Alicia Brown | Art

TIME AWAY

2015-06-11T14:51:00.000-07:00

June 11, 2015

I have all but disappeared off my blog. I am so consumed with reading, observing, experimenting with new ideas in my art, and tending to the daily things that take one's time, that a blog comes last. My use of time that seems ever more fleeting, is time to think and reflect. I am finally making time for thought, inspiration and reflection and relishing it.
So, this blog comes once in awhile as I have a moment. My apologies.

Voyage I

Complicated lives lead us from one thing to another.....and at this time I want to let the mind wander, the ideas flow and be at play with new work. Explore, Dream. Discover.

Thoughts on a snowy day

2015-02-25T13:32:00.000-08:00

GLOW

As I look at the falling snow enveloping my nature space, I long for its moisture to bring glorious shades of green, yellow, red, and purple to this canvas of white.

I am reminded of a quote by Henri Matisse:

"There are always flowers for those who want to see them."

I repeat those words and I see shades of green, yellow, red, and purple against the snow.

What Will Happen Today?

2014-01-09T09:08:00.000-08:00

WHAT WILL HAPPEN TODAY?

As I face the morning, I ask, "What will happen today?" It could be the sight of the fox running across the snow; the emission of music that is new to me; the warmth of my dog wanting a brief cuddle; the voice of a friend whom I have not heard from for some time; the discovery of a color combination that I like; the taste of a delicious clementine. Who knows? Thus, I ask, "What will happen today? It will be one, two or pehaps many things, as I happen to them---these things of today.

Sunrise, Sunset

DISCOVERY

2013-02-23T14:32:00.002-08:00

DISCOVERY

Fog along the Seine

finding
uncovering
unearthing
determining
exploration
disclosure
detection
identification
revelation
realization
recognition
perception

--Oxford Dictionary

A PLACE APART

2012-09-23T10:24:00.000-07:00

As Fall enters I relish the solitude and privacy to set a place apart, as the trees provide for the birds, to sketch, to erase, to read, to paint and to erase again...without interruption. So on this brilliant morning with leaves shimmering against a clear blue sky I do my creative work. Before going to the studio I re-read Keats, "A Thing of Beauty."

"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases;it will never
Pass into nothingness;but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing...."

These words resonated as I watched the leaves against the sky.

REFLECTION

2012-06-29T09:26:00.002-07:00

Reflecting on J.M. Barrie as I paint today:

"The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough."

"God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December."

On this hot June morning, I remember soft snow falling on evergreens in the backyard.

Cooking in the Unconsious

2012-01-30T17:16:00.000-08:00

FANFARE

Lots of things have been cooking away in my unconscious over many months. Suddenly, it is all beginning to exhibit itself on paper. I feel like I am practicing my scales again on the piano and the scales sometimes are moving so fast that I have to step back and let the work look at me. It is delightful to be making new acquaintances in new ways.

Discovery helps make me understand! Onwards!

Experience

2011-09-04T14:11:00.000-07:00

"Only contemplated experience becomes real experience, " which is the reverse of "Let's go places and do things." Spinoza

" Art is something absolute, something positive, which gives power just as food gives power. While creative science is mental food, art is the satisfaction of the soul." Hans Hofmann

" In symphonic painting, color is the real building medium. When color is richest, form is fullest." Cezanne

" The prerequisite of originality is the art of forgetting, at the proper moment, what we know." Arthur Koestler

A Toast and thoughts

2011-06-20T19:03:00.000-07:00

Pour bien vivre, bien aimer et laisser dire!

To live well, love well and let others say what they will.

Stop and look at things called distractions. It might take one somewhere new, somewhere interesting. That is what I have been doing for a few months and I am finding something new.

Waves-
--"it is the most we know of time,
And it is our under music of eternity." Galway Kinnell

Optimism is my HEALTH.

"God respects me when I work, but he loves me when I sing." Tagore

Let It All Begin Again

2011-04-20T08:49:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the sea, thanks to the tall grass prairie, thanks to Europe, thanks to Debussy and Satie, thanks to the desert, thanks to Spring, thanks to the orange sunsets, thanks to the luminous light, thanks to dreams. Let it all begin again ---again--again!

The sea has many voices..
The distant rote in the granite teeth...
And under the oppression of the silent fog
The tolling bell
Measures time not our time, rung by the unhurried
Ground swell...
When time stops and time is never ending:
And the ground swell, that is and was from the beginning
Clangs
The Bell.

Caprice

---T.S. Eliot

AT THE HEART OF LIFE

2011-04-02T15:20:00.000-07:00

" At the heart of life is the flaw, the imperfection
Without which there would be no motion and no reason to continue.
At the heart of life is the knowledge of death
Without which there would be no boundaries and no limitation
And so no reason for existence or for action--and no time.
At the heart of life there is silence without which sound
Would have no meaning, nor music, and we should not hear it--
And this flaw, this knowledge of death, this background
Of silence are the form within which life is boundless,
Everlasting, creating, discarding destroying, always in flux,

Desert Sanctum II

Always changing, choosing, denying, affirming in order to discover
The purer Form in which the purer Freedom may have its being---"

May Sarton

JOY

2011-03-26T21:34:00.000-07:00

'We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry."
E.B.White

"I know when a picture is finished when I stop looking at it and it starts looking back." Paul Klee

Cloud

Looking at it and wondering if it is looking back. So, in the meantime, I will sort the laundry!

Anew!

2011-03-04T15:34:00.000-08:00

Bloom

The joy of creating to me is finding a way to express whatever is there at the moment or has been resting in the unconscious.

Inspiration is my well and necessity pushes it to reality.

The sound of rain, the fiery red March sunset against the snow, and the song of a robin urges me on.

WHITE

2011-02-05T18:22:00.000-08:00


Dawn to Dusk 1

My husband and I went to a Da Vinci exhibit in Des Moines and this quote resonated with me: "Where the spirit does not work with the mind, there is no art." Leonardo Da Vinci

My world is WHITE at the moment......and what beauty it is. An inspiration to play with white and a few additions of color. That will be my February inspiration for new work and looking at things in new ways.

My mantra for this month:

" I have nothing to say and I'm saying it." John Cage

NEW YEAR-2011

2011-01-08T08:37:00.000-08:00

Where To Begin

---"Good it is that Earth goes round the sun
In annual cycles, giving blessed season
So that we search successfully for reasons
Even though in some patterns we may see none.
So it is clear that what makes human worth
At least in part is learned from Mother Earth."
Kenneth E. Boulding

A New Year of doing what , in the long run, gives one joy.

First Snow

2010-12-16T22:11:00.000-08:00

The silence was immense last night as the snow shed its blanket from above. The creek bed is so beautiful with its radiant white glitter from the sun. The deer awaits, the cardinals gather, the hawk soars above the silent woods. A special time; one of wonder. One that makes one humble and amazed.

PUEBLO PEAK

Comments I jotted down from Kenny Barron, noted jazz artist in November.

" Take a sequence, repeat it, lengthen it." (on improvising)

"Space is a part of music."

"Innovating is just doing it."

"You find something when you don't expect it."

recovering balance

2010-12-04T13:39:00.000-08:00

Inner Space II

Recovering Balance

Look to the eagle soaring,
Look to the snow-covered fir,
Look to the stars shining,
Look to one's own front door. AB

"Life begins and spirits rise,
and they become memories that vaporize,
and the vapor becomes the dreams we devise,
and while we are dreaming,
time flies." --Jimmy Webb

SIMPLE THINGS

2010-11-19T18:56:00.000-08:00

Memento I

This afternoon I washed some wonderfully delicious grapes. I shared them with my husband. This evening I received, via Fed Ex a Chinese Silver Chest that was a gift to my mother from my father. Giving, receiving. These are special moments in our lives ....and more so when it is not anticipated. I will oil the chest, and clean all the dusty nooks and crannies out of respect for my mother and father and what they gave me, far beyond this piece of carved wood. This silver chest I will cherish. It holds many memories. The grapes i shared with my husband will also be a memory put aside, but one that goes into a chest of memories. Simple moments, simple things.:

Change In the Weather

2010-11-14T12:32:00.000-08:00

This week reminded one of change. Warm sunny days became windy chilly days. On those recent warm days one was free to move without the mantle of a coat; now one is in a cocoon of down to keep the body warm. Gelato isn't as appealing now as a cup of warm tea; citrus fragrances give way to those with sandalwood and musk. Leaves crackle and acorns crunch under my feet and the softness of the green grass becomes less apparent. Change, life---going out, coming in----change.

"Circling the Cross"

"Weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society--Things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed. " E.B.White

Thoughts to Reflect Upon

2010-11-05T08:08:00.000-07:00

"Looking is being part of the fire of the sun: seeing is understanding how much we belong to flame. The one is passive and involves no responsibility; the other actively acknowledges a debt to change. For those who see, everything is a welcome surprise." Alvaro Cardona-Hine

"Creativity is the defeat of habit by originality" Arthur Koestler

Continuum

" If we amplify everything, we hear nothing" Jon Stewart

TIME TO THINK = TIME TO BE

2010-10-29T08:56:00.000-07:00

Pueblo Peak

I feel like a pitcher half empty. Give oneself the time to think and reflect. That brings a relaxation into the next stroke of the brush..the next shape that evolves. Reading E.B.White. These are three I have thought about a lot this week.

" Where there is an unknowable there is a promise."

" The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an open doorway with an open mind."

" Be obscure clearly."

Mother Nature Speaks Today

2010-10-26T18:37:00.000-07:00

CIRCLING THE CROSS

a week of friends, sharing, mother nature reminding one of her strength, and looking inward for inspiration, for gathering thoughts, for staying warm, for finding other ways to let go and let it be ----

A favorite quote of mine from Allan Houser to his students...but it pertains to all of us who are perpetual students.

"As soon as you can, find yourself,
your own way of expressing what you want to say.
Eventually it will come, and you will have your own identity then, and you will start creating things that you feel deeply about inside."

INSPIRATION

2010-10-14T11:38:00.000-07:00

The image of the pulley taking out the miners in the San Jose mine gave me ideas to put to canvas in the next weeks ahead. The light in the shaft below, the circular wheel, the strength of the iron pillars. I was moved by watching the repeated mechanics of this machine bringing out human life. The images of the mine workers and their families leads to an old African proverb:

Desert Starlight

"Let us take care of the children, for they have a long way to go. Let us take care of the elders, for they have come a long way. Let us take care of those in between, for they are doing the work. "

Glorious Light

2010-10-07T18:04:00.000-07:00

Coyote Moon

The light seared the fields this early afternoon--white was never whiter and the leaves are beginning to sing. Listened to two IWP writers this afternoon. The imagery they use motivates my own.

Just finished reading "Driftless" by David Rhodes. Layers upon layers of sentiment and visual landscape paintings. One feels they are there and often looking in, but also participating.

Heading for Amana tomorrow morning to take in another fall day before it is put to rest.

Yesterday is history
Tomorrow a mystery, but today is a gift.
That's why they call it "the present" --Jiri Kylian

UPCOMING GROUP SHOW - Images of the Southwest

2010-10-05T14:18:00.000-07:00

Michael Johnson, black and white photographer, Marcia Wegman, pastel artist and myself look at the Southwestern landscape. The show is a part of Iowa City 2010 Fall Gallery Walk and is on view at MidWestOne Bank at 102 South Clinton. Opening is: Friday, October 8 from 5-8PM.

The show will continue to December 15. Hours are 9-5 Mon.-Fri.

Fall shows its glorious face as it bids farewell to summer. The urge to nest is coming on,so that means more time in the studio! It also means "oatmeal" time!

"Don't be distracted from distractions by distractions." T.S.Eliot