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Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Simple


I don't know what I want to say yet... sometimes, I am told, if you keep writing it will come to you.  I like the simplicity of form here and found it mesmerizing to layer glazes over the gray underpainting and to work with a limited palette........yellow ochre, prussian blue, and pyr.red....though there was a burnt umber modeling into the background at the very beginning.......As I was painting this I was thinking of all the possibilities racing through my mind that I want to execute and found myself being ever so thankful that I detoured from my original vocation of teaching 6th grade 30 years ago and devoted myself to playing with color, luscious wonderful color that I could probably spend 50 lifetimes exploring and manipulating.......I think the composition and the subject matter for me are simply a "thing" from which to drape color.  I'm not sure what I'm trying to say when I paint but I know I have a good time doing it and I truly feel like me...doing it.. That probably sounds odd but it has always seemed to me that the big prize in being alive is getting to know yourself and how important it is to be living the right life instead of the wrong life where you are just plodding along counting the days until the weekend...I think people are happier when they have cultivated their own resources and spirit and that trumps the need for making more money than you need....
Steve Jobs said it well I think and I resonate with the sentiment and hope my kids have the spirit and fortitude to discover their own  genuine lives....Steve Jobs said at the Stanford commencement address:
.."our work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."  


and also this:  "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."