mcauleyhouseartists: Artists give Interview

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Artists give Interview

Sharon, Shanti, and Ray discuss their art with Brian.

We've had a busy week here at McAuley House. Our art program was recently selected by Holy Apostle's Church in Cranston as one of the grant recipients from their community service parish fund. This generous grant will assist our art program by providing financial support for our annual 'Art from the Heart' exhibit in February 2012. Brian Louney from the Rhode Island Catholic newspaper spent time with Sharon and Ray discussing their feelings about the benefits of creative expression. Both artists gave fantastic, heartfelt interviews. Sharon's dog, Shanti, also got some much deserved recognition. Brian is not only an art connoisseur, but an AKC Shih tzu judge. Both artists spent time reviewing their portfolios with Brian while sharing what this group has done for them in terms of personal growth and self esteem building.
A few more photos taken during the interview:

Ray's painted Kachina doll

The Art room

Another beautiful Kachina doll Ray has created
with Debbie's assistance.

A Big Thanks to Brian, Rhode Island Catholic, Holy Apostle's Church, Sharon, Ray, Debbie, and Shanti !

About the Art Program

5 Ways to Grow as an Artist

So how would a Cassatt or a Henri or Picasso approach painting differently than we do today? How might this heartfelt fear of others controlling our painting process impact our self-understanding as artists? Here are five possible answers:

1. Making a successful picture is not the goal. Think of periods, such as childhood, when we grew, our self-understanding changed and we became more of who we are. There was an endless stream of events where we expressed ourselves and slowly began to discover the things that pleased us. As with the sense of freedom characterized above, the entire payoff was growth. The events of life when we grow are the things that happen along the way. Making art should be exactly the same. Paintings are just the series of events or steps we take. Let them go. Keep moving. Or as Henri implored, “Keep living.”

2. The painting process is always a beginning. As soon as the freshness evaporates (we are bored or lost or acquire interest in something else), stop. Do not think in terms of finishing. Picasso lectures eloquently on this. Finish is the death of our work because it means we are painting an expectation or “to be like” and that puts the brakes on painting to see and feel more deeply. Every beginning is a new prompt, a new point of departure. Begin everything. Finish nothing.

3. Ignore non-artist authorities. Juries, the grantors, the gallery, the direction from above are just so many fingers in our pie. All external measures are dangerous because they not only push us to performing, as opposed to creating, but their sense of worth takes over our own. This is precisely what Parisian artists fought against.

4. Get into a prolonged creative process. Have dozens of paintings in your studio that have been abandoned for one reason or another, left in various stages, unfinished but always complete as expressions of who you were at that moment. Work on several paintings simultaneously. You are not making shoes.

5. Furnish the world with your beauty, let the world see, touch and feel who you are. Scary I know. It is so much easier to hide within safe fortresses, the sources of praise and dignity that we can count on by pleasing our audience. This is the dreaded condition called style. We cannot be free to be who we are if we are not always risking being who we are in front of others.