Artful Conversations

Breeze At Dawn
Leslie Avon Miller

The artist fills space with an attitude. The attitude never comes from himself alone.
~William de Kooning

One of the things I enjoy about the blogging community is all the conversation that goes on in the comments sections. The topics of Authentic Voice and Language of Intuition have been especially interesting. Here is a sample of the conversation with examples of the artist's work.

Book of Reliquaries

Judy Wikenfeld

If I don't use my authentic voice then nothing happens, no art, no inspiration - blank canvas as it were. ~Judy

Strabo
Robert Kingston

I always noticed an awkward, clumsy mark or move that kept showing up in my work and I felt that if I could just get rid of that my work would be so much better. No matter what I tried though that clunky thing kept popping up again and again! It took me years until it finally dawned on me that that odd goofy thing was actually me! Everything else was just me putting on other people's clothes. Now I try to embrace who and what I am although Its still so easy to forget and to fall into emulating the flavor of the month. ~Robert

Bare Bones
Jo Reimer

One can riff off another's voice, sort of like jazz musicians do. ~Jo

I'll lean on you and you lean on me and we'll be okay.
~Dave Mathews Band

Ralph Bohnenkamp

I am always looking for the authentic voice. ~Ralph

When you do things from your soul,
you feel a river moving in you, a joy. ~Rumi

Beyond Form
Bridgette Guerzon Mills

I experienced that weeping for joy the last time I was in my studio and was working on the last painting I created for 2010. It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does, it is a spiritual moment, I think. It's such an amazing and uplifting feeling. I wish I could carry it with me all the time...well, I try. ~Bridgette

Inner City Found Object Assemblage
Don Pezzano

Without our true voice we are just bumping into things with a paintbrush in our hand. ~Don

Seedpod of the Leopard Tree
Sophie Munns

I will never cease to be amazed at how one can view the work of another and almost feel you want to be there doing that....and yet it can be a long way from what lives in oneself to do. I've found it quite mysterious at times to feel I'm drawn to a certain fields of work quite powerfully and consistently yet that is not what I'm about at the end of the day....I have to stay true to what issues forth from myself even if it doesn't always make sense!
Being authentic no matter what is the stronger pull. ~Sophie

Mansuetude

So often voices sound homogenized, and I can't tell who is speaking and from where--and then when you find authentic sound your heart hears it, knows it! ~Mansuetude

The landscape listens and we hear it call our own name.
~Emily Dickinson

Black and White: The Yin Yang of Colors

Neither Completely Black Nor White 1
Leslie Avon Miller
mixed media collage
5 x 8 inches

My art is created intuitively as I seek to visualize and share this very moment on the continuum of time, just as it slips into the past.


Yin and yang energy are in constant motion and cause everything to happen.

The Nature of Things 1
Alan Bates
45 x 45 cm

From the Dockside series. Alan explains the resources that informed his work in this series; the jangle of boats, slipways, boat sheds, wharves, and old rusted hardware lying in shipwrights yards provided the colours and textures which held my interest.

Yin and yang are the foundation of the universe.

There Are Many Different Sounds
Mirjam Pet Jacobs
mixed media

The art I make is slow art. It is a response to the fast moving, technical, impersonal age. I make unique objects, created with dedication, passion and love.


Yin and Yang are two parts of the whole.

Burnished Double Walled Bowl
Jane Perryman
Saggar fired
23 x 19 x 19 cm

For many years my work has investigated the vessel through traditional techniques of hand building, burnishing and smoke firing. Recently I have developed ideas which allude to the timeless vessel form as well as referencing contemporary urban structures such as buildings, walls, and bridges.

Yin is not completely black.

Tiny Treasure
Noela Mills
ink and mixed media

My art is now almost entirely consumed by the concept of "wabi sabi" - the Zen Buddhist philosophy of finding beauty in things old, worn, incomplete, imperfect and common place.

Yang is not completely white.

Virtues Undiscovered
Bridgette Guerzon Mills
encaustic
6 x 6 inches

I am drawn to the inherent beauty and spirit of the natural world, and my artwork is a personal dialogue that reaches into the stillness of that spirit. Through both imagery and medium, I create organic pieces that speak to the cycles of life, growth and decay, memory and the passage of time.

Yin and yang cannot exist without each other.

Completion
Donna Watson
hand painted rice papers and small scroll
12 x 12 inches

I view my work as an ongoing process of search, and self examination. I am interested in the passage of time, and what remains.

Together yin and yang form the harmony of the opposites.