Born in 1950, bored to tears at school for 12 years, then dutifully lining up for four more years of confinement, it took two years to figure out that college was not for me. (My first independent action as an adult was to drop out of school!) Following 3 months of hiking on the Appalachian Trail and a string of low paying jobs, I eventually met and married a wonderful man.
From homeschooling our children I learned that I loved learning! In particular I discovered that I enjoyed researching topics. Next, I began to write about homeschooling. I enjoyed writing so much that for decades I would write at night after the children went to bed. When our two youngest children were 14 and 16, by which time I was 62, I bought a canvas and paints and tried my hand at abstract painting. From that point on I pretty much ran away with color!
6 months after my first canvas in 2012 I easily had enough work for a show at an area coffee shop. Encouraged by sales from this show I went on to land exhibit space at a number of places. 2 years down the road and I rented a studio space, had a business card made, bought my first smartphone, and was way into promoting myself as an abstract artist on social media.
Now 8 years into making abstract art, I look back and see that it wasn't until I started painting that I defined my first vision for what I wanted to do with my life and began to untangle who I am as a person! Even as this untangling began, I didn't fully understand what was going on. It has taken me until now, right now, to see that as soon as I started painting I began an adventure, a journey, that is leading me to who I am as a person!
Consider that I use unmixed primary color in most of my paintings, many of which are 6 feet and larger; my bold, colorful compositions tend to be high impact/powerful. In other words, my paintings look like a bunch of big, well defined colors. So what is going on in those paintings?
At first I thought that my artwork was simply the result of my own narcissism. I now reject that idea in favor of a much more comprehensive point of view: My paintings are big, bold, and powerful not because I am big, bold, and powerful but because I am looking for the source of power itself, or should I say, Himself: Yes, God! That was a shock! Here's another one: When I paint, I try not to control anything. I let my mind empty and then respond intuitively with color and shapes. This going blank, getting empty, includes putting aside logic and control and, creatively, pretty much jumping off a cliff.
Since I have been attached to simplicity/minimalism all the way back to my youngest years, back when I would tell my Mother I didn't want another dress or doll, this concept of getting empty to paint rang a bell for me.
While I have known for decades that the simplicity I am attracted to is much more than having less stuff, I have not been able to satisfactorily articulate exactly what I am after - until this idea of getting empty to paint hit me. Suddenly, I understood that for me simplicity is a metaphor. It is not less stuff I am after but less of me: less ego, less control, less dominance!
These insights suddenly made sense of my whole life to date! Yes, I am a committed Christian but I had no idea my search for God would show up in my artwork, or that my artwork, in turn, would yield answers to questions I have mulled over for most of my adult life! Loving my journey!
