Artist Fred Richards--Life as a Work of Art

 

1. TELL ME ABOUT YOUR WORK? WHAT OR WHO INFLUENCES YOU AND WHY CREATE WHAT YOU CREATE?

A self-taught artist, I started painting on a regular basis when my Buddhist teacher, Zen priest and artist Richard Kirsten Daiensai, told me to paint something! I create to stay inspirited or spiritually alive, to open up to and express my innermost self rather than become one of the walking dead. Presently, I know little about “the art world” and not much more about the history of art. Painting is, fortunately, for me, still a new adventure. Sometimes it is, I imagine, a bit like a woman giving birth to a child and being amazed she was a significant part of bringing such wonder into the world!

2. YOU WORKED IN OTHER CAREERS. HOW HAS YOUR PREVIOUS WORK LIFE INFLUENCED YOUR ART?

I have lived many lives and have been countless things from lumper on the Boston docks to a merchant seaman, from ditch digger to English teacher to psychotherapist. I’ve experienced a lot of suffering and healing, joy and sorrow, brokenness and transformation. I’ve worked hard and played hard. I paint to honor what my soul knows, striving to make the invisible visible, to express what is beyond words to say.

3. WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW?

I’m working on not seeing my art experience as a career or a job, but keeping it part of my spiritual practice, one of several ways of learning what it is to be human, to be loving and really alive. I yearn to create art that is as wonderful as the art I sometimes paint in my dreams! And I have had a dream in which I create a painting so true to life or reality that someone viewing it was awakened, liberated to be really alive!

4. WHAT DO YOU SEE AS YOUR GREATEST CHALLENGE AS AN ARTIST?

I once said that my greatest challenge as an artist and a human being was to create a self or a life that is a work of art. Since I often am able to paint well without really knowing what I’m doing, I need to not give into the fear that one day I just won’t be able to do what I do. I need to keep trusting that unknown power or inner artist that keeps working through me to do more than I know intellectually I can do. I actually believe that, for me, my being able to paint has a lot to do with my becoming more loving and kind and forgiving and compassionate. I don’t understand this, but if painting wasn’t a part of my becoming, in my view, more human and alive, I don’t believe I’d bother to do it.

Life's Illusions- the Inner thoughts of Becky Fried

1.Tell me about your work? What or who influences you and why create what you create.

I have two distinct styles of work, “Contemporary Landscape” using palette knife for creating texture and “Abstract Illusion” that I present in the form of oil painting or collage mixed media.

I enjoy En plein air (a French expression which means “in the open air” and describes the act of painting outdoors) where I make small studies to later bring to the studio for creating larger landscapes. I have always appreciated the beauty of the landscape and I hope to show its magnificent color in a contemporary manner.

I happened upon Abstract Illusion as a natural progression from abstract drawing I began as a small child. I am most interested in the work of the abstract illusionists, a movement that came into prominence in the United States during the mid 1970’s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Illusionism , including artist George D. Green.

2. You worked in other careers. How has your previous work life influence your art?

I completed a corporate career focusing in Project Management for data processing and banking operations. Both were mathematically driven and I’ve been told by art academia that my abstract work has a mathematical component. I agree there is a patterning of sort; the beginning of mathematical learning. I continue to investigate the parallel through self study and publications explaining the connection.

3. What are you working on now?

During the warmer months of the year, I focus on studio work either creating landscape paintings from studies or new abstract paintings. Currently, I’m investigating the use of a “retro” palette for an abstract butterfly…coming soon.
4. What do you see as your greatest challenge as an artist?

Using my internal voice to create what is unique to me; keeping the focus of my work while there are so many outside “life” distractions.

5. If you could give one piece of advice to anyone who wants to create for a career, what would it be?

Be diligent, work every day to move closer to your goals. Decide what kind of artist you’ll be, understand that art is a journey and your journey will not be the same as others.

Stay true to yourself, it won’t be easy. Make your work an expression of what you feel or see, decide what YOU “have to say” through your work that no one else in this world can say.

Featuring Maggie Raper

Maggie Raper has been working and displaying her dreamy creations for many years here in Atlanta and around the country.Her work is in numerous corporate and private collections . Let's see what she has to say.

Artist Statement

I am a collage artists. I use found images, papers, fabric and modeling paste to create a textured surface. I then do a great deal of painting with acrylic paint to bring all the diverse elements together. The pieces are finished with water-soluble crayon.

My work needs close examination to discover the diversity of the surface. From a distance, the pieces appear to be painted in traditional ways. I am seeking the element of surprise as the diversity is revealed. The pieces are done on black to give a sense of mystery.
My work today is a culmination of all my study and experience in the arts.
The collage paintings, along with my previous series of fifty-four sewn collage pieces, are now in the archives of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington D.C


Tell me about your work? Who or what influences you and why do you create what you create?
My greatest influence was my study at the school of the Chicago Art Institute and my mentor Ouida Canandy.

Have you worked in other careers? How has your previous work life influence your art?
I have always worked as a visual artist. However, my work for six years as a sculpture student in Dallas Texas created a love of texture that you see in my work today.

What are you working on now?
I am working in abstraction with a touch of realism and three dimensional flair. These are done with a charcoal drawing and painted entirely in glazes on canvas.

What do you see as your greatest challenge as an artist?
To do good work!!! Not to please a public or to make money. To make original art with timeless quality.

If you could give one piece of advice to anyone who wants to create for a career, what would it be?
Try it all!! Keep the parts you learn that you like and make them your own.

Featuring A.C. Brown

Meet Artist A.C. Brown...Audacious
If you are looking for the definition of Southern Gentleman , you will find Dr. A. C. Brown's picture next to those words. Let's listen to what he has to say.

Tell me about your work? As a member of the Silent Generation, and growing up in the South during the Great Depression, I am portraying scenes and people of the South that will never be seen again.

What or who influences you and why create what you create? My wife encourages me in art and oil painting as advisor, critic, soul mate, and mother of my three beautiful children. Hopefully my art will be a legacy for them. I create a southern story about each painting that brings life to the painting.

2. You worked in other careers. How has your previous work/ life influenced your art? Since retiring from a satisfying career in Medicine for over 50 years, art has opened a new door. My practice of Medicine introduced me to the fraility of the human condition in different environments. My patients taught me not only about their disease complaints, but shared their heart and soul. This experience has influenced my paintings and hopefully my passion shows in the created work.

3.What are you working on now? My paintings present and future are based on the historical past of the South, which is recorded in black and white film and negatives. I am previledged to have access to the historical Archives of The Eudora Welty Foundation/the Mississippi State Archives, personal collections, courtesy publications of different southern states, and the Archives of the State of Georgia.

4. What do you see as your greatest challenge as an artist? GROWTH ....remember the past is only yesterday.

5. If you could give one piece of advice to anyone who wants to create for a career, what would it be? As Winston Churchill said when he took up painting late in life, one trait, one quality, and just one word describes that requirement, AUDACITY......I say ditto, in other words "go for it and continue to learn along the way." AC