Artist Melinda Reflects on Secret Ingredients

How about a little play with color, a little play with paint, a momentary suspension of the hierarchy of the left brain critic? Oh, I know, it's in there watching: as you push paint around, visualize your influences, as you consider elements of composition along with value and construct. But you, the artist you, can be the alpha dog of your own paint world. Speaking of influences. I painted this painting today and saw some of my favorite artist mentors. I swear, they live in my head! Previous to painting, I'd been out grocery shopping. I didn't see any painters then... I see the influence if not the mastery of Helen Frankenthaler, Fritz Scholder and Jim Waid. And, as always, my left brain sat in the corner offering a gentle word or two--mostly, thinking of Anne Taintor's, "The Secret Ingredient is Resentment." Anne is my kind of woman. Was this because of my chores today? Left brain response: That's a really ugly painting! Don't let your left brain drive the painting. Your heart knows the paint a lot better. 

Palm #57 Tucson (oil on canvas, 16" x 20").

Strawberry Banana Acoma

What a glorious time of year it is. Spring time is here and the desert is blooming. We've had the oddest, but, most wondrous rain this past week. The hybrid sunflowers are blooming with rich, intense color. Photos coming soon.

This painting is a 9" x 12," oil on canvas of the northern New Mexico region, Acoma, in the Diné (Navajo) Reservation. It reminds me of an ice cream float. I must be channeling my admiration for Wayne Thiebaud and Fritz Scholder again. I must be ready for a delicious smoothie on a warm Sunday.

Reading Art & Fear (Bayles, Orland) has been good this weekend. As I traveled around looking at other artists' blogs, I was encouraged that our thoughts and feelings are the same. We struggle, triumph, we grow despondent and try again. "Some people who make art are driven by inspiration, others by provocation, still others by desperation."--from the book. Aren't we all, in discrete moments, all of the above?

Yet, I am ever stunned slack-jawed as I contemplate nature....

Or watch the new color rising from the richest ochre soil
like some fancy dancer making her big leap,

Or make the first swish of paint on the fresh ground of canvas
that amazes this maker, nearly freezing in mid stroke, joyful, wholly grateful to be.

What if our paintings make poems of landscapes, songs of flowers that mirror all that we can see?

 
"History doesn't repeat itself - at best it sometimes rhymes”--cousin Mark Twain
Let's rhyme in a good way.