Memory's Ghost Watercolor 22x30"Forgive me readers for I have slacked. It has been six days since my last confession. Er, I mean post. Life snuck up on me and well one thing led to another and before I knew it I was waking up in a ditch with a pounding headache and a new tattoo that says Avis Rent-A-Car below a blue Honda Civic. I have no idea where the poodle skirt came from but the chicken seems to like it. In my last post, you remember that one from almost a week ago, whew, how time flies when you can't remember where you've been or how you got there or why it seemed like such a good idea at the time even though you were pretty sure it was illegal in most states...Oh, sorry.
Um, where was I? Oh, yes, my last blog post. As I recall I made some high faluting promises about showing you that I really could restrain my licentious ways with color. I had to dig around for awhile before I found something that fit the bill and believe me it wasn’t easy. I clearly have a problem here the proportions of which will likely require a twelve step program and someone named Thelma with big burly arms and a thick paddle to keep me in line. Sure, I tell myself I can quit anytime but I'm just lying to myself, I know I can’t. It’s time for me to see that, to admit that I am powerless over all those juicy rich bright colors so creamy in texture and vibrant like confections in a Willy Wonka factory. WHAT? No, I wasn’t painting anything just now. What makes you think that? Oh, that? Nothing. Nothing at all, just a little um, raspberry jelly that’s all. There all gone now.
The Barn watercolor 22x30"Anyway so as I was saying, color. The bane of all that is civilized and bland. It arouses wayward thoughts of self expression and unruly feelings of joyful exuberance. It must be kept under lock and key if not eradicated entirely. There is nothing pleasurable or more decent and respectable than a simple palette of two colors. A third color may even, upon special occasions, be included but, no more. We certainly don't want things getting out of hand. An artistic life with a properly guarded imagination can be quite fulfilling, especially with the judicious use of a third color on those few but special occasions.
Ouch! It hurts make it stop. Nope, sorry, can’t do it. I’m hooked. I’m not painting unless every darn tube of paint I own is sprawled out on the table in a pigment fiesta. Trays of pastels arrayed before me rainbows in sunshine. Each tiny package of color a joyous promise of beauty. Shades of hope and beauty, touched by light and imagination.
Yes, I love color. I love the way my brain interacts with the celestial light of our world and the shadows that lurk within. With each shade and hue there is a conversation that goes on in a place where there are no words, only your own emotional language whispering in your soul. And if it is done well, that whisper can become a song; a song to lift your spirit into the heavens or render it in two. We share the same Eternal Love affair with color and light as autumn leaves on a sunny day. Artists from the dawn of time have been capturing this impossible beauty. They have used it to move the greatest and most immeasurable weight in existence, the human soul.
Fine Young Ladies pastel 24x26"Shadows and light, nothingness and everything, exceedingly simple and endlessly complex. How could I resist using something so glorious in absolute excess? Perhaps it comes from knowing darkness, from seeing the color drained from life or the light extinguished from within. Maybe it is a talisman we carry to remind us that the light still lives somewhere, even when we can’t see it. There to remind us in the darkened hours that the sun will shine again and when it does, it will touch the deepest of shadows, turning them into rich vibrant colors, ripe with the promise of life.
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