Search Results: s (4243)
Wanted for Christmas
I may be totally wrong on this one. I’m thinking that artists are among those who don’t really want to receive too many gifts for the Holiday Season. It may have something to do with the overabundance of joy in our daily lives — or the consequent guilt that arises, but we artists, by and large, are not into materialism. At this time of year there is little that we might covet. Actually, this year the only thing that I want is one of those radio-controlled tarantulas
Idealism
When I was growing up, my Dad told me stories about walking with his friend and mentor in the forests near Vancouver. It was the 1960s and Lawren Harris (1885–1970) was deep into his last period of pure abstraction, inspired by theosophy and transcendentalism. Germs of remembrance and philosophy have since filtered through Dad’s studio and eventually onto my own easel as assumed knowledge. It seems there was never a time I didn’t believe that paintings come out of themselves — serving as springboards for the next and the next — gaining power as they appear
Special Places
Several times I’ve been back to a place in southern France — an old farm-home converted into self-contained suites. Mas Peychonnier, with a commanding view and under the eye of a mysterious Cathar castle, presides over its grapefields.
At first I didn’t find much of interest. I rambled the area on foot, drove my Alfa here and there on the tiny, wandering roads. The highlands around are barren, windswept. Villages of stone and masonry as well as severe, compact farms are scattered in the valley grapelands.