"Paintings With Personality"

    
Falling Water, Mill Run, PA

Last weekend ‘Honey’ and I decided to go to Pittsburgh. I wanted to see ‘Frank Lloyd Wrights’ masterful structure, Falling Water and the famous Duquesne Incline built in 1877. Honey wanted to get away from the bathroom he has been remodeling.

      So, we threw some necessities in the car and took off. I knew very little about Pittsburgh other than what I mentioned above. It turns out the city is built around two converging rivers, the Allegheny and the Monongahela. These two rivers meet in Pittsburgh and become the Ohio River. I’m wondering why they didn’t call it the Allegahela, but Ohio it remains. Of course, the two merging rivers made me think about art.  

Here we see the two rivers meeting and becoming one. The Heinz Field and Fort Duquesne Bridge are in back.

      In this case, the artist plays the part of one river flowing along gaining expertise, style and competence as it goes. He or she learns the necessary skills to develop their art as they move from port to port. They study anatomy, landscape, architecture, technique, and, etc. Along the journey the creative artist experiments with different methods and makes decisions on which direction she/he wants to go. That doesn’t mean they can’t change directions at some future date because, unlike the river, they can.

      The second river is the same artist, now increasing in expression, emotion, and character as they journey. It is the soul of the creative artist that makes them stand out. There is no one exactly like anyone else in this world. We are all different and make a distinct mark on our world. The artist must emotionally appear in their work whether it is photo-realistic or relaxed and loose. The goal of this second river (emotion, expression and character) is to explain something felt as well as seen in the act of creating.

     The two personalities have meandered through life keeping some things they learned and dismissing others. It’s time for the two of them to come together becoming one whole person. The first two personalities have to give up all control, all egos in order to join and make the final bigger, more fulfilled and creative person. When these two personalities join, the artists become the creatives they were meant to be.

      Do you think technique is enough? Do you think including a piece of yourself in your art is enough? Or, do the two go together and make one complete creative artist? Think about it and leave a comment below. I will post again Monday night. Hope to see you.

Duquesne Incline, Pittsburgh, PA