Category: Uncategorized

Brice Marden the artist did a pose like this for an ART news magazine.  Having great respect for him I tried to reposed this picture using myself as the artist. This is a tribute to him and all that he did to the art world and to artists that followed.”Working on these paintings, there’s always an idea which is an ideal. It’s always impossible… But I think every time, maybe, I just get closer to some impossible thing… ”   Brice Marden

Brice Marden was a Minimalist painter. He worked with these amazing color combinations. The first series that caught my attention was the  “Annunciation” series in 1978.  Five paintings where the artist tried to interpret the various stages of the virgin Mary response to the archangel Gabriel. Then there were the paintings that followed using the tau cross as a motif that emphasized the suffering, agony and death of Christ. The paintings were done with a mixture of beeswax and oil. He worked with two three and then four single color panels joined vertically or horizontally together and he would create these subtle color combinations using greens, blues, reds,and blacks. I was lucky to see him talk at The Milwaukee Art Museum during the late 90’s while I was attending school.

I’m really excited about my painting that I am working on at this time. I have pushed it passed the point of no return and brought the painting to a level where anyone whose looking at it understands what’s going on and where it’s going. There are different moments of excitement that occur in a painting, seriously painting can be such manual labor whereas it gets mundane, boring, and tedious so it is at this point one has to remember the fireworks, and spontaneity and why you started painting in the first place otherwise paintings will just sit and never get finished.

When I first start a painting after the conceptual ideas are placed there is a joy of  just covering the white canvas half hazardously with cool and warm blues and variations of sienna’s and umber’s that in the end nothing is left uncovered and it all gives way to space and composition and form a real raw under painting of what it’s going to look like when it’s done. It looks rough at this stage but not to an artist this is where decisions are made and changes are implemented it’s fun, new and exciting. This is a segway into visually determining what really matters what”s the value scheme, shadows and where’s the light and seeing and knowing  how this is going to set the whole composition of the painting. Although you need to paint what you see over all, detail is not so important at this stage except as maybe a smug or a blurb. Unexpected things come into play here and I always ask myself where did that come from? So as a licenced artist I make these decisions intuitively and intellectually knowing what is best for the painting as for what to keep in and what to omit or what color to change. Tough decisions from my perspective but it’s all about painting what you see, what you think and what you know so changes can happen.

Checking and rechecking that the shapes and lines are where there suppose to be in reaching distance of one another to the right, left, north or south can get tedious and keeping my attention can be frustrating and keeping my chair occupied hard because I can think of a million things that I should be doing right now so if I can just be persistent and concentrate during this process I’ll get it done and move on. Once I have this area secured problems are less likely to happen like distortions.

The paint is next now that I’ve laid the foundation with the under painting keep in mind I’m not here to cover up the under painting  I am only here to add to the painting this is not secondary this is where it all begins this is where it comes to life. This is where the magic happens and it’s fun once again. This is a process I do in my paintings although some artists don’t go this route and just go straight to laying down color but both ways are acceptable and very successful. It’s a personal preference I have been trained to paint both ways and depending on the painting I may do things differently. Another thing is that some artist draw first and then paint second whereas some just start painting from the start. The question may be are you a painter or a drawer? But it’s all good there is no right or wrong process I’ve seen it all done many many diferent ways although it brings up a lot of discussion that as artists we can talk about for hours. 

To continue I add paint and I mold this three dimensional form onto a two dimensional canvas knowing in the end when it’s finished when it’s right and every area of the canvas is working together well and nothing else can be done. There’s this excitement of knowing it’s finished Some will say their muse showed up, others will chalk it up as talent but if we are wise we know we are only an instrument of God and only hope to do it again and only better.