Art
“The best thing about being married to a fellow artist is not that you don’t have to explain why you covered your entire canvas with yellow, but that you don’t even need to explain the *urge* to cover your entire canvas with yellow.” — Jala
Three concepts drive my work in visual arts. These are: composition, simplicity, and color.
Composition is perhaps the easiest to achieve, yet of profound importance, as without the visual balance of shape or line, the fineness of one’s technique simply will not matter.
Simplicity in design is not for everyone; there are those who prefer “busyness” in an image. But I relate to Mies van der Rohe’s statement that “an interesting plainness is the most difficult and precious thing to achieve.” I liken it to Buddhist concepts of humility, calmness, and clear vision. My artistic “heroes” include Helen Frankenthaler, Georgia O’Keeffe, Mark Rothko, Susan Rothenburg, Richard Diebenkorn, Agnes Martin, and Brice Marden. All managed, at some point in their careers, to achieve what I strive for: to reduce an image to a point where maximum expression is realized via a minimum of means. In plain language, I want my work to be powerful and uncluttered; there needs to be enough there but no more than necessary.
Color is a passion for me. I am fascinated by both bold statements of color as well as the most exquisite of subtleties. And the relativity of color—the way in which, say, a gray appears more blue when juxtaposed with orange, and vice versa—never fails to move me esthetically.
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I studied classical drawing, painting, and sculpture full-time for two years at the Colorado Academy of Art, and I continue to paint in oils in contemporary realism. When I need to “chill,” that’s when I turn to work in abstracts, whether in oil or pastel.
