WOMEN RISE

A lifetime of Wondering.

and the color Pink

                                                          

                                                              "Challenger" Deena Altman

When I was small, the only woman that was ever talked about was Eleanor Roosevelt...and  only because she was the President's wife. That was in 1940. Throughout my youth I was told that Art doesn't matter. This was a favorite saying of my Father. You can't make a living doing Art. For many women this has been so. This was also true of many vocations of which women were not encouraged to dream of aspirations owned by the world of men.

In my life time, much has changed. astronaut Sally Ride and her space shuttle Challenger, Senator Tammy  Duckworth, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elaine de Kooning. They overcame great odds in their quest for a place in the Sun...  

Elaine de Kooning self portrait

My daughters have encouraged me to see the movie "Barbie".  I hate pink. It is not on the color wheel of my art world. The primaries, Red, Yellow, Blue. The secondary colors, orange, green and purple. Power colors in the  corporate world are: black, red, and white. Little girls are from the time they are born are inculcated with the idea of pretty pink. Little boys are blue, a primary. It is always blue no matter how much white is added to the hue, it remains blue. Red on the other hand, when white is added becomes Pink. It loses all potency...it is diluted from the power of color.

 

 

 

 

 

Now, at the Oceanside Museum of Art in Oceanside CA we have an exhibition which documents the many phases of the feminine. A woman's lifetime documented in the paintings by Deena Altman. "Female Rising" It is gut wrenching, the power of her painted stages of the feminine mystic was for me overwhelming...especially the portrait of "Sweet Sixteen". This phase is when the "I" of being becomes subservient to our culture determined by the world of men. . Her shoulders are slumped forward, her dress a faded shade of pink. This image has background images a small girl painted in the color of pink. This cultural bias is still in full Pink Bloom 

I advocate the color for my sex to be Yellow, Gold, and Orange...the colors of great power. The Sunflower grows wild. This is what little girls should be surrounded with, the wildness of self, growing unbounded with the Sunpower in a blue sky...energy which makes our Planet Earth alive. Women in the Arts are now becoming a driving force for the Arts of all genres. We do give birth with passion and physical strength for our art. We glory in our Wildness, and we are very golden living on the great color wheel.... of existence.

 

 

                              The Young  Michelangelo

"Torment of  Saint Anthony". Michelangelo

Art Soul Connection

And a Young Boy

It is there, this connection of "Art to Soul, Soul to Art" deep it springs form the earliest age to bring into being, something that has never been told or viewed before. From where does this connection to the silver strands of the either waves come, and why does it have the effect of addiction to create something? This is the question which has mystified artists from the beginning of time.  This energy demands the instant feeling of now, action, and the incredible feeling of another self doing the now of creativity. This feeling cannot be denied.

 This connection is apparent in children as they play with color, clay, and keys on the instrument at hand. They have no constraints, they are in the moment of another world. One which is theirs only, and can never be from the world of NO.

Michelangelo was the genius of his age. It started early when at the age of 13, he created the "Torment of  Saint Anthony". Somehow, this creative instinct vanishes from most as the young are channeled into the learning of what is competitive and successful  in our world of wants. To be successful, art is not the way.

Last Friday I met a Young Boy.  He had the shinning eyes for the love of Art. His work influenced by today's proliferation of graphic images of the now genre of comic. I wondered if he were a citizen of Florence in the time of Michelangelo, and not influenced by today's media, what kind of images would be his inspiration. I had a few moments of conversation and encouraged him to draw. Draw everything. Learn what you see in the moment of the real, not on a screen of what others post. Look, and really See. Learn from the masters, and use your passion to imbue your drawings with your self, make the connection of your eye to your self with... truth

He smiled, and we shook hands. I left the jubilant scene of Artists Alley First Friday Art Walk, and knew that a young boy would have thoughts of resolve and exploration about his connection to the Silver Strands of making.