2007, December 23

As we streak and creak our way across the holidays, I find myself discovering the strength of what was initially an intuitive impulse, to slogan my efforts with "Art Beyond the Bubble."

More and more, as I begin the long process of posting over a decades` worth of writings, and feel how they compliment my visual-work efforts, I`m gaining a greater sense of the kind of human endeavor that I feel constitutes being "beyond a bubble."

Certainly a striving for authenticity of word and image is part of it.

Touched on below intellectually and intuitively, in my initial October posting, I feel I am in the early stages of gaining an emotional understanding I hope will enrich my thoughts, and my images, on the question of what is of value, and what is in a bubble.

Re-visiting my own writings is a big part of this.

Thank you much,

adan

2007, October:

I’m currently running a small online ad on a national housing blog, Doctor Housing Bubble.

Besides my name, I’ve placed the text “Art Beyond the Bubble” across the image. I wanted something someone going to a housing blog would probably relate to and wonder about enough to click on and go to my website.

To be clear, I am not and do not claim to be any type expert on housing, economics, the Fed, and all that. It’s interesting to follow, but beyond that I’m just another working guy wondering what it’s all about, stay healthy, and enjoy my years with family and friends.

But beyond enticing a potential housing-interested reader to my website, I also wanted to convey a certain truth about my art that really relates to bubbles in general, whether of a stock market, tulips, or even limited edition fine art prints – that I create my art for the art itself, for what it stirs in me as a person, not because of an expanding demand, artificial or real, temporary or long running. The work of art itself must create its own sense of long running reality, that it will or has a very good chance of enduring within my perceived world of value. I realistically can’t do much more than that. Or don’t know how :-)

Those who’ve read or will read my other Artist Statements, will find elaborations there and embedded within my Archive Reviews of Movies, Art, Events, Music, and Misc, and within my Archive Self Critiques.

Thank you much,

adan

Back to Artist Statements List
Original Works
Original Writings
Back to Main Page


******************************************************<



Back to Artist Statements List


 2007, August

It`s been more than a bit since I last wrote a current Artist Statement.  I`ve kept track of them fairly well here on my website since 2003.

This past January I was sure I was gonna start dipping some drops of water on my water based oil paints, see if I could get more of a sketchy watercolorish almost Berthe Morisot feel to my work.  I may have should have read ahead 8 months to one of my favorite art newsletter writer`s columns on not trying to say too much about one`s plans (see: http://www.clicks.robertgenn.com/silence.php) without risk of dissipating one`s intentions.

But I`m not convinced I derailed my intentions so much as that they just came out their own usual unique slow way.

There has been some progress in my own eyes regarding continuing to develop a certain look I like.  I call it kinda sketchy or impressionistic, at times reminding me of watercolor some what, and lately expressed by several people as soft impressionism.

The look of course is a result, and a conveyance, of what I`m really after, my feelings.

Most of us enjoy or like or want to hang out with people we enjoy, that fulfill that essential social need we as individuals all need to feel complete; that contradictory mystery of why when we`re with the right people we feel most complete as an individual.  Our aloneness revels in the right group or person.  I`m certainly no exception.  I`ve even begun to slowly see each painted surface I create as a populating of my inner people onto the world where I can see myself.  And the world I see emerging is a type of soft impressionism.

So, so as not to jinx myself, I promise I`ll not set myself in painted stone to continue this path, but just let it continue happening, in it`s own slow, uniquely personal way.

Below, is the link to a new small recently finished piece (also pictured above til the next Artist Statement.)  I think it fits well as an example.  Earlier this year, my wife Sheila and I were stretching out our last full day in New York on a record cold early-March day that peaked in the mid to upper teens.  I was so intent on experiencing this snow covered treat of park and quiet and cityscape upon my typically roasted central Texas eyes I almost got both of us frozen over, probably to be found by fellow tourists in the spring.  Or maybe one of the joggers in the painting :-)  In the next few days I`ll try to post a second recent small piece, this of a lovely spring view off Hwy 71, the road I favor traveling to Houston and back.  It was in April and the rains had started early and kept coming, so the fields were abundant.  A nice contrast of seasons stirred in a nice confluence of style.

So.  Where does all this come up being part of an Artist Statement?

I`m not a hundred percent sure.  But it`s something to do with my style path. It continues to emerge.

My style path, like any good love match, is twined and tweaked by all my feelings, my physical nuances, what I hope to see each day, what I hope to be, each day.

"Central Park Record Cold March"
http://www.adanlerma.com/dataviewer.asp?keyvalue=1170&subkeyvalue
=124383&page=WorksDetail

(also accessible via the Selected Works Tab top of each web pg)


Back to Artist Statements List
Original Works
Original Writings
Back to Main Page



****************************



Back to Artist Statements List


2007, January

Usually, I`m explaining or trying to articulate or even understand what and why I`m painting what I am.  The feelings, the style, the possible purposes.

This time, I`m trying to peek forward in time just a bit.

Definitely I feel comfortable in my impressionist style.  I love the colors and texture and look and feel.  I think what I see developing in the near term, this year, is more exploration of the water element of my water based oils.  It`s been a couple of years now since I switched from pure oil bases paints, and no longer feel lacking in being able to dry layer, scumble, and achieve the look I like.

In the 80`s I`d used acrylics, and had gotten very used to using loads of medium, and playing with the density of the paint via water.  Though there are some nice mediums available for the water based oils, its`s something of that latter I feel I need back into my work.  It`ll be interesting to see how much is just light light water diluted glazes, how much is something akin to watercolor like oil, maybe touching more the work of someone like Berthe Morisot.  Yes, it`ll be interesting.


Back to Artist Statements List
Original Works
Original Writings
Back to Main Page


******************



Back to Artist Statements List


2006:

Re Style: Funny, in the 80`s, I did acrylic abstracts that explored for years whatever style came out of me, in terms of colors, textures, sizes, all of it. Powerful, beautiful, but raw was what a more accomplished painter friend of mine back then described my work. There was no internet or blogs or newsletters that I knew of back then, so I`d wonder if what she said was good or bad. Then in the 90`s, with the new technology, I again let my style explode as it would, but this time through digital art and photography digitally enhanced and manipulated. I was a little more aware of how the medium tempered my style, probably `cause I couldn`t just mush my paint and swirl my brush, but there were other fun things, burning and dodging, cropping and uncropping, color hue sliding, lots of fun stuff, but no texture, not real stuff anyway. So 2000 came `round, I`d missed messing w/real paint, and decided to do two things, try oil instead of acrylic, and try my favorite art style, impressionism, rather than what was still much easier but now more boring for me, abstraction. Took almost 6 months to do a decent oil, then another 3 to do a work that finally begun to draw the response, oh, impressionist. And during this time, I stayed religiously with a strong realist impressionist rendition. I held my wild horse bent to fly with my impatient inward style and persevered with trees and water and sky and houses and bridges etc. Then slowly, so slowly I think I`ve only just begun to realize it, I`d let the gate stay open a bit and let the wild horse poke it`s head through wondering if it was ok to wonder out. As per one of your suggestions, I took a favorite motif, actually two, both of around Barton Springs here in Austin, and, using my old computer photoshop explorations, did color variations, not too wild, just enough to play with the image, and painted 6 - 7 images of both motiffs in related but distinct colorations. Nice. Interesting. Not for everything I`d want to do, but still, nice. Next, I consciously extended something I think I`d done slightly to more from the beginning of this new century phase, I`d finish what I could from the actual image source, usually one of my own photos of my motif, then put that photo away, though not too far away, and slowly begin looking at the painting for how I wanted to see it. More blue, more tiny specks of compliment or contrast, a deepening or lightening of a hue along a visible stroke of texture. A dot. A glow, a shadow, whatever made me like it more and more, til the painting could finally make me take an involuntary breath, like a child or infant resting by it`s mother or in its crib, a deep involuntary relaxing and surrendering of satisfaction. Like now.


Back to Artist Statements List
Original Works
Original Writings
Back to Main Page



******************



Back to Artist Statements List



 2005:

A NOTE TO OTHER ARTISTS: All work presented on my site was created painting part time while committed to my full time day job. The necessity of helping provide a living for my family is as important as my need to create. I`ve found though, that with a source of income separate from my art, the art has gained an independence and loyalty to my own heart. Then, when and if the opportunity arises to be a full time artist, the following of my true core will find me merely smiling at the temptations and mirrors of success.

Another byproduct of leaving the art for the day and having it dry a bit has been the discovery of how I can create the kind of texture / color combinations I most enjoy, that also evokes in me the sense I get from the works of those I like best: Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, and Van Gogh, plus many of great American Impressionists like Frank Benson, Twatchman, and many from the so-called California School. It`s so handy to have titles and labels sometimes... :-) ...if one remembers the artist as an individual.


Back to Artist Statements List
Original Works
Original Writings
Back to Main Page




************************



Back to Artist Statements List



 2004:

I`ve done creative work since i can remember...even if not always perceived that way at first :-)

From a classroom project in 2nd grade in Houston that went on to place in a city-wide showing of children`s art; to degrees in Theatre, English Literature, and the Humanities; to stints owning and operating a frame shop, doing computer art and digital photography; to experimenting with watercolor, acrylics, and oil: I`ve never been able to break away from the arts.

Since moving back to Austin from Galveston in late `99, I started the new Millennium learning to use oil and learning to paint impressionistically. I`d always most admired and enjoyed the French and American Impressionists, and friends would say, "...well, why don`t you do that?" (vs contemporary stylized abstracts I was doing) And I`d shy from trying, til with my wife Sheila`s and mine`s move back to Austin, I felt I was in a place mentally and emotionally to learn to create impressionistically.

I still work full time, and that itself played into following part of Monet`s technique involving painting thick and pure (no medium), then allowing that "go" that layer to dry before resuming.

I enjoy creating and crafting a work of art, the image of which is recognizable as a tangible object, yet, when viewed closely, enables both a tactile and visual enjoyment.

Though I have appropriated an older rather than newer more cutting edge technique, I have grafted what I grasp of Impressionism into a body of artwork that is my own. This is simply by way of painting what I perceive in my own time, in my own place.

Currently this means mostly Austin and Texas imagery (San Antonio, Galveston, Central Texas.) As my wife and I travel, I’ve also been able to begin to share our views and impressions of France and the Grand Canyon.

Additionally, though I relish the outdoors: growing up from age 12 working outside, playing on my Grandfather’s farm at age 5, camping and surfing along the Gulf Coast as a teen, I came early (since high school) to appreciate photography. Using my own original digital photography has helped preserve my feelings of time and place.

Other samples of my original oil artwork can be seen here at: www.adanlerma.com

Various size prints and posters of both my original oil artwork and my digital photography are available at various retail outlets - thank you much.


Back to Artist Statements List
Original Works
Original Writings
Back to Main Page



**********************



Back to Artist Statements List



 2003:

I`d like to say I know exactly what it is my art means. I`d like to feel I have a chosen or revealed goal in creating my images. I`d like to exclaim I paint only en plein air, or from a live model or still life in the studio, or even from great inner visions. I can`t, exactly.

I can say that a particular description Paul Hayes Tucker, a contemporary professor of art, used to describe Monet`s work in the 1890`s is as close as I`ve found yet. Paraphrasing, it`s to have my art stir, in myself and the viewer, the regenerative power of nature`s decorative beauty.

This presupposes I can even relate to nature, the land, the outdoors. That I experience the whisper of the leaves, the caress of the air, the depth of the sky in ways that let me experience and absorb her beauty, her healing connection.

I could say being able to do so is a fateful result, smacking of destiny and stars, or of having grown up loving the outdoors, having grown up working facing the sky and horizon atop houses under construction. But I don`t believe there is a prerequisite to loving the sweep of the tree line against the sky. Or breathing deeply on seeing the curve of a river bending the light with it.

Rather, I believe we share in the experience of the world and air and stars and water because we are of the elements. And more. Or why would we want to communicate, to share what we find?

Why do we delight so much in what we find and so eagerly seek ways to tell all?

I wish I could say I knew absolutely positively for sure why this is so. I can`t.

But I do know I find another little piece of answer each time I paint a picture that works, each time I draw an involuntary breath at the sight of my hand placing color across color, unlocking some deeply held code, a cosmic dna between us, the world, and the angels.

Light may reveal the form. But just as surely, the form reveals the light.


Back to Artist Statements List
Original Works
Original Writings
Back to Main Page

 Search our Site for any Title or Keyword

	Enter your search terms Submit search form
	Web www.adanlerma.com