Inspiration Fridays! What will you paint tomorrow?

What will you paint tomorrow?

Spring is more beautiful than the limits of my imagination.

“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” – Audrey Hepburn

This week, we celebrated Mayday at my daughters’ school. Crafting crowns of flowers for the kids, we watched as they danced, weaving ribbons around the maypole, and racing through the rural landscape. It was surreal. The beauty of the whole scene felt otherworldly. With the exception of the parents’ iPhones and sunglasses, we could have been watching a celebration from 100 years ago. The air was clean and I breathed it all in.

The Giving Tree – Gabriel Mark Lipper – mixed media on panel – 24″x24″

It’s the artists’ job to stay present.

If you didn’t make it to the easel today, instead of berating yourself for falling off, take some time to reflect. Reach back into your day, and identify those moments of ethereal-pollinated magic.

Of course, a Mayday celebration always makes finding the magic a little bit easier.

White shirts and sun-drenched dresses, cascades of twisting hair, braided flowers, and children dancing, all of this punctuated by the richness of our rolling green valley. It’s a picture that will stay with me for a long time. It will inspire other pictures. There is not always enough time in the day to do everything that we feel we need to do. But each day can give us what we need if we let it.

So how do you create the incredible art you’ve always dreamed of with the time you have left? Breathe in the inspiration. Grab the tools that you need, and make sure that tomorrow is a day for painting.

What sprouts under the surface of your day?

Is there beauty in your life that you may have overlooked?

 

/by

Inspiration Fridays – Does Time Make Sense of Art?

Does Time Make Sense of Art?

I’ll be sharing a retrospective of my work with a huge crowd of art lovers at an exhibition title “Evolution of a Painter”. The show is taking place in downtown Ashland, Oregon but many of the pieces included in it have traveled all over the country.

“Painting is an essential function of human life. Wherever human beings live, painting has existed and exists. Painting is a language, as with words.” – Diego Rivera

Putting together this show feels wild. I feel like an oversized cat stuck in a shoebox. There is comfort in it, but eventually, the seams will split and the lid’s going to come off. The work reflects where and who I’ve been over the last 25 years, and it’s hard to believe it’s all come from me. There are parts of me in the art that I barely recognize. There are also bits of work that mean more to me now than when I created them.

I love using story in my work, but why do I choose to tell the stories I do? Half the time, the paintings live out the vicarious lives of strangers, while the other half are direct reflections of my daily experience.

What am I getting from this process that keeps me coming back for more? Where do these stories come from? Why do they matter to me? The big takeaway (for me at least) is that the answers to those questions may never satisfy me.

8paint Inspiration Friday "The Judgement of Paris" 30"x40" - oil on panel

“The Judgement of Paris” 30″x40″ – oil on panel

The act of showing up and painting matters more than the results.

What we get to learn from the painting has more value than the intentions that started the painting in the first place.

Both are true.

Seeing paintings from different parts of life hanging on the wall all at once, will give you pause—curated nakedness. Who but an artist can show you twenty years of their life in the time it takes to walk through a gallery with a glass of wine?

Art is a record of our breath, our struggles, and our inspirations. That’s what makes seeing the process so fascinating. Creating art slows us down enough to document the passing of time, and to highlight the often overlooked.

8paint Inspiration Fridays Offshore Americana

Join me for “Evolution of a Painter” Exhibition. 5pm-8pm on Friday, May 3rd @ 180 Lithia Way, Ashland Oregon

 

Have you had the opportunity to create over time?

When is the last time you’ve seen an artist’s retrospective?

What was your takeaway?

Does time make sense of art?

/by

Inspiration Fridays! Make Room For You

Make Room For You

Sometimes I forget that I’m an artist. I’m the inappropriately loud cheering section at the kids soccer game, the overly caffeinated Zoom call guy, the friend who won’t text back but sends memes in the middle of the night, the spouse that never sleeps. That’s all relatively the new me. First, I was an artist. It hasn’t been the other way around.

“Beauty will save the world.” – Dostoevsky

Art isn’t for everyone. Some people go through their lives without giving art a second thought, but those people aren’t me, and if you’re reading this, they probably aren’t you either.

The arts make sense of this crazy world, and we rely on our art to keep us sane. The busier we get, the easier it is for our art to take a backseat. But, it’s the very act of creating that provides us with the answers that we need to navigate this life. So what to do?

8paint Inspiration Fridays - Make Room For You - A loosely Packed Adventure Kit

A loosely packed adventure kit.

Pack your pencils, your crayons, your paints, whatever tools you use to create, and make some room. If there’s no room (because everywhere you look, there’s something that desperately needs your attention) then maybe it’s time to remove yourself from the routine.

​Fill your backpack with art, grab your cigarettes and beef jerky, or your Luna bars and kombucha, and hit the hills. Find some sacred space on a beach or a mountain or a dimly lit booth in a south end sports-bar. Just give yourself some room to be you.

I know there is a lot to do. But it will be there when you get back, and if you allow yourself sometime to create, to play, and aimlessly explore, the world will slow down a little bit, and be waiting excitedly for your return.

Where do you go to recharge?

Is your art in the backseat?

How do you make room for you?

/by