree. Pops-as we called him-came out of the sawdust in a red flannel shirt. There was something ominous about this particular dream because one day long after the dream a lighting hit the willow in our backyard. This is the same willow in the Child of Ten painting below.
This post is about paintings that tell a story. I have often avoided this kind of art because I prefer to let the viewer make their own conclusions or stories from their own experiences.
I started the painting, Child of Ten-several months before it was complete because the inspiration had to develop over time.
In this painting there is a recurring theme that I’ve included in many of my paintings: the blackbirds. The viewer goes into the ground and even into the casket to see a mirror of myself and how his death affected me and also that a large part of my childhood rests with him. The egg is a symbol of the soul, the moth is the death moth and a connection to nature. There are poems included in the right side and other symbols of the feeling of loss and a struggle with his absence. The tree behind the child is the Willow Tree in my backyard in an idyllic landscape a stark contrast to the depths of the grave.
Art and Recurring Themes: Blackbirds
My writing is inspired by loss. Losing a parent at an early age probably made me more of a poet or writer than I would have been otherwise: it is changed me greatly.
In the family plot all are the same
from who they were or when they came.
A pine box but no words etched.
Only a presence we can’t forget.
A whisper and the wind lifts
an ember to a light place in the night sky
The poet, the writer, passes by…
The blackbirds make their appearance. I always have that haunted feeling when it comes to loss, death as growing up I realized darkness just as clearly and beautifully as light.
These paintings were foreshadowed in a post back in 2018 on an original blog I had started. It describes the Child of Ten as well as several other paintings that finally came to be and it was on draft since 2018.
Art- a Story While Scuba Diving
A painting and a sketch of the black fish at Shark River Inlet. I mentioned this art in the post from 2018.
For more pastels from this series go to the blog-it is the original blog
Art for a Contest About Fighting Cancer
A recent pastel on Paper Window of Hope created for Cancer Art Contest from Biafarin
