Beauty

I sometimes reflect on what it means for something to be "beautiful."   Merriam-Webster gives the first definition as:   "the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit."

With this in  mind, I believe that I do strive to make my paintings beautiful.  They may not be so in the traditional sense of the word, but my goal is to at the very least pleasurably exalt the mind or spirit.  I know that when I achieve a glorious color combination it pleasurably exalts my spirit in the process of creation.  All I can hope is that the viewer can catch that spirit as well.

Alexandr Solzhenitzyn gave his 1970 Nobel lecture on the theme "Beauty will save the world."  Its an interesting read...

We're bloggin'!

Thought it might be fun to try a blog to share thoughts about the art process as I go along... lately I've really been bumping up the color in my work - it feels more "true" to who I am.  Here's a recent one that I created from an old photo of me when I was nine years old.