Recently I gave a talk to middle-schoolers of the Lone Star Leadership Academy at the Resh Gallery in Houston. The talk was through the outreach program of the Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Art, and I thoroughly enjoyed it! While we walked through the exhibit of artwork (paintings and collages) by artist Linda Penrod and myself I talked about Process versus Intention. All artists have a creative impetus. As a generalization we can say that for the Impressionists it is light; for the Abstract Expressionists, emotion; for Pop Art, culture. The art on view for the talk demonstrated the differences between the impetus of each artist, though we had similar backgrounds and training. The following are several examples.
“Circut City II”, Mixed Media
Artist L. Penrod, “Midnight Sky”
Linda’s art begins with her process: a layering and printing and laminating of various very thin papers. Forms begin to emerge and what shapes the completion of the painting is her interest in primitive art and universal symbols. The finished art often looks like fabric.
My art begins with the intention of communicating about a particular subject. The idea of what I want to communicate dictates the process. In “Circuit City II” I was thinking about how computers are connecting more and more people, so I used circuit boards connected with painted lines. (Now the boards are much smaller–mine are 20 years old!) Wondering what future communication would be like inspired me to take computer parts and paint them as if they are fossils being unearthed in my mixed media painting “Alpha Omega.” I also included symbols for Sumerian runes, the beginnings of writing,
“Alpha Omega”, Mixed Media
Both Linda and I believe that being close to Nature is in our genes. Humans need to be aligned with the rhythms of the natural world for optimum health. She lives on a ranch and can see the Milky Way at night; I garden. Her interests are the people who slept under the stars and their symbology. My interests are the growing things around me.
Artist – L. Penrod, “Stone River”
“Nature and Me”, Mixed media collage
For an exhibit entitled “Reflections of Myself” I painted and collaged images of things that appear in my garden. I called it “Nature and Me”. I added sand to gesso in the green areas which made it more absorbent to the paint. Straight lines always represent the man-made in my art (in this case my house) and the yellow square, my window.
The Resh Gallery had many more of our paintings and my talk lasted 30 minutes. It was fun to have the kids talk about what they saw in the paintings and to answer their questions about the processes.