The holidays are a joyful time but it is almost impossible for me to work in the studio other than on crafts for Christmas presents. Yes, I still give gifts that I make to several friends and relatives. Yes it is time consuming, and if I started earlier instead of later each year it would probably be less stressful, but I do enjoy the process most of the time. Besides I think it is important to try and share a piece of you with those you love and through my art I feel I can do just that.
It is when the daily routines pile up and mounting duties preclude my creative juices from flowing, which in turn causes me to feel low that I become frustrated. Slowly I find that each day I am overcome by the dust of every day life that tries as it may to smother my very existence and all inventiveness. One such example is the maintaining of my site, it is becoming quite demanding. It is not enough these days to find myself challenged with trying to create images in a way that makes sense to me and the viewer as a piece of art, but relaying that information in a sensible, albeit interesting way here in my blog has become a bit problematic.
The past few months have been filled with extremes; highs and lows while I have tried to maintain balance. Try as I may I have not been able to get into the studio to work the way I want. When I finally clear my desk and get to the studio I become paralyzed for a short time until the first stroke goes down and then suddenly at long last, I am working the flood gates open and without restraint I paint, print, carve, and create once again. I feel alive. This is what I enjoy most. The FREEDOM of being an ARTIST.
On a positive note I need to work in order to continue to have the freedom I want in my studio. The work this month was that I had been commissioned to paint a mural that was congruent with my studio work. This very seldom happens and therefore usually interfering with the continuance and progression of the series I am producing. This kitchen mural I painted was an exception.
It gave me great pleasure as I painted a Greek scene (from my mind’s eye) that was a vision from Kalamata. It was of an olive tree with terracing hills and mountains in the distance. The mural was a great memory and I had great joy in creating it.
While working, I had taken a series of digital pictures from the blank wall, creation of the background, painting of the foreground, the formation of the tree without foliage and then the foliage along with the crown touches of fruit, the olives themselves.
The mural came out exactly as I had hoped and the client loved it. The light hits the room in such a way that you feel as if you could walk right into the wall.
Now, for the low... I decided to post the series which consisted of the aforementioned paintings. However somehow in the process of moving them from the camera to the computer they were deleted. Thus I have nothing from that series to show today. I will go back and take a final picture of the mural but no staging. I become quite frustrated when all does not go as planned and without exception I hold great frustration with my computer. I know that I should only copy however in my haste and excitement to post the work I moved it into the computer. Somehow it was copied over with a same sequence of number photos replacing what I had. After 6 hours of trying to retrieve my lost photos I succumbed to the fact that they are gone. That’s why many days I feel it is better to just work in the studio and refrain from posting to the computer at all.
My latest work has begun metamorphosing from my current series of landscapes of Greece into that of dancers. I feel the need to continue to work conveying my culture, almost driven. This subject is dear to me as many of my ancestral lands were recently torched and totally consumed by fires. My family is well and I thank God for that however up on the mountain village of Artemisia, where several of them live, the fires devoured the land, leaving nothing but scorched smoldering remains. It is hard for me to fathom as it seems like only yesterday when I was on the mountain breathing the fresh air with the aroma of oregano.
The wild life as well as the crops of oregano and olive trees are no more. This saddens me. I have decided to show the resilience of life and the land of the Greek people through my paintings.
I hope you enjoy the new work when it is finished. I will post as they dry. In the meanwhile do enjoy the oil paintings of my visit last November which are posted in the New Works/Landscapes section of my website. Thanks for letting me share.
Anthe
