Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Over and Over




Sometimes when I admire the work of an extraordinary artist I imagine that out of their fingertips beauty flies, unimpeded onto the canvas. The colors are perfect, the shapes know their places, as if they had practiced it all on some other dimension, and now the time has come for it all to make itself know. It is similar to when we watch a dancer on the stage whose movements appear so effortless you almost think they never have to work at it. Their bodies obey every command that their souls suggest.

I know that's not true, but.....

I still think some artists just have a gift of vision and color such that beautiful paintings roll off their brushes as  easily as honey off a spoon. Not me. I have to coax it out, pull it out, cover it up, start again, throw the brush across the room. And maybe, maybe, I will get something that works. The painting above is called "Herbst", names for a piece of text lifted from a German book of posters. It may have 2, 3, even 4 paintings underneath. And I still have doubts.