EARLY AUTUMN SUNRISE
12x16 oil on linen panel
A tonalistic painting in the tradition
of the early American Tonalists
This is one of my favorites - just like the feel and emotion
provoked by the sodden foreground, the birch trees beginning to
color out, and the pale sunrise beyond.
I have a real problem with winter, as many of you do, and I find it hard to keep my creative juices flowing when everything about me is gray and dismal. Perhaps gray and dismal relates to a frame of mind and not an actuality, and perhaps I need to rethink my attitude when winter rolls around again. At present it would seem I need color and fragrance about me to give me that delightful impetus to paint or create poetry (both such as they are).It seems I was born with a strong thread of melancholy running through my veins - my mother was depressed most of her life, her father committed suicide by hanging hmself in the barn for his children to find him, and my great-grandfather drank poison and died in front of my grandfather. Saying this, I have never felt suicidal and hope I never do. What I feel in such times is more a lack of motivation, the "doldrums", the "blahs" - nothing I can't work past. Someone commenting recently on my poetry blog -http://www.thecrowandthemoon.com/ - said of this tendency:
"There is this artist within you,
and this other-knowing, deeper-connecting,
artist, has been nourished by your genetic
melancholia-depression tendency/gift,
to seek expression in lovely poetry and painting...
he would not exist without it.
But what a trade-off it has been!
We, who are lucky enough to enjoy your art,
surely benefit from your 'curse',
and we hope that you realize the 'blessing'!"
Today, standing in the spring sun with lilacs and fruit tree blossoms weaving an enchantment I absolutely love, it's hard to recall the melancholy, or at least that part of melancholia that suppresses joy and the creative juices. So, I'm heading out to my studio with thoughts of several large aspen paintings in mind. I'll update on my progress.
Your friend - Warren
