Creating art for me is as natural as breathing or eating. Probably because I have been at it for 60 years and in the last 5 or 6 years I doubt I have missed even one day without painting something. Sometimes more than one painting. Until talking to my friend Angelo it never dawned on me that people new to creative endeavors like painting and drawing were amazed at the very act of creating art. I listened to him describe the feeling of having the mark or color come to mind and then he grabs it and guides it as he 49. Or senses that it is a mistake and should not be in the painting. The awe becomes 3stronger when one realizes that this mistake even as part of an abstract painting is recognized as a mistake. How in a painting full of dots or color or marks can the artist sense a mistake? Understandably in a portrait or landscape or still life the mistake might stand out. The nose is too long or the eyes too small. The tree is too perfect or the area too empty. Now here us what I started to think about. I have created for so so many years and created hundreds upon hundreds of pieces of art that this sense of wonder or amazement has become as automatic and as needed as the breathing that keeps me alive. And it drives my passion. The big difference is he is amazed by this act of creating and I am driven by it. At what point in the artist's life does the amazement turn to passion and drive the artist on? I still am in awe of creating art and now I can look at newcomers and smile knowing that they have been given a gift that will remain with them through the thick and thin of life .. and if they nourish it and grow with it they will see joy.
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