A New Way of Communicating

Art is a wordless language of mind and soul. We learn while teaching during the creative process. Artists open themselves entirely to the human experience, tears are treasured with smiles as we express ourselves to ourselves. Mixing just the right color in tune with our feelings comes as we grow as artists. Each painting expands our understanding of ourselves. Each carries our hope to bring some understanding to others.

A simple painting of a lone peach can cause one to pause and ease the pain they may be carrying, or simply remind them of that first peach mom cut up for them as a kid. Then again, it could be just the right painting to add a bit of color to a room. Even then it is brightening someone's life.

Fifty-thousand years ago a group of people sat around a fire eating dinner while others chipped a away at pieces of flint making arrows and spear heads. One rose up and began drawing a horse on the wall of their cave. He or she was expressing their thoughts with a new way of communicating. Art was born. 

Today, all artists carry on with what that first artist gifted us with. Our inspiration comes from everywhere, both from inside and from the world we live in. We tell people of the white roses growing in our garden in one painting. In another we create a canvas of total chaos to express our inner thoughts. Though we create with one thought, we have to realize others will place their ideas and values on our works too. Ideas and values that are totally strange to all we believe in. Still we have a victory in that we caused others to think, to consider possibilities they may not have thought of.

I've had people see totally different stories in my work that I could not see while working on the piece nor at the end of a piece. If artists are lucky they will learn how they brighten someone's life, open a mind to new ideas or a new way of living. The importance of art grows within me each day.

Off the Main Roads

My dad always took us for a Sunday night ride in the LaSalle. Depending which direction we were headed we either stopped at Dairy Queen or Prince Castle for ice cream. I took up bird spotting on these drives as mom and dad checked out new homes. They just liked looking, weren't really interested in buying. Mom looked more at the gardens. I was more interested in the farms when we actually got into the country. Not sure what my sisters and brother were interested in. Some trips were to small towns and cemeteries looking for graves of possible relatives. 65 years later I can still picture a black bird with a yellow cap and a silvery yellow stripe on it's wings sitting atop a grey weathered fence post. 

These days I cannot help but get off the main roads to see what might be hidden out there in the country. Dirt roads have given way to gravel then to black-top roads. The birds have been replaced by old country houses with carpenter lace and screened porches, an occasional wash line with white sheets riding the warm winds. Retired barns kept up by loving farmers find their way to my canvas. Summer drives I find places to stop and do some on-the-spot painting and sketches. Sitting in a cemetery I find peace surrounded by history as I paint the back of a church. Head stones of soldiers with dates of 1916 and 1944 tell me to do a good job. 

Here is the church in Wayne, IL, bathed in the warm sun light that inspires many artists. The brick walk, the windows of the parsons home, the old tree that catches the rain and lets it softly fall on the flowers below. Today it was dappled light dancing away on the scene before me. For me there is always a story to tell, a play to be performed.