mcauleyhouseartists: 'Tis the season to be Artsy...

Thursday, December 8, 2011

'Tis the season to be Artsy...

As I look at our new Blog Header I can't help but think of a quote by E.E. Cummings, " It's always ourselves we find in the sea..." For many of us our art is an expression of our feelings. We use our art to express our greatest joys as well as our sorrows. Artists have the knack of turning challenges into great works of art.

We've all been busy lately making lots of new art. Paintings, collages, and dolls are filling up the art room in preparation for our annual exhibit in February (Feb 9th ). Here is a sneak preview of some of our postcards which will be for sale-

New postcards !

It's hard to believe Christmas is just a little over two weeks away. As usual I've done nothing to prepare other than toss the remaining bit of Thanksgiving turkey away that was trapped in the back of the fridge. As a therapist I always tell patients that the Holidays are emotional landmines. I know that's how I feel. So, today I had this idea for a cartoon that I couldn't wait to create. I have to say I felt much better when I was finished. Here you go....

Artists- let me know how you feel about the Holidays. Bring in your art and we'll share it on the blog. Also- I would love to share your stories about your relationship with art (good and bad) and the difference it has made in your life.

Stay Healthy- Make Art ! XOXO -KK

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.