Exploring Art...and All Life

I don't want to decide who to favor and who should have less. It doesn't speak to my heart and it is my heart that votes. [...]

Like all dramas, the clues were there, perhaps to be foreseen by the astute, but they were few [...]

With little or no notice in the past month (July 2012), two flagship Sedona galleries that have inspired and served artists and art lovers for over 35 years each have closed their doors and emptied their walls almost overnight. What is there that is forever here? [...]

The words we think, say and email can harm, or they can heal. Thoughts can confuse, depress and distract us, or they can help us accomplish many useful tasks and create beautiful and useful things. The same goes for its technologies. It's up to us how to use this double-edged sword of Mind and its incredible technological creations. [...]

"In those sweet times we spent together in the last few weeks, before the pain killers shut her away in a dream world, my mother and I had a number of deep conversations about life and about what might lie beyond this life. One time I asked her if she would let me know, if she could, if she survived death. She agreed, though we laughed about just how that might be done." [...]

"Soon the squall was no longer There, but Here, a pouring, drenching sheet of rain that left a half inch of water in my Soltek trays and turned me into the approximation of a drowned rat. But I was nailing it, I thought. No matter the rain!" [...]

Why do we create art? I believe, from my own experience and observations of other artists, that art is an expression of the spiritual core of life. Ultimately, life is one vast, mysterious, interconnected whole. Just like a hologram, each of us is a microcosm of that wholeness, and something within us just simply wants to "have its way with us" and express the truth of that interconnectedness, especially through the arts.   Recently I organized a group art show, "Oneness: Art and the Spiritual Journey" at the Sedona Arts Center. I invited seven artists to submit artwork and statements or poetry  around [...]

From a lifetime of creative expressions of various sorts, I've found that the drive to create comes and goes in cycles, which can seem to be out of my bidding. At times I lie awake at night as beautiful visions and inspirations download full-blown into my mind as though from some cosmic studio. Sometimes I'm in more of an artistic holding pattern, producing decent but predictable work. And at other times, the drive to create is just not there and, honestly, I'd just as soon putter about the yard, take a nap or go on a walk. This is all OK and as it should be. Read on [...]

If artists begin to agree that it is time to let go of the egoic thrill of "winning" or even "succeeding" even in terms of sales and status, and were to focus instead upon serving each other and serving life as a whole, I think we would rapidly find ways to have shows and galleries and exhibits and outlets that would better meet this purpose. Lately I am exploring not identifying as an artist anymore. In truth, I have never been "an artist," but a simply a being. I may still "do" art, but it's time to realize that who I am is not an artist and has nothing to do with outer success and failure [...]

I've come to see that this is the most I could hope to accomplish in my work as an artist: to paint mindfully and with awareness. [...]

Meet my newly-discovered male alter-ego, the somewhat-accomplished and highly-esteemed artist, Steven Pitcairn, who promises to add that extra touch of male credibility and stature to my budding art career. Over 50 hits the first day! [...]

...in these simple flowers, I found a message. [...]

"Beyond Words" is an homage to the beauty of silence, the truth of the inner kingdom of heaven, of the stillness that can be felt within. [...]

Awake in a still night, so peaceful. Somehow this seems more real than daily life. My, we get busy in daytime. Pause and take a breath... [...]

In the past two years I've been exploring the combination of poetry and art, especially plein air painting. Today's journal gives you an idea of at least one way to approach this rewarding experience. [...]

My personal experiment for 2010 as I open my gallery is to see and paint life as half FULL. Better yet, as entirely FULL. What's yours? [...]

To receive the Glory, The glory arising with every breath Neither far nor near, But everywhere In the silent space within it All. Ah, it's not a waiting, But an opening to joy. [...]

Today while giving a private art lesson in my studio, I was talking about the use of complementary colors, one of the secrets of the Impressionists. Instead of using black or brown or some random dark color to shade or to tone down a color, the Impressionists instead used its opposite on the color wheel, creating a perfect harmony that enhanced each color. Opposites were also placed side by side in areas of a painting, causing each to vibrate. As Tom Allen, a long-gone but not-forgotten art teacher who guided me in my youth, once explained, the whole color wheel shows us the [...]

Rodin reminds us that for the artist, "all is beautiful...because s(he) walks forever in the light of spiritual truth..." [...]

"One of the distinguishing characteristics of a great painter is that he knows when to stop. Many a painting which would have been great, if the artist had known when to stop, has been weakened and spoiled by over-finishing." [...]