Why Beauty Matters

This video is very thought provoking in regards to beauty and why it matters.  Just a warning there are some disturbing images in parts of the film.  But overall he does a great job in asking Why Beauty Matters?

Here are some of the things that I wrote down from Roger Scruton:

"Through the pursuit of beauty we shape the world as a home.  We also come to understand our own nature as spiritual beings.  But our world has turned its back on beauty and because of that we find ourselves surrounded by ugliness and alienation.  I want to pesuade you that beauty matters.  That its not just a subjective thing, but an universal need of human beings.  If we ignore this need, we find ourselves in a spiritual desert.  I want to show you the path out of that desert.  It is a path that leads to home."

"Remedy of chaos and suffering is BEAUTY!

"The beautiful work of art brings consolation in sorrow and affirmation in joy.  It shows human life to be worthwhile."

I am on a Quest!

I have had inspiration this week and some resolution to some questions that I have had for a very long time.  It is so amazing when you finally receive resolution to a question that you have had for so long.  You want to jump up and down and dance and sing and hug and smile.  Can't say I have done all of these, but I am smiling inside with the knowledge that has come to me.

You may wonder what my question has been?  It's about my work and why I paint?  What is my purpose as an artist?  Does it have a purpose? 

I have always believed that there is purpose in everything we do. We come with talents and gifts and we have purpose with our lives. Yet why is it that we struggle to find that purpose? I am a mother that is a given, because I chose to have children. Yet how we mother would then be the question? My mother job is very important to me as is my art world, which really isn't separated at all. I mother along with painting because my children exist with my paintings. They do art around me while I am working or with other people teaching them. So art is around us all, as is our lives and it is what we make of these experiences that then become what we chose to make them. So as I think of my role as mother and I am mainly mother without the wife connected to it, although I still see myself as wife, just that my husband isn't visible anymore, except in dreams and oh I love it when he comes in my dreams. They are such tender memories. So I am a mother trying to make the most of my situation and to help my sons become great men. For the last soooo many years it seems that we just exist in so many ways and that is alright, but I can't live like this, I have to have deeper roots and deeper feelings about things.

So this week I received that spark that answered my question as to why art and why am I gifted in this area?  I love nature and I love sunsets and sunrises and bursts of clouds.  I love light and how so many colors come out of different times of day and the reflections and the intensity and all the wonderful creations.  I love the palette of nature, whether it be the muted browns and umbers of winter or the brilliant colors of late summer and fall.  Nature is the grandest of all in her display of so many BEAUTIFUL things and colors.  This is what I have tried to paint for so long, but didn't see it in the way that I see it now.  I was longing for our eternal home where light and life is in abundance.  I found and find myself on a journey in search of this more and more.  Spiritually and physically I am searching for greater knowledge and understanding of how we can be filled with more light and life and come to know this light and life.  Beauty!  My next post will talk more about this.

These are pictures from the week.

These are pictures taken by my young son.  I like his perspective on our two dogs.



Lots of soggy ground.



Raspberry patch.

I'm looking for things that are beautiful.  I like how the pinecones grow.

 We were in the mist of a snowball fight as I was taking pictures.  I kept avoiding them until.......

this one.....He hit my camera lense right on.  Good aim! Wet lense!

My Watercolor/Acrylic Animals

A New Start

Writing on my blog is different for me than writing in my journal........Why?  Well one thing, there is this feeling that what I write here isn't in my private space just for me.  There is this feeling that no one really reads this blog anyway so why would it matter.  Yet people do read this blog.  So where am I going with this.........to the fact that it is a new year and I want to do more with this space I have taken up residence in blogosphere.  But the question is for me is that it means more commitment on my part.  I struggle with that C word, maybe because I never had follow through as a child, another thing maybe which I have learned recently is our type of personality.....carol tuttle describes 4 types of people.......I believe I am more a type 1, just because I like to have fun, am not detailed oriented at all and my biggest thing is I am an idea factory.  I can come up with the most amazing ideas, but a lot of them stay just that ideas.  I struggle with that C word and also with follow through to finish.  Yet I am working more on those two things.  I love coming up with fabulous ideas and then to see them into action is even a better excitement for me.

One of my failings or lack of follow through was my daily drawing.  I have more that haven't been posted, but just to add here that drawing was hard for me to fit into my day.  I don't sit for very long and to sit and draw required more time than I wanted to invest at this point.  I loved where the drawings were headed and hope to continue on that journey.  Still there.

One thing that I notice with my life is that I don't get a lot of creative feedback from those I am around.  I thrive on creativity of any kind.  I have turned into Bob the Builder the last few weeks.  I think of something and it just comes and happens.  So we live with my parents to help with my Alzheimer dad (I don't like that reference but it is what it is)  I love my dad and mom and it is sad to see them get old.  So we live here and they don't have a huge home so we have remodeled the garage which is actually a stand alone garage.  Well anyway its not the home I desire, but it is a place as we are in this chapter of our lives to help and in doing that we end up sacrificing some of the nicety's of life.  But the neet thing has been is that my boys and I are closer and they are blooming into great young men.  (blooming really isn't a great descriptor word for young men,.....;]  So anyway we are transforming our tiny space into more useable space that the boys have individual space and can then make it there own.  I have found that I love power tools and I love building my ideas into realities.  Started with a desire, received revelation of what to do, came up with a plan, acted on that plan, got stumped for a bit and then another idea came, acted and now it is a reality blessing our lives.

Do you believe in revelation and inspiration?  I do!  I know that we have a Heavenly Father that loves us and is very concerned about what we do here on this earth.  I know that we are agents who have the ability to make choices.  God gives us the ability to make choices whether they are good or bad.  He doesn't control us, we control us by our thoughts and our desires.  So what does this have to do with creativity?  Tons and tons!  Heavenly Father wants us to be happy individuals and to find joy here, now!  It is our divine nature to have joy and happiness. 

Day 5 - 8 of my Figure drawings

Drawing is such an excellent exercise to clarify and to view weak areas.  I am noticing some things as I have been working on these drawings. 

I have come to love drawing my sons...they are BEAUTIUL!

Have you taken time to draw your children?

Have you taken time to look for what your child is good at?

Children live in the NOW!

They are such marvelous teachers.

Are we Humble enough to see how they are our teachers...

I have to tell you about an experience with this son.

Monday this week, I was painting, and I asked my son what do you think?

He said, "It's pretty good, but it's not finished."

I was thinking I was pretty much done -- although I knew I could do more, but I'm always wanting to move things out so I can paint other things.

Well he proceeded to tell me exactly what was needed in the painting.

I just smiled and said, "Good Job!"

He was right on, on what was needed.

So I had to keep working on the paintings.

He reminded me of his dad and how my husband would continually tell me where my problems were and I would always get annoyed because I was the one who had a masters degree in art yet he was always right.

Like Father, like Son!

Finished paintings

These are paintings that I just finished yesterday and end of the last week.  It is so exciting to finish more and more work.  Someone suggested that I write something about what I am doing on the backs of my work....what do you think?  Do you think that would create more connection to the work and to my message?

Day 4

"Ninja Boy"

To draw children = drawing play

Children  =  Play

I read somewhere that when we PLAY, we are the most alive!

Wow! I so like that.  Children are alive and maybe that is why we are told to become like them.

PLAY isn't always convenient or doesn't always appeal to our grown up ways, yet it makes a huge difference in our lives.

The best complement I have ever recieved is from my youngest son, who said, "mom you ar so fun".

I was surprised with this because I don't always feel like playing.

Go out and play with a child, they will teach you to love life!

New little painting that I finished today.

I found a quote the other day that describes my desire with my art.

"To send LIGHT into the darkness of men's hearts --

such is the duty of the artist."

Schumann

My 30 day challenge ---- FIGURES

I'm involved in an online "WakeUp Academy" with Heather Madder and Garrett J. White and the challenge there has been to record videos everyday.  I did a few, but have not been successful in that medium, still plan to, just need to flesh out my ideas in ink first, which is where this challenge somewhat arises from.  Mainly I needed to be in the ACTION mode and not still wondering. 

But what really happened to start these drawings is I picked up one of my books

"The Story of Painting" by Sister Wendy Beckett

and I saw these incredibly nice enlargements of paintings and the faces of the individuals in these old paintings which I so dearly love and remember the times that I got to travel to Rome, Florence, Paris, Amsterdam, Brugge to see some of these incredible paintings and sculptures in person.

I couldn't just look at them.....I needed to draw them in my nice sketchbook that I made.

Before when my husband was still alive and he was continuously encouraging me to do figurative work, I couldn't conceive the idea of doing anything other than landscapes which I love and connect with, but in the last year I have been having this feeling that I need to paint and draw more figuratively (maybe my husband is nudging me to still do this)  So before I can paint figures, I need to become reacquainted with them through drawings, thus the drawings.

So I started....

Day 1 first drawing

This is a figure from Pontormo's Deposition 1525/28 

I remember this painting from which this guy comes from.  In Florence, Italy and siting there with my great friend and professor, Bruce Smith.  He was sharing his enthusiasm for the color and the painting.

Day 2

This drawing comes from Robert Campin, "Portrait of a Woman" 1420-30

Still Day 2

I found this one of the Madonna and Child

by Gerard David titled "The Rest on the Flight into Egypt" 1510

From this drawing some sparks are shooting out and some ideas are coming into my mind.

Can't really divulge them but I'm sure you will start to see the evolution in what I start drawing.

Day 3

So today I've been thinking about having models come and pose for me, but I remember some insight I received last summer, that I needed to draw my sons and through drawing them direction and insight would come.  At the time I tried, but didn't persist.

So this is a picture of my husband Ben and my oldest son who was only 17 months when my husband died.  They were in the water in this picture.

This is a rough drying and the pen I am using isn't working out, but

Day 3 drawing #2

I dug up some more photo's of myself with my two sons.

I think of where my life was at this time...I had just had my youngest son, two months prior to this, alone.  I was three months pregnant when my husband died.  So here I was a single mom raising two small children.  Wow, it was a major change.

Yet it is these two boys that kept me going.

Now I look back and am grateful for this huge learning curve.  Learning about what I believe I can do and what I still struggle with.  Yet I am learning more and more that

we are powerful and called to be great!

We are incredible and able to chose how we handle our earth school.

As I draw my sons and myself, I feel an incredible love for my Heavenly Father for blessing me with two wonderful sons and a wonderful husband who shared so much with me for the short time we had together.  Now he continues to teach me and help me, if I will only believe and ask.

Finished paintings and other stuff

We had a fire close to where we live