This painting is available as a giclee print for $35 from my Ebay Store (button is above!)
(cont.)
This painting almost created itself!!
Like the magic paint brush in Disney's opening scenes, that sprinkles fairy dust,
and presto! there is the castle!!
I barely recall working on this...but then that is the case with all of my most powerful pieces.
All I can say, is that I get into an altered mind set
(no, I do not, nor ever have done drugs!?!)
This is not the same as some artists saying that they are doing "their thing",
and thus produce abstract statements that were better left on their studio floor!
Now, don't get me wrong.
I love GOOD abstract! But there is a difference between someone "creating" "their thing" due to "inability,"
or due to "choice."
The difference is greater than night and day!!
Several years ago, I went to an opening that Ed Kienholz had at his Hope Gallery.
At the large doorway to his studio were a dozen bronze arms, about 5 feet tall...
looked like the arm of Michelangelo's David.
Absolutely powerful!
And in the hand, was placed a dead pigeon.
When he was asked, about the bird, Ed remarked:
"When you have a "dead bird" in your hand, you cannot place anything else there!"
Just like our lives! We need to quit carrying around "the past."
You may be asking, why this story? Well, if you know Ed's work,
he was the only living artist in my Hanson's Art History book from the late '60s...
listed as the artist that almost closed the
Los Angeles Art Museum
It was an actual cut in half car, with a manikin (male & female) legs sticking out the back door.
I share this, because ED DID NOT DO ALL THESE SOCIAL STATEMENTS, from "found" objects,
BECAUSE HE COULD NOT SCULPT...BUT BECAUSE HE "CHOSE" to do otherwise!!
There is a great difference in doing something because we
choose to, and doing something,
because we have no ability to do any thing else!!!
Ed had the
full range of ability, from the classical sculpting, to a more modern "graphic" statement...
because
in the end, the "statement" possibly carried more weight, possibly had more power!
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All Text and Images Copyright Betty Jean Billups. All Rights Reserved.
Address: P.O. Box 102, Sandpoint, ID 83864