santa fe reflections

a trip to santa fe is always an artist date for me. in addition to the inspiration of the country one passes through in getting here (see previous entry), santa fe itself is a vortex of creative energy. in the short time since our arrival, we have managed to visit the venues of three of my personal painter-muses. our first stop was at darnell fine art, who represents rebecca crowell. six of her larger pieces currently are hung together across one wall, and in this intimate gallery it was possible to get up close and soak in the colors and textures. as those reading this blog will know, rebecca is my most recent source of painterly inspiration and wisdom. it is her oil-and-cold-wax workshop to which i am headed in a few weeks.

our second "art stop" was niman fine art, home of the work of hopi-tewa painter dan namingha as well as that of his two sons. i discovered namingha's work before i began to paint in oil, and some of my early watercolor landscapes were inspired by him (the piece imaged above is an example). any time i am in santa fe, i visit his gallery to see the latest. design, color, texture all dominate his mainly acrylic pieces, and they resonate strongly in me. there is no question that my voice contains echoes of his. where rebecca's cold-wax abstracts provide a medium and a language that informs my work, namingha's strong southwest grounding provides another painter's vision that closely parallels my own.

from niman, we headed to the georgia o'keeffe museum, where the current show focuses on her abstraction. there is always inspiration to be had in o'keeffe's work, and this visit did not fail. on the wall of the show is an o'keeffe quote about abstraction:

I long ago came to the conclusion that even if I could put down accurately the thing that I saw and enjoyed, it would not give the observer the kind of feeling it gave me. I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at —- not copy it.

this is so much what i feel about my work. it is that "equivalent" that i am actively seeking these days in my painting, an artistic equivalent for what i feel when i observe the country around me.

a second lesson from this visit with o'keeffe was the realization that she provides rich examples of painting things "up close", as i have talked about doing in my cold wax panels. her iris, her corn, even a cross-cut of a piece of wood -- many of her abstracts are simply (hah!) close-up portraits of things. i've looked at o'keeffe's works for years, but this is the first time that they have provided such a personal "aha!".

thank you, santa fe