“Simply trying to make it work”
Elizabeth Murray
 
“The beauty of nature re-forms itself in the mind, and not for barren contemplation, but for new creation.”
Nature, Ralph Waldo Emerson
 

First, the important thing is the work….the artist’s work is the key to discovery. Secondly, it’s a good idea for the artist to find a place of trust and then try trusting it for a while. I put my trust in the program and components of a painting.  The support and the paint, along with the maker, combine to create works that are statements of partnership. Materials lead me through my painting. I like to see where they can take me.
 
If art is a reaction, then my painting is a response. It wants to be about how I take in the world around me: texture, color, light and surface. Nature, the force around us, the “not me”, as Emerson calls it, is a catalyst. There is a wholeness in nature which never fails to cause some move on my part. By struggling to interpret my environment with paint, I am forced to look deeply. I paint alla prima so my creation is fast and unplanned. While I look at nature, my painting becomes something very much different, and according to the quote above, becomes a new creation. While inspired, it becomes something of and unto itself.  As the work progresses, it creates its own logic.  What does the work want or need? What happens when you put two or three colors together? From the initial move, I don’t know how each work will evolve; the struggle is getting to the end. 

When you declare yourself a painter, you enter into the history of the discipline. What does my work say about painting today? Paintings importance is that it is not of the digital noise we are all exposed to on a daily basis. I find it a healthy experience today to stare at a static, non-digital image. A painting is quiet. I hope people would be caught by color and then enter into the work to find texture and subtle marks. A painting wants to be looked at and good painting wants to be looked at for a long time.

So all these things, for me, are what make a painting. They all come together and how it turns out can be the best part. You never know and there’s a lot of doubt along the way. The important thing is to keep going. In “Ten Rules for Art Students and Teachers, John Cage and Sister Corita Kent tell us, “it’s the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things” Those “things” are what make painting worth the while.