Creating for Creation Sake
After presenting at PK Night last month, it got me really thinking about why I create what I create and where it all began. I wanted to share that story more on my blog and even some of the paintings created over the years. Before I share the first painting of this series, I wanted to share that this series, Colorful Women, did not start colorful at all. It started as black and white drawings – small drawings that I created to help me become more comfortable with my own femininity and physical self. The paintings came later, but the paintings tend to capture emotional aspects of me and my life that I do not yet see in my drawings. This doesn’t make them any less creative or artistic. It is just a fact.
This painting was created in 2005. By this time I had moved into my first flat after a stint of cohabitation with a significant other. It was, if I remember, one of the first paintings I created. She looks scary and scared, doesn’t she. And I think that at that time, I was both of these things. I was living alone after so many years and I really did not know who I was. See the mannequin look of her body. She, like I was at the time, was out there, in the void, looking for where I guess I belonged and yet, even in this somewhat crazed, lost state, she is beautiful. I cannot say that I was beautiful at that time. I think that is where she and I go in different directions. I wanted to be beautiful and my desire to be that was written all over her face, and body.
Color plays a big part in my Colorful Women. The orange and green vibrate off of each other. There is no stillness here; no calm. No peace. I know that was kind of heavy, but believe me this was a heavy moment in my life. Things got better and wonderful of course and so did the paintings. If you would like to visit my studio and “The Orange Lady” – just go to my contact page and let me know.