ABSTRACTION – a path of EXPLORATION, DISCOVERY, and new AWARENESS

As a child, I’d been intimidated by Abstracts. 

I was very young. when my family took me with them to view the Art Exhibits of family friends and teachers in Ann Arbor MI. I listened to the conversations going literally over my head while peeking between the crowded bodies around me… And I remember waiting in frustration as my older sisters swooned over the Jackson Pollock TIMES Magazine issue that they begged my father to buy. Then finally I had my chance to see for myself what all the swooning was about. Frankly, at that time, I’d found a more startling interest in Van Gogh’s expressive brushwork of the energy, growth, and movement in his trees in the south of France… It was how I had experienced the power of LIFE that exists within a tree’s growth.

It’s taken me time to come to a meaningful and confident understanding of what and how I want to use ABSTRACTION in my artmaking,

I need balance in space and line and patterns that carry a story, along with texture and color. With emotions captured in my brush strokes and mark-making.

 But what finally tipped it into place for me, was a hot air balloon flight I took in rural France. Viewing the WORLD FROM ABOVE, riding high and skimming low. To see the varied perspectives, and textures fading in and out imprinted on the world below: It was marvelous! The pathways of man and nature! I had to put my camera away and simply absorb what I was experiencing…  The PATTERNS OF LIFE 2006 - >