Summer's Going Swimmingly

'Bubbles'
Framed acrylic painting with assemblage

©robin r kent

With this kind of heat, it's great to be able to find a friendly water spot. Mine is a fresh water lake made from aquifers surrounded by trees, grass, and woods. I love the ocean, too, and miss its briny smell. Maybe someday we'll get as close again as we used to be.
The fresh water is warmer now and friendly to the skin. However, I've always had the hardest time diving in. All my friends could just 'cannonball' off the dock and get on with the water play. Not me. I had to suffer through a slow and steady walk into submersion. No shock allowed, and progress hit a major slowdown when cool water approached the midriff. Maybe I had to process it all before I could adjust to it?
Now when it comes to art, I love water based acrylic paint. (How's that for an unabashed segway?) No problem diving in. No smell, no messy clean up, and it only hits my gut in an emotional way.

Just like being a kid at the lake, I can play all day in that kind of water. After being bouyed up - weightless - in its magical maritime world, returning to land feels heavy; leaving it an adjustment. Good thing I know how to get back.

Eyes Notice Everything

'Sea and Be Scene' assemblage sculpture

©robin r kent

When viewing art, eyes notice awkward colors, positions in portraits, thicknesses in bands of brush strokes, etc.
Then how come we can be so oblivious at other times?

Maybe that's the thing about art. It makes you look and holds your attention.
To me, learning 'how to look' means:
1. explaining how to stop the action of whatever is happening around you
2. see the art within it
3. understand how each section contributes to the whole, and
4. remember for future reference.
In a split second. No luxury of gazing at the subject in daily living, unless all you want to draw is attention. Other eyes notice everything, too.
It's the remembering part that is the most difficult to me. Especially as I get older. But it seems to seep back in an unconscious way when called upon at the easel or workbench. It's nice to know there's a part of me connecting with what I see even when I'm oblivious.

Art is Energy

'Any Which Way' wood wall assemblage

©robin r kent

Picking up the paint brush is like picking up a magic wand. Sometimes you don't know what will come out at the other end. It can be explosive where you don't have to do much other than hold on loosely and let it go. But it can also be cranky, where you have to cajole what wants to come out. Vibrant is the easiest where you stand back and feel the warmth.  Moody is the least understood, needing the most support, and can be the most gratifying in the end.

What all these have in common is energy. Creative energy to be more specific? A vibration bouncing off the canvas, wall or in the case of sculpture, standing on the floor next to you. Collectors have reaffirmed  my feelings how some of my sculptures have their own presence. Like another person in the room. Trying to say something if given the chance. Yet always available to listen to your thoughts. Sometimes they can be delightful company, and other times surprise visitors when you forget for a moment they are there. That's happened more than once. 

Like Geppetto, I'd like to be able to make exactly what I want, but not always get that in the end. Each piece has an energy of its own.