Welcome Welcome. Thank you for coming to visit me, I am really enthusiastic that you are here.
After a lifetime of wanting and waiting (for what, really?!?), five years ago I discovered that it was time to become an Atelier student. I was excruciatingly tired of having my skills limit my artistic expression. Being unable to have my brain and hands communicate in a meaningful way filled me with such an incredible agita. I had gone through enough of that. So training was required. And boy did I get schooled.
The conversation in our culture has changed so much over the past few decades. For years I had heard the lahar of voices saying “you either have talent or you don’t.” And for good measure those same voices cried out that painting was dead. HA! Hold my quadruple tall non-fat iced Carmel latte and watch this! There was no notion of skill building nor daily practice and certainly not the 10,000 hours paradigm. I had enough of that too. To paraphrase a person dear to me: That’s horseshit.
My time in the Atelier has now come to a close. It was indeed the longest and shortest three year span I’ve experienced thus far. The land of shadow globes, Bargue drawings, surface studies, anatomical considerations has been a vast one for me. I’ve gained skill. I have been educated. I have been taught. I see where my soft spots are and have a thirst to strengthen them. I came to paint and learned how to get out of my own way.
Now it is time to watch the glitterflakes of my snowglobe settle down and see what form they take. It is time to quest, to go inward and mostly, it is time to paint.
I love paint. I pretty much love all paint. I love the smell, the sound, the texture, the feel. The squish. The unending thrill of color mixing. The problem solving of composition and the science of light all invigorate me. Painting, art, art history is a paradigm finally big enough to hold me. What a joy to find a sturdy enough structure to support my fascinations and expeditions.
So I am here to bring beauty from my world into yours. To offer a distinct point of view where hopefully your own becomes more clear. So welcome to the disco, my friends. This is going to be fun.