{"id":5118,"date":"2017-05-17T11:05:17","date_gmt":"2017-05-17T18:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/?p=5118"},"modified":"2017-05-17T12:41:06","modified_gmt":"2017-05-17T19:41:06","slug":"may-17-2017-painting-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/life-stories\/may-17-2017-painting-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"May 17, 2017 – Painting the truth"},"content":{"rendered":"
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My tulip painting is coming along – I’m having fun with these colors!<\/p><\/div>\n

Marin Open Studios 2017 has just passed, which means I spent the past two weekends hanging out at my mom\u2019s real estate office in Larkspur, my artwork all over the walls, as people came in to see it. Witnessing the response to this art that I make from others \u2013 many of whom are complete strangers \u2013 is an interesting part of being an exhibiting artist.\u00a0 I\u2019ve come to realized that paintings \u2013 mine included – emanate a certain energy that some people can sense.\u00a0 It\u2019s like a radio station that is picked up by an inner receiver of that particular frequency.\u00a0 But it\u2019s curious to me \u2013 what is this transmission?\u00a0 How is it that art and people have these connections?<\/p>\n

It is certainly very individual.\u00a0 There are plenty of people who either don\u2019t even notice the art or, if they do, seem not at all interested.\u00a0 My \u201cstudio\u201d is a storefront space in a commercial district, giving my art the opportunity to be seen by passers-by who wouldn\u2019t be walking by our house in a residential neighborhood in Fairfax.\u00a0 People go by who are headed to the movie theater, the nail salon, the burrito place next door.\u00a0 It is often assumed that I\u2019d be busy all day with people seeing the art through the windows and wandering in, but even with a Marin Open Studios sign on the sidewalk inviting<\/em> them in, not very many of those who weren\u2019t already planning to, actually do.<\/p>\n

Last Thursday, someone did.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t even the official \u201copen studio\u201d time \u2013 it was during our painting group.\u00a0 With nine or ten artists crammed into the space \u2013 lots of talking and activity, a woman walked in, almost in a trance.\u00a0 Looking around she asked whose art is this<\/em>? Someone pointed her to me.\u00a0 She was on her way to a lunch at the Left Bank on the corner and was drawn in by my art.\u00a0 It turns out she lives in London and was leaving town that evening.\u00a0 She walked out having purchased three large prints of roses – completely unplanned.\u00a0 She is one whose tuner picked up the frequency that Life in Full Color sends out, that\u2019s for sure!<\/p>\n

A new source of wisdom and inspiration has come into my life:\u00a0 brainpickings.org<\/a> – the site of Maria Popova, a Bulgarian-born Brooklynite.\u00a0 She writes this beautiful and fascinating blog on culture, literature, art, history and other human endeavors, citing extensively from her sources.\u00a0 I\u2019ve just recently become a regular follower \u2013 and in the past few weeks every Sunday\u2019s digest has provided me something that relates to this exploration of mine of what it means to be a human who makes art.\u00a0 I bookmarked this post<\/a> from a few weeks ago where she reveals Ursula K. Le Guinn\u2019s take on art and its message \u2013 from the perspective of the art-maker and from its viewer.<\/p>\n

Maria Popova begins with this statement:\u00a0 \u201cArt transforms us not with what it contains but with what it creates in us \u2014 the constellation of interpretations, revelations, and emotional truths illuminated – \u2026\u201d And then she quotes Ursula K. Le Guinn:<\/p>\n

The kids ask me, \u201cWhen you write a story, do you decide on the message first or do you begin with the story and put the message in it?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

No, I say, I don\u2019t.\u00a0 I don\u2019t do messages.\u00a0 I write stories and poems.\u00a0 That\u2019s all.\u00a0 What the story or the poem means to you \u2014 its \u201cmessage\u201d to you \u2014 may be entirely different from what it means to me.<\/em><\/p>\n

The kids are often disappointed, even shocked.\u00a0 I think they see me as irresponsible.\u00a0 I know their teachers do.<\/em><\/p>\n

They may be right.\u00a0 Maybe all writing, even literature, is not an end in itself but a means to an end other than itself.\u00a0 But I couldn\u2019t write stories or poetry if I thought the true and central value of my work was in a message it carried, or in providing information or reassurance, offering wisdom, giving hope.\u00a0 Vast and noble as these goals are, they would decisively limit the scope of the work; they would interfere with its natural growth and cut it off from the mystery which is the deepest source of the vitality of art.<\/em><\/p>\n

A poem or story consciously written to address a problem or bring about a specific result, no matter how powerful or beneficent, has abdicated its first duty and privilege, its responsibility to itself.\u00a0 Its primary job is simply to find the words that give it its right, true shape.\u00a0 That shape is its beauty and its truth.<\/em><\/p>\n

She\u2019s speaking about writing \u2013 as her medium \u2013 but I know this equally applies to visual art.\u00a0 And I\u2019d never considered this before \u2013 that there is a truth<\/em> that our paintings hold.\u00a0 We paint what we paint \u2013 for its own sake \u2013 for the sake of whatever we find worthy of our time and effort.\u00a0 What happens next is out of our hands.\u00a0 Ten years ago, my friend Vicki was one of the first buyers of my art.\u00a0 She bought Paris Roses.\u00a0 She told me that it took her to a place inside that she didn\u2019t even know existed \u2013 a place that was both feminine and strong.\u00a0 I had just painted roses that I thought were beautiful and Vicki received a message of truth.<\/p>\n

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Paris Roses – the painting that transported my friend Vicki<\/p><\/div>\n

Several weeks ago I went to the reception for a show of watercolors by Paulette Engler, one of the original members of our Thursday group.\u00a0 Paulette is amongst those who paints the most regularly and she shows more frequently than any of us \u2013 even me it seems!\u00a0 Looking across the large room, one of her paintings jumped off the wall at me.\u00a0 I said to myself that I wanted to have it in my life.\u00a0 Though I had watched her paint it over a series of Thursdays, its transmission to me happened in that moment.<\/p>\n

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Paulette’s ‘Looking for Blue Skies’<\/p><\/div>\n

She called it \u201cLooking for Blue Skies\u201d and painted it just after the presidential election last year \u2013 channeling her intense feelings into it.\u00a0 I saw the largest of the pink flowers with its view blocked by the dark branches, yet I knew that inside that space it lived, pristine and un-marred by any darkness or chaos.\u00a0 Paulette\u2019s painting reveals a truth to me about light and dark and the un-broken, un-breakable-ness at center of all things.\u00a0 I\u2019d stake my life on it that Paulette had no intention to include this message as she was painting!<\/p>\n

I love this idea that there are truths that are found, felt, seen, heard in works of art of all kinds \u2013 truths that the artist was unaware of until revealed by the receivers of the art.\u00a0 Knowing this has me feel more deeply what it is I\u2019m up to \u2013 what we are all up to.\u00a0 But we also should not be over-conscious of it.\u00a0 Ursula K. Le Guinn tells us to stay innocent to it.\u00a0 She says to stay with our process, which for us is the specifics of pencil lines and brush strokes, and let whatever this magic is have its own life.\u00a0 I hear a caution that if we become overly conscious of it we would get in the way of the \u201cright, true shape\u201d of our art.\u00a0 These truths must find their own way, allowing the viewer to find\u00a0their<\/em> truth themselves \u2013 rather than hitting them between the eyes with our<\/em>\u00a0version of truth.<\/p>\n

Going forward, as I paint, as I write my paintings\u2019 stories, and as I give them names, I want to hold on to this innocence.\u00a0 At the same time, I want to be ever more intimate with the spirit of my art.\u00a0 Our paintings are our off-spring and I can see the parallels in parents\u2019 relationships with their children.\u00a0 We love them, shape them, support their way into the world.\u00a0 But it\u2019s not for us to say what they are here for, who they are here for.\u00a0 That is up to them.\u00a0 I end this post as I started it, curious as to the mystery of art and how it connects us.\u00a0 I see that it is an enduring mystery \u2013 one we will never understand.\u00a0 This feels – to me – just as it should be.<\/p>\n

With my love,<\/p>\n

Cara<\/p>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marin Open Studios 2017 has just passed, which means I spent the past two weekends hanging out at my mom\u2019s real estate office in Larkspur, my artwork all over the walls, as people came in to see it. 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