Loosen Up and Let Go.

"It took me 4 years to paint like Raphael, but a life time to paint like a child."
-Pablo Picasso

 

"Curiosity"

8" x 8" clay, paper and acrylic on wood

 

 

I  love working with children; and every time I do I swear I learn as much from them as they do from me.

Always.

It is a collaboration.

 

 

 

I recently had a group of girls visit my studio. For three hours they drew, painted, sculpted , and collaged their hearts out. There was never any hesitation; only unbridled enthusiasm and fearlessness. Never any criticism; only joy with their creation. This is always the lesson I learn.

 

 

 

 

Children don't worry if their work is sellable. They have no critics. They paint simply to express themselves. Who cares if nothing comes from it? So loosen up, let go and learn to paint like a child. From the heart!

 

 

 

 

 

Call and Response

"Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart".

William Wordsworth

 

Last night I sat around a table with four of my favorite people: my mother, my dear friend Caroline and her daughter Zoe. Four women between the ages of 18 and 60. We had gathered together for a fun art experiment: Call and Response. Each of us began an art piece; a  call. The art was then passed to the next of us, and so on. We did not see our art for the next two hours. There was conversation everywhere... two pots of tea were drunk, and we used our heart's breathings to respond to each other's call. No mark ever fell on neutral ground.

 

Angela's Call: Till She Can Bring Her Beauty

 

 

The Response: She Must be The Beast

 

 

Bonnie's Call: Angle of Destination?

 

 

The Response: The sun sets each day, so it may rise again.

 

 

 

Zoe's Call

 

 

The Response

 

 

Caroline's Call: real beauty, old age, wrinkled, get older, every wrinkle, smile line, marks of wisdom

 

The Response: her beauty, your eyes.

 

 

 

 

Can't you just feel our hearts? Don't you wish you were there?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

April: Conversations In Paint

I like the idea of collaborations as conversations. Keith Haring once said, "Collaboration paintings are a physical conversation in paint instead of words. The sense of humor, the snide remarks, the profound realizations, the simple chit chat all happened with paint and brushes."

I recently collaborated with my mother, Bonnie Coulter, to create a conversation about the precarious nature of emotional states.

 

"Hold Back The Storm"

 In "Hold back The Storm", Bonnie envisioned an emotional storm, and she used her experience with painting landscapes to speak about this.

 

After years of studying psychology, I first became a mother and then a portrait artist. I'm often thrown into the eye of the storm of adolescent hormones and fears as my boys and their friends navigate their way through their teens. This experience became my part of the conversation.

 

 

All month long I will be exploring collaborative art: joint paintings, call and response, commissions and working with kids.