Potent warning... that's a poison ivy vine, as thick as my arm, growing up a cypress tree by the old mill pond at Cedar Rock Park.
Poison ivy is actually quite lovely in the fall, especially in the mountains, where I took this second photo weeks ago.And today I feel these photos fit. Elusive beauty that leaves me with an itch for weeks. Blocked and forbidden by poisonous plants. I looked at my two paintings and felt like either running away or shredding them. So I put them away, knowing I would want to enjoy them later and resisting any temptation to mess with them now, and I turned to that watercolor abstract.
I got out the black. And then I started to feel it, and I put on a mess of blue and ivory with the black. Once it was enough of a mess I left it in disgust and did other things.
Later, though, I looked at it and couldn't see how I missed the blue rider, the blue horse. A present from Germany? From the past? From an artistic heritage I feel is mine in some way? A method I rejected in art school; I reviled and ridiculed it. I finished the painting. I claim a place in that hunt. I, too, am an Expressionist.
7 comments:
I don't know * from expressionist, but I really like the movement in this piece.
That's very powerful, whether kinetically, muscularly or by the pound. I can see it either as a standard bearer in a riotous parade or a great warrior leaping over a doomed army!
Oh, and it's true, there's not much prettier than Devil's Butt-Wipe in the Fall! :)
Nice painting. A fitting appetizer for the Kandinsky show I'm going to see this evening.
I love the bold strokes and colors!
And the tree with he vine guard is very imposing. I would heed the warning.
that is a fabulous, moving painting, steve...big smiles at, what became so wonderful in the frustrations of the other...and so you are a rider of stallions in germany in Expressionistic form or in REAL form(I am resonating with the real)? please explain as this sounds fascinating to me, as always.
Thanks, everyone. My kids looked at this painting and didn't see the horse or rider until I told them to look for more. Then my oldest said, "Oh!" as he suddenly saw it. Then he couldn't beleive he hadn't seen it immediately... For those who may have been mystified, some of the German Expressionists had a group they called the Der Blaue Reiter. They were not united by one artistic style or manifesto (sounds like my work - not united) and they were in favor of modern art, and spontaneous, intuitive approaches to painting.
Horse and rider appear to be one. Love the blues.
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