Reflections on Being an Artist

Because . . . The unexamined life is not worth living. – Socrates.

Where and how do artists get their ideas? What inspires and motivates us? How did we learn our technique? Was anyone in your family an artist? Why did we choose that particular medium or style of painting?

These are some of the questions I, and many of my artist friends are often asked when talking with people about our artwork. The following articles began life as notes in my sketchbooks and in the margins of books on art technique, art history, nature essays and spiritual texts. They explore a representational painter’s lifelong quest and struggle to become a better person, a better painter.

Many facets of an artist’s life inspire a work of art. This collection of reflections includes insights, all the peaks and valley’s of being an artist.

What Color is Your Day?

by Daniel Ambrose on January 30, 2012

From the age of four, I have associated each day of the week with a particular color.

I know I was four because we lived on Linda Lane. I remember sharing a room with my little sister Terri, and Sammy our yellow parakeet. Peering through the shadows of time, I can still see through our bedroom window, the white church across the road, its silver cross gleaming in the moonlight under the dark pines. I remember kindergarten at Hurst Elementary, lining up with the other kids with my nickel for milk, taking naps on the floor with my aqua towel, and spinning the metal merry-go-round in the Florida sugar sand.

That was fifty years ago, and only now do I attempt to illustrate the colors assigned to each day. Why reveal them now? Perhaps for imagination’s amusement, the path of least resistance. A difficult passage in a painting is vexing me; it’s easier to indulge a distraction devoid of restraint, than paint in the dark.

What day is it? Tuesday – Yellow. . . Saturday? – Orange, and so it goes. I didn’t select the colors, they appeared and remained. I wonder, if the days had different names, would the colors be the same? It’s not a very appealing arrangement of colors, my day’s. I like Thursday’s blue-gray and the brown has possibilities. Brown can become mysterious. When I think of brown, I see a deep, transparent abyss folding into a soft, shadowy, violet-brown. I can get lost in twilight browns. Color space is a fascinating topic, in future articles; I’ll cover in depth, the properties of color.

None of these is my favorite color.

Friday is green, odd, and probably my least favorite. It wavers between a medium and deep green and spatially is the furthest away. Because it fluctuates, it’s not a very truthful color, is it? Since my dad was Catholic, Friday meant confession at Saint Paul’s, and fish sticks for dinner. I loved my dad, but I hate fish sticks.

Somewhere along the line my day’s became colored, and each color has an associative  feeling in nature attached to it. That feeling is ineffable.

That I can only describe in paint.

 

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Writing about Art, Life and the Web

by Daniel Ambrose on January 23, 2012

daniel ambrose writing in journal

I developed the habit of carrying a sketchbook daily with me in my early twenties when I had a major attitude adjustment and began to take responsibility for my life. In a way, keeping a sketchbook journal was a primitive form of blogging. The contents consisting of drawings and notes, revealed insights and ideas that until recently, manifested themselves as paintings.

Thirty years later, I now realize they have been recording my life.

Painting and writing. A way of understanding the world around me. I’ve recorded in pencil or paint just about anything that crossed my path or my mind in the last thirty years.

It’s a good habit to get into and I highly recommend it. In fact, after my twins were born, I sketched them and made notes of their uttering’s. Now they are grown, and going through my sketchbooks I’ve found things I’ve forgotten they once said and, probably never would recall if I hadn’t written it down.  Especially the blurry first few years. Their first words for things like lightning, “thunder-lash” and grasshoppers, “hopper-grassers.” On blustery day’s, windows became “wind’s eyes” in the wonder of childhood.

My kids were in third grade when I built my first website in 1998, teaching myself HTML. Its interesting reading comments from young web designers today who don’t realize the limitations we had back then. As for blogging, I’ve come late to the party preferring to confine my thoughts to my sketchbooks. With friends’ encouragement, bits of them are seeing the light of day via this blog. Although the comma police continue to remind me that I should have gone to English class instead of out racing motorcycles.

Now I’m racing around on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social sites trying to stay relevant. More data is added to the stream every minute than you can shake a stick at. Everything we write and create from text messages to videos, is being stored on a server somewhere, waiting to be mined and marketed for any purpose by future generations.

If my cat sneezes and I tweet about it instantly, my great grand-kids can share in the profound moment. “Hey look! Sunday morning 2012, great-grandpa’s cat sneezed while he was on Facebook. . . What’s Facebook?  What’s a cat?”   What if Van Gogh had had an iPhone and tweeted? “Theo, Gauguin makes me crazy, I am with Rachael and I just gave her a piece of  . . . WWIT LOL” 140 characters might have given us a different self-portrait perhaps, poor Vincent probably wouldn’t have been so prolific either, texting and tweeting all the time, leaves little room for painting and eloquent letter writing.

We are amassing the minutia of our daily lives’ in ways unprecedented in human history. The things we create and collect, everything will be available for study and judgment. We will be judged by what we leave behind. Everyone can be an artist. We become our collective thoughts. In our language and pictures, we have the opportunity to show our highest expression of humanity through this vast social network technology has created.

I have a tendency to isolate myself at my easel, but through social media, can share my thoughts and experiences. I look to others who have more experience in this medium to guide me. Thoughtful, generous people like Chris Brogan and Susan Murphy encourage me to speak up and share my experience as an artist, to show the beautiful and gratitude I have for life and nature. It’s either embrace it or unplug from it all, move down to a sandy beach in Mexico, and paint fishing boats. Well, maybe a tweet from a taco stand every now and then.

Along with my paintings, I plan on sharing more of my life as artist, what inspires and motivates me, my struggles and success, painting tutorials, tips on art collecting and history. If you are and artist or collector, I hope my work inspires and encourages you in your own exploration of art. I have an eclectic skill set and also enjoy helping a few busy business people optimize their own websites. I can help you with color, content editing  and typography, anything but commas. Just email me if you have question or problem you need help with.

I hope you will find some of what I write useful. If you currently subscribe via my RSS feed or are on my email list, I appreciate it. If not, I invite you to take a moment now and subscribe to my monthly email Art Journal Newsletter. I recap the prior month’s posts and keep you up to date with new paintings and events. It’s quick, you can unsubscribe any time, and I promise I won’t ever sell your name to an obnoxious spammer.

Now let’s create something beautiful in art, life and on the web.

 “The unexamined life is not worth living.” -Socrates

 

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Crowded Memories

January 16, 2012

Saturday is winding down. An early moon is rising above the sea. A warm, salty breeze rustles the cabbage palms as if to notify me. The muse of Bulow summons. The moon is just touching the horizon as I cruise along the shore, a ghostly drop of silver in a fading blue sky. Turning west [...]

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10 People Who Inspire Me

January 9, 2012

Inspiration comes from any source, anytime. A single thought ignites an idea that can occupy us for a little while or a lifetime. Following is an eclectic list of people who inspire me in various ways. Bob Dylan Bob Dylan is first on the list because I was just listening to him which inspired this [...]

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