Fallen Tree

"Fallen Tree"     Oil on Board     5" x 7"

Again my subject comes from our Tallulah River.  But this time it was that fallen tree that motivated the painting.  What caught my eye was how it reached across the river, a bridge for critters looking for a path to the other side.  And  while working on the painting, I kept thinking that its roots will sprout new growth this spring.

What a journey since my last post!

I suppose I've not shown you what's been happening because I come from the "old school," not wanting to show a piece before it's finished--that is unless I'm purposely showing a work-in-progress.  But now is not the time for demonstrations:  I'm simply finding my way back into painting. So that's why this blog has been quiet for so many days.   I've not been idle, but rather searching past discard after discard--gathering the forgotten, reaching for process, kindling focus--attempting to rediscover how to function as an artist.  

I've thought about the zillions of times students have poured out their hearts to me because they had lost their way as artists.  A long debilitating illness, a family crisis, career demands on their time--a myriad of other's real causes have entered my awareness and innocently (though attempting to be wise) I have offered my suggestions for finding a way back.

Innocence is a kind of ignorance that experience alone can inform.  It's the difference between theory and reality:  too many printed pages have given way to theory and opinion, but beyond being mere exercises of the brain, they're worthless without experience.  No matter how intellectually stimulating, such expositions are nothing more than exalted innocence clothed in uninformed rhetoric.  

I trail off (blogs are allowed to do that, no?).  What I'm trying to say is that during these days I'm finding mere emptiness in my own past advice to others.  Each experience is unique as is the person in possession of it.  Nobody can know what that another person needs beyond love and support; indeed, it is the wise one that can give loving support neutral of advise.