Art is a language with many different dialects. It is an expression that is unique to the artist and not unlike different accents, each form comes from a personal familiarity . . .
Certain styles attract different people. BUT one thing is for certain, it reaches people - it is a definite form of viable communication. It can make you sad, happy or even angry; peaceful, irritable or uneasy. This was something I didn’t understand intellectually; it took maturity and experiences throughout my life - blessings as well as devastations to understand this . . . even as an artist. But, emotionally and spiritually - it was there and I find that when I don’t try to control it . . . It flows.
The interesting thing about each time I either sit to create a graphic design, paint or draw a picture, there’s what I used to see as a dry period of time, where nothing looks good, feels right and makes me question if I truly am an artist, then magically it goes from dry to fluid and eventually saturated to the point where I almost feel a bit insane. Now instead of seeing it as a dry beginning, I see it as an inner struggle with my intellect and soul . . . my brain and my gut instinct. It is as though I am wrestling within myself to find a treasure.
Through maturity, it has become a distinctive journey that I believe has to happen in order to find the right treasure. . .
Over the years I’ve gone from purple suns & pink grass to detailed ink drawings, to precision camera ready art, back to ink and soft pencil drawings and eventually back to purple suns. When the computer world came into being, it ruined my business as far as I was concerned - it changed over at a time that made it very difficult for me to grasp. My creativity took on new shapes in handmade jewelry to wall murals. Eventually it brought me to canvases and a new expression that I thought I didn’t understand - abstract art. I now realize that this type of communication was just laying dormant and couldn’t be awakened until I traveled the many rough, dark roads as well as bright sunny hillsides.
I still struggle and have those dry spells, but now I embrace them and realize it is the journey that makes the statement worth the symbols that identify a company, a painting hanging on a wall or gracing the front of a greeting card.
It is who I am and why I have to do it . . .
