I love creating faces and compositions in a style I loosely call abstract cubism – not fully abstract and not fully cubist but a combination of the two. When I create faces, I am creating my own little world of people and I love getting lost in it. How do I want to align all parts of the face? Do I want to leave off any parts of the face? I recently started paintings florals and landscapes again after many years of not doing it. The challenge – and it is fun – is to paint a landscape or floral in my style while maintaining an interesting composition for the viewer.
I don’t have, and will never have, a BFA and an MFA in painting but have been studying for over 20 years. I won’t be a full time painter until I retire because I work full time to support myself. I love painting at home because I am surrounded by my work all the time and I like have my paintings close by when I am trying to figure out a problem with composition or color. I don’t think my constraints make me less of an artist – they make me more devoted to painting my vision. I have always been fascinated by business. Running my art business and learning all that I need to in order to be successful is very satisfying. It is exciting to be a one woman operation and I refuse to give it up.
So, I always remind myself to keep creating, keep growing, keep studying other artists, and keep learning from them. Most of all, I remind myself to never lose hope in me and what I can do.
I painted this about seven years ago and I remember so clearly that my goal was to show the woman sitting in a way that shows she will bolt up and run off at any moment. She is ready for the next step in her life. This is one of my earlier attempts at using the background to hold the figure in place and made the background into a painting on its own. I remain as fascinated by the background as I am of the figure.
