El Ardor

People ask me why I title my paintings in Spanish. Am I am trying to make it more difficult for them to understand my work. I'm not sure if a painting should be easy to understand. If I could explain what I feel what I put down on canvas in words would I not be a better writer than artist? There is something in life that can only be communicated visually, musically and some only in words. Words have a way of distorting things; we are easily manipulated by words.

Rothko often didn't title his paintings, at times titled them by color, "Purple, White, Red', "White over Red" or titled them by number. When you stand in front of a Rothko and really look is it not what you feel the most vital part of the experience.
Perhaps people wonder if there is a secret underlying message that will unlock the mystery of an abstract piece. A friend suggested if my latest works might tell of the mysteries of my love life. I was a bit amused. Is all the red representative of all the past passions of my life, are the drips representative of the tears I cried, the light pinks and yellows of the joys I felt? Perhaps a bit. More likely I love the deep reds against reds and the depth that reds have. The drips of paint are drips of paint and are not representative of tears. The drips and solvents thinning the paint mixing with other pigments, allowing gravity to help create the piece I am making. My work has control only when I feel it needs it.

El Ardor, fervor, life, heat. The word in Spanish seems to mean more to me. The Spanish language is beautiful and poetic. Why should not the titles of my “Hearts” be poetic as well.

Road Trip

Considering a road trip. Usually I put work first. But lets face it, in this economy what is the point. I am tired of the doom and gloom; a change of venue is needed here. The oak trees still look dreary in their winter state, despondent in its naked state. And I'm tired of it. Besides a friend suggested a road trip and I can easily be persuaded. Cruise down to pick her up from the John Wayne Airport then drive to Palm Springs. Sunny warm Palm Springs, it is warm right now, isn't it? Lord knows I need the sun right now.
It's time to venture outside the Central Coast, check out the galleries. I always look forward to a road trip. One can be ever hopeful of something new to come. A gallery can pick me up, I can meet a intriguing person, or I can just lay in the sun sipping on a fruity and colorful drink. Yes definitely a road trip is needed.

February 6, 2010 "Hearts"

The heart has long been attributed with mystical significance, either as an organ or symbol, which manifests spiritually with divine attributes. One of the earliest appearances of the heart symbol comes from the ancient Egyptians who viewed the heart as symbolic of the soul. The feather of Ma'at (Muh-aht) was the Egyptian goddess of truth, balance, justice, law and mortality. The heart would be removed after death and be weighed to see if it was lighter than a feather.  A person of light heart was deemed deserving of the journey to paradise.

The Heart has been ascribed with the virtues of love, joy, charity, and compassion. It is the emblem of truth in Christianity, the “Sacred Heart”, the symbol of the Lord’s love. In Buddhism, the Buddha heart is also referred to as "the awakened heart of compassion" and has a very good meaning in China and Buddhism.

The classical philosophers and scientists, including Aristotle, considered the heart the seat of thought, reason and emotion often rejecting the value of the brain.
The Stoics taught that the heart was the seat of the soul.
The Roman physician Galen located the seat of the passions in the liver, the seat of reason in the brain, and considered the heart to be the seat of the emotions. While Galen's identification of the heart with emotion were proposed as a part of his theory of the circulatory system, the heart has continued to be used as a symbolic source of human emotions even after the rejection of such beliefs.

Though the symbolic Heart vaguely depicts the human heart, it more accurately depicts a bovine heart; it is still attributed as the seat of emotions. Passionate, happy, joyful, youthful, sorrowful, and heavy of Heart, the emotions central to our human existence.