After a weekend crash course learning QuickBooks, I’m determined to think about, read about and maybe even MAKE art today. An article about abstract expressionist Joan Mitchell is on the top of my reading pile. It interests me to read that though she lived in France amid the lush landscapes painted by Monet, she always worked in her studio rather than en plein air or from sketches made on site. Here’s a quote from an article by Margaret Mathews-Berenson with Jimmy Wright published in the February issue of The Pastel Journal:
“Working from memory empowered her to paint or draw more directly – from the inside out. Throughout her life, Mitchell retained vivid recall, enabling her to record not simply a place but an entire experience and her emotional response to it. Every stroke of color represented in Mitchell’s expressive gestures is an abstraction created from the real world and each gesture is laden with the memory and poetry of her inner landscape.”
Painting from the inside out. Painting one’s inner landscape.
I like that.
