50 has arrived.

Twilight Dance
Acrylic on Wood Panel
15.5" x 5"

Yes, it's true. 50 has arrived. Yesterday was my birthday! I know, I can hardly believe it either. Fifty...it arrived with a dance of gladness and sadness and playfulness. With goals being set and goals being met, it arrived with love and passion and reflection. With surprises and wonder, it arrived with gifts and small pleasures. It was all that it was supposed to be! It came with much anticipation and now the birthday day has passed and I AM 50! It may be a small thing in the grander picture but to me it was a milestone. Because of all that has led up to this day and put me in this spot, in Baja California Sur, living with the man I love, creating a life together and the opportunity for me to make art on a daily basis! I love creating art. Taking it all in, mulling ideas and images in my imagination, and then putting it all out there in paint and seeing what becomes of it!

I found the below article about making art that I enjoyed reading. Maybe you will too!

Creating Life
By Keith Bond, Regular contributing writer for FineArtViews.

Art can be moving and powerful. It is wonderfully magical. But art is also elusive. So, what is art anyway? To truly grasp what art is would be impossible in one lifetime. It is far too complex. Even more difficult is finding the words to express what our hearts and minds are trying to comprehend. So in our attempts to speak of art, we use words and phrases, metaphors and analogies to try to make sense of it all. We speak of the spirit of art. We speak of creating a feeling or capturing the essence of our subject. We talk of works of art that have life. Yet they don't breathe or talk or feel - do they?

I have been wrestling with this concept for years. My ideas continue to evolve as I try to wrap my mind around the subject. I am not sure how to articulate these ideas, so bear with me. I hope it makes a bit of sense. I will attempt to write about how and/or why art can be so powerful. Why it can move us to tears or communicate peace or joy (or any other emotion) to our hearts.

Firstly, how does a work of art come to be? It is created. What does the word 'create' mean?

Create (v): to bring into being; to cause to exist; to form out of nothing.

So, artwork created by an artist exists. It is an inanimate being. The word 'being' has several definitions but usually connotes life of some sort. You may just consider it a matter of semantics, but I believe that original art has life. I don't speak of life in some abstract fashion, but rather in the same way any other living object exists. It has something much, much deeper than the physical attributes of an inanimate object. Although inanimate, art is a being. It speaks. It breathes. It communicates. It challenges us. It causes us to feel, to wonder, to dream, or cry. It can inspire. It can lift. Or it can degrade.

When your hands mold the clay or push the brush around - you are forming something out of nothing. The thoughts, feelings, passions, and emotions all come into play to influence how you hands work. Intuition and experimentation play off each other. Knowledge and curiosity work to transform your emotions into expressions. Skill is developed and then manipulated in just the precise manner to achieve the subtle effects desired by you. Through this effort you cause a work of art to exist. It is born in your hands. It has life. It is, in a true and literal sense, a creation. This is why it is so powerful. It is not simply another object. It was created. It was brought into being. It now exists.

There is something spiritual about the creation of art, just like our bodies are both physical and spiritual. The spirit gives us life, thought, and emotion, etc. Once we die, the spirit has left the body, but the corpse is still there. Yet without the spirit to give it life, the body will eventually decompose and cease to exist in human form. There are similar principles with art. There is the physical canvas (or wood or stone or bronze), but deep within is the spirit of the piece. You give it that spirit as you create the work. The spirit gives the piece life which expresses thought and emotion. Without the spirit, the piece is lifeless or dead. That is why a print will never have the same effect as an original. It will never be an original creation. It is an imitation.

Yes, a photograph of a person can capture one's character or personality, even emotion. But a photograph can never replace the actual person. It is merely a representation of the original. Likewise, a reproduction of a work of art can capture a portion of the magic or spirit of the art - but it can never replace it. Consider how powerful and moving an image in an art history book (or as a print) is. However, when one sees the original, something much more powerful is felt. The printed version pales in comparison. Visit a museum and you will find this to be true.

There is something intangible within artworks created with care by gifted hands. That quality is, in my humble opinion, life.

This article appears courtesy of FineArtViews.com by Clint Watson, a free email newsletter about art, marketing, inspiration and fine living for artists, collectors and galleries (and anyone else who loves art) .

For a complimentary subscription, visit: http://www.fineartviews.com

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