Thursday, November 18, 2021

fullness and richness of life and art




My posting of daily art and production as well have suffered lately because of late summer travels and a surgery on my knee. My knee is now healing and I am getting about a bit better but I did halt some of my time in the studio. I am really looking forward to getting outdoors and taking long walks again.

Recovering from the surgery, laid up with ice packs and painkillers on the living room couch, I was visited by a friend giving me the gift of a huge bouquet of magnificent dahlias from her garden. Could a friend bring me anything more valuable? I enjoyed contemplating the flowers and managed this contour line drawing. 
 "Many people seem to think that art is a luxury to be imported and tacked on to life. Art springs out of the very stuff that life is made of."

"Art must spring out of the fullness and the richness of life."

“Art is a matter of enjoyment through the five senses. Unless you can see the beauty all around you everywhere, and enjoy it, you can never comprehend art.”

all quotes from Willa Cather  (Willa Cather was an American writer known for her novels of life on the Great Plains, including O Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark, and My Ántonia.)

When I was a teenager I discovered the writings of Willa Cather. I grew up in the Philippines, far from the Great Plains that Cather wrote about which fired my imagination with visions of far away worlds.