Friday, November 11, 2016

Break the Ground

The past few days, I, like many others have been completely obsessively engulfed in the election results.
For me, it did not go the way I wanted.

What do I do now? Where do I go now? How do I make sense of it?

I could go underground and deny to accept reality, but I fight forward and live from my heart, advocate for those who can't, create with courage, express with compassion. Turn fear & anger into beauty and action.

Not too long ago, The Denver Art Museum had an exhibit: Women of Abstract Expressionism. This exhibit was one of the best I've ever been able to view. These women were painting abstract in a time when it was somewhat taboo for them to be doing so. They were expressing the world through their art, putting their feelings, their anger, their joy, fear, and the uncertainty in the world on canvas. I went to the exhibit a few times because it was truely inspirinig. I can't even imagine the struggles these women went through for their voice in the art world to be heard. Ground breakers.

The past couple weeks I have been taking one of my weekly art classes, this time a class about Exploring the Language of Abstract. It's taught by a wonderful abstract artist, Karen Roehl. Right now we are doing a master study. I've done these before and I find them incredibly helpful. A master study is when you take a painting you love and you basically copy it exactly. It's sounds easy, but it's not. In fact, it's really quite difficult, especially to capture the feeling of someone else's abstract. The goal is to try to understand how the painting was made and you basically spend the time frequently asking yourself...

What do I do now? Where do I go now?  How do I make sense of it?

Below is my master study of Perle Fine's painting "Summer"
This is mine
This is Perle's     

 

I don't feel you ever really know all the time what to do, where to go, and how to make sense of it. You really just keep painting, dancing, writing, acting, laughing, singing, sculpting the world around you with the fire in your heart and the grace in your soul...all while the ground is breaking.
-Cheree

Sunday, November 6, 2016

Write, Rot, Read, Repeat. (and some painting too)

It's been a little while since I wrote a blog. My go to of an excuse is that, "well, I have children and they are busy and want my time." While this is true, the cut-the-crap, reality is that I have been TV bingeing on Transparent, Stranger Things, Mozart in the Jungle, Raiders of the Lost Art and American Pickers...Not to mention I have writer's block (since July) and more so, a major lack of motivation towards writing (also since July, because TV is rotting my brain...kind of...I should mention that I have been counteracting the rot by reading several good books as well, this includes: A Marriage of Opposites, The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, Fat Artist, The Miniaturist & one other one I can't remember right now, but it was good). Despite all this bingeing and rot counteracting, I have continued to paint my little still lives and a few other new projects (which I really do plan to blog about, as soon as I finish bingeing on Good Girls & reading In The Not Quite Dark). 

I'm hoping that just by getting back on to the computer tonight and posting some of the little still lives; it will get the rot out of my brain & the writing ideas going again.

So without further ado, I present some more exciting little still (creative) life (savers).

Ready for the Cut (2016)
Oil on Gesso board 6x6
Buy

Peppers (2016)
Oil on Clay board 6x6
Buy

And now, it's time for me to get back to rotting.....
-Cheree