Debbie Clarke Art. "It's AHHT! or not."
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
MITCHELL Joan
Turn your volume off, i think the music gets in the way of the visual survey of Joan Mitchell's paintings.
I received a folio of Joan Mitchell's "Sunflowers" when I was in art school. My painting studies were moored on observational painting. Why these abstract flowers? The paint was dense, clunky, with a sloppy brush, somehow they seemed related to Hoffmann, and I resisted understanding. My discomfort with her work continued until I decided to copy one of her paintings. and then I copied another. and another. and then I was pregnant and went to The Albany State Mall. and there I walked in one of her "Landscapes" the painting bigger than my 8 month belly. There was so much joy and light coming out of the work...it made me dance!
I painted on and on with her work always on my studio wall until I closed my studio in Magnolia. Today I look at my gesture painting of Sunday morning and I say "Hello Joan"! you are not a dead hero, you are my live companion! I see you right there in the green of my picture plane, the speed of my brush.
best always,
deb.
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1 comment:
I absolutely adore Joan Mitchell..this is a wonderful overview of her work..I think it sings!!! I got to see one of her works in San Francisco and I couldn't move from it..mesmerizing. I decided right then and there that I wanted to be Joan Mitchell..so on that vein..maybe I too will copy her work and get inside her singing paintings..thanks so much
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