Sunday, May 11, 2008

"Pray-er"


6"x6"
Oil on Board
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Just back today from spending most of last week at a retreat at Our Lady of Guadalupe Abbey here in Oregon. I expected to paint during alot of my free time, but soon realized that wasn't what I was being drawn to do. It was a silent retreat, so many things that I would ordinarily not give alot of attention to gained alot of significance. After the retreat I spent a day in Portland and visited Lawrence Gallery where I encountered the work by Mark Bailey. He had a series of faces--among other paintings--hanging there that I just became entranced with. So today it occurred to me to let some of those faces that I watched in silence this past week to come to me and to paint them now. This is a memory of one of the monks. Mark's brushwork really caught my interest and I am trying to allow the looseness I felt in his--always that same thing about not trying to put in all the information! I think that working from memory impressions might be a good practice for this.

1 comment:

Roxanne Steed said...

This work from memory is exciting, especially after reading about your retreat! I'm drawn to the loose & expressive brushwork...says all it needs to say! Thanks for the story of how this came about, too! I'm always surprised at how when we go 'looking for an answer, it comes to us in unexpected ways!!