Thursday, January 6, 2011

My New Journey

I have painted over 100 cow paintings over the last ten years. I stopped counting when I registered my work as a collection with the copyright office about 4 years ago, but I know I am now well past that number. Since they have all come rolling straight from my imagination, that is a lot of silliness and whimsy that has been rolling around in my head and coming out of my brush. Prior to the cow obsession, I did lots of different kinds of work-memory paintings, my "People on the Couch" series, my "Black and White" series, Impasto paintings....but having done the same thing for so many years with the occasional recent foray into other animals, I am feeling the need to finally go in a different direction. At this point, I don't know what that direction is. I had walked into my studio several times over the last week with the intention of creating something completely new...and when I started....blank. nothing. I couldn't conjure up the faintest thing that I might want to paint. I had declared myself officially stuck. Like writers block, I had no impetus for my creativity to begin anew. Until I discovered Inspiration Avenue's Weekly Challenge. What a life saver! It got me to PAINT something without judgement,expectation, committment- just painting! This was just the jumping off point I needed and is perhaps the vehicle I need to help me move along on my journey to who knows where. While I will not abandon the body of work I have already developed....I see each new painting as a stop a long the way to the next phase of my art. I intend to use these weekly challenges to move me along, help me discover new things about myself and possibilities for my work. My husband and daughter and I used to jump in the car on a Saturday morning (before gas got so expensive) and just drive until we saw somewhere interesting to stop. We would go on that way, discovering places we hadn't been with no set plan, we would just let the road lead us and stopped when we recognized something cool. That's what I am doing with my art. My first cool stop is a painting in blue. The challenge from Inspiration Avenue was to pick a color that does it for you and paint something with it. So here it is, my neighbors pigeon coop from the window of my studio.
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4 comments:

  1. Very cool! Great challenge. Sometimes all you need is a little nudge to get your imagination moving.

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  2. I am posting a button to this blog- might be helpful until we can get the Mastermind group going again...:0)

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  3. AWESOME thanks fr joining us at Inspiration Avenue
    Love your blog!!!
    I have been trying ti follow you but for some weird reason it won't let me. I even signed up through friend connect.
    Will look for your button and add it!!

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  4. A great post - so pleased that our group is helping kick start your creativity - and what a wonderful painting to say hello with! Can't wait to see what you do next week :)

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