"the breakers" (18" x 24")
This was was...uh...interesting. I hear people come in my studio and say silly things to each other like "well remember, there are NO MISTAKES in art". Rubbish. I've made them all. I originally started this one several weeks ago and I liked the idea: very subtle gray, dark, muted colors. Anyway, it should have been hanging on my wall this last month except I was so disgusted with the original version of it that I took my paint-thinner soaked rag to it and wiped off as much paint as I could, then completely re-covered it with aluminum leaf and started over. This time, I switched gears and went with aquatic colors. As usually, I had no idea what was going to happen in this abstract as it progressed, but the very last day of paint application, it took the form of an abstracted seascape: waves crashing. I was very happy.
So the next time you hear someone say something ridiculous like "there are no mistakes in art", just butt in please and tell them "uh...you mean there are no mistakes that can't be corrected". Happily, most "mistakes" can indeed be remedied with some grit and determination.
So enjoy "the breakers".
The Three Voices
by Robert W. Service
The waves have a story to tell me,
As I lie on the lonely beach;
Chanting aloft in the pine-tops,
The wind has a lesson to teach;
But the stars sing an anthem of glory
I cannot put into speech.
The waves tell of ocean spaces,
Of hearts that are wild and brave,
Of populous city places,
Of desolate shores they lave,
Of men who sally in quest of gold
To sink in an ocean grave.
The wind is a mighty roamer;
He bids me keep me free,
Clean from the taint of the gold-lust,
Hardy and pure as he;
Cling with my love to nature,
As a child to the mother-knee.
But the stars throng out in their glory,
And they sing of the God in man;
They sing of the Mighty Master,
Of the loom his fingers span,
Where a star or a soul is a part of the whole,
And weft in the wondrous plan.
Here by the camp-fire's flicker,
Deep in my blanket curled,
I long for the peace of the pine-gloom,
When the scroll of the Lord is unfurled,
And the wind and the wave are silent,
And world is singing to world.
