"First Valentine: Anne and Marie" glaze oil 12 x 12 The unreliability of memory has been this week's theme. I reconnected with a dear old friend by email and we began to reminisce. Trouble is, we had widely differing memories of important events and I have been starting to wonder about parallel universes. Certainly, the literature about brain research makes it clear that, while perfect memories may be stored, their accessibility is a different matter. What did remain true was the remembered emotion: we liked each other enormously and somehow affected one another's futures.
So what part does art play in this fragmented game? Picasso saw painting as autobiography: "I'm like a river that rolls on, dragging with it the trees that grow too close to its banks or dead calves one might have thrown into it or any kind of microbes that develop in it."
"Dead calves"?? A powerful image but it doesn't reflect my relationship with memory. For me painting is the attempt to record those splendid moments when the love of life overwhelmed all else. Doomed to failure, I am nonetheless drawn like a moth to those joyous experiences which light up my brain. The invention of digital photography was essential in this because those of us who embrace reality may need a little help in catching that moment of perfect light.
This small (12 x 12) painting is of my beloved niece and her dear little Marie. They were in our living room shortly before Christmas and a shaft of low December light broke through. Anne, who is a wonderful mother, glows with love, and the painting which ensued began my "First Valentine" series of mothers and their babies.
Every painting of mine is filled with emotion, the truest part of memory. Otherwise, why bother?
So what part does art play in this fragmented game? Picasso saw painting as autobiography: "I'm like a river that rolls on, dragging with it the trees that grow too close to its banks or dead calves one might have thrown into it or any kind of microbes that develop in it."
"Dead calves"?? A powerful image but it doesn't reflect my relationship with memory. For me painting is the attempt to record those splendid moments when the love of life overwhelmed all else. Doomed to failure, I am nonetheless drawn like a moth to those joyous experiences which light up my brain. The invention of digital photography was essential in this because those of us who embrace reality may need a little help in catching that moment of perfect light.
This small (12 x 12) painting is of my beloved niece and her dear little Marie. They were in our living room shortly before Christmas and a shaft of low December light broke through. Anne, who is a wonderful mother, glows with love, and the painting which ensued began my "First Valentine" series of mothers and their babies.
Every painting of mine is filled with emotion, the truest part of memory. Otherwise, why bother?
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