mcauleyhouseartists: Remembering Anthony Taylor

Saturday, November 21, 2020

Remembering Anthony Taylor

Remembering our very talented friend, Anthony Taylor:

A long time member of our group, Anthony recently passed away on Saturday November 14, 2020.

Anthony was always a warrior as he battled many health issues. He was a naturally gifted artist and studied at the High School of Music & Art in New York. Afterwards, he was a student at the New York City College of Technology. His infectious smile and sense of humor will always be remembered by many.

Anthony generously contributed to the Art Group at McAuley House. He enjoyed sharing his talents and helping others start a sketch or painting. The photo above is an illustration of the Hulk and Wonder Woman that he cut out and made for the kids at the Olneyville Library celebration.

Anthony was also a member of ArtLifting-- a platform for artists that have traditionally been underrepresented in the contemporary art market. To read more about ArtLifting, click here.

Here are some of Anthony's favorite works that I photographed over the years.

Anthony, your light will always shine bright especially for those in need.

We're not born

To chase the faded light

We're not born

To fall and lose the fight

Never letting go. Oh no, Oh

Am asking you to

Lift me, lift me higher than I ever been

Hold your breath and say

You're gonna come with me

We were born to follow

The light that never fails

Anthony, it's time for our group hug!

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.