A Meaningful Quote

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life.
 ~ William Faulkner

Ilya Yefimovich Garshin

Ilya Repin is one of my favorite artists.  His emotionally charged paintings are above all, honest.  In my opinion, this is a quality that make the most outstanding artists and truly fascinating works of art.  Below is a painting of Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin, a man that was plagued with the suicide of his father and brother and who struggled with mental illness himself.  Vsevolod succumbed to the darkness at the age of thirty-three and committed suicide.

Repin was an incredibly talented artist who captured the sorrow in the eyes of this lost soul and remained faithful and honest to the emotion behind the facade.  Honesty is what I will strive for in my work for the rest of my life.  I am fortunate enough to live forty minutes from The Met where this beloved painting resides..  I visit it often.

Art Walk -- Bristol

Please join me at Bristol Art Gallery on July 26th.  Bristol and Warren, Rhode Island are having a gallery walk in which fourteen galleries are participating.  To see a preview of the works that I will have on display please visit Bristol Art Gallery or my website.  Hope to see you there!!

The Ridgewood Art Institute's Annual Sponsors Show

The Ridgewood Art Institute is a not-for-profit community art association in Ridgewood, New Jersey.  Their annual fundraiser, The Sponsors Show is an event that raises money for the school.  Sponsors donate $275 and are eligible to choose a painting that has been donated to the school.  The painting I donated this year is below.  There are many beautiful paintings to choose from.  Please take a moment to follow the link above to learn more about the event.

A Passion for Art History

I am fascinated by art history.  I find it incredibly interesting to study artists of the past and the historical context in which they lived and worked. Who influenced them?  What was happening in the world at the time? What were their limitations? 

Something in me came to life when I read the poem below for the first time .  It sparked a curiosity that still drives me today in my unrelenting pursuit to learn about the artists that came before us.  I’d like to share it with you in the hopes that it will inspire you and initiate, or reinstitute, the appreciation of human creativity. 

A Worker Reads History by Bertolt Brecht

Who built the seven gates of Thebes?

The books are filled with names of kings.

Was it the kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone?

And Babylon, so many times destroyed.

Who built the city up each time?  In which of Lima's houses,

That city glittering with gold, lived those people who built it?

In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished

Where did the masons go?  Imperial Rome

Is full of arcs of triumph.  Byzantium lives in song.

Were all her dwellings palaces?  And even in Atlantis of the legend

The night the seas rushed in,

The drowning men still bellowed for their slaves.

Young Alexander conquered India.

He alone?

Caesar beat the Gauls.

Was there not even a cook in his army?

Phillip of Spain wept as his fleet

was sunk and destroyed.  Were there no other tears?

Frederick the Greek triumphed in the Seven Years War.

Who triumphed with him?

Each page a victory

At whose expense the victory ball?

Every ten years a great man,

Who paid the piper?

So many particulars.

So many questions.