Saturday, May 26, 2012

Learn More ~ Do More

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.- John Quincy Adams -
"Blissful Chaos" is a small abstract you've probably seen on my website or Facebook in the past months. I started to complete these small non-representational abstracts over a year ago, and have to admit, I enjoy getting away from the large landscapes, now and then, to refresh my senses creating something totally different. Many times in conversations over the years, friends, who for the most part created realistically, have said, "I never could do abstracts." Well, honestly, years back, I never thought I could either and never thought I'd want to. As a young person, realism was always my soul-mate and, perhaps, I thought I was cheating on him. (+: But to grow as an artist, one must always be willing to learn, study and experiment in other areas. I dove in to books on the subject, reading about artists who explored the abstract and non-representational arts whether it was visual, music, or poetry. I came to realize that as an art, it was quite thought provoking and difficult. There were components to it just as with anything else that needed to be learned. I wanted to see, listen, explore and read to get the understanding of negative spaces instead of always enjoying the positive ones. In music it might be the unresolved or "outside" note. In poetry, the choice of an obscure word, phrase or metaphor to pull a poem together. In theatre, a lack of props to make imagination come alive. Interestingly, it was as I thought, a study, thoughtful, playful and an intuitive way of completing a piece. More on my discoveries to come...