mcauleyhouseartists: October Happenings !

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

October Happenings !

The artists have had a very bust October! Ron has been not only teaching, but painting all over the place. He has a lot of new work which has become very popular with his followers. Ron was
very generous with his art and donated several pieces for the McAuley Ministries.

Anthony has also been very prolific and had several new pieces picked up by ArtLifting. He also surprised the McAuley House staff with some amazing paintings that depicted the awesome work done by the Ministry as well as the volunteers. Thanks Anthony !

Linda King

Linda has also had a great month as well as a very busy year with multiple shows in various galleries. In addition to all of that, Linda is going to be one of the featured artists for the January 2018 Gallery Night at Bank RI. So, she's currently painting up a storm, meeting other artists, and always on the lookout for new inspiration. The painting below is one of her newest pieces. I love the atmospheric nature and the ebb and flow of the brushwork. It's a painting one can get lost in again and again, and always feel transported to a place of solace.

Thank you to all of the artists for sharing such amazing work. Your openness and generosity with your art comes from a lot of hard work and a very generous spirit. 💙💜💚

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.