When I am creating a painting it is not the image
that I think is of principal import. I feel it is the paint itself that is my subject
matter. My voice.
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| A detail from the preliminary stage of the 8'x8' oil on canvas painting "The Bridge- Over Troubled Water" (San Luis Obispo) By Velvet Marshall |
I had
purchased tickets months in advance to experience what is still one of the most
lavish exhibits I have ever seen in LA. "Van Gogh's Van Goghs" in 1999 exhibited at LACMA--in part because of the crowds it
attracted and in part because of the artist’s inscrutability. I had seen his
work in many books but nothing could have prepared me for the real thing. Standing in the drizzling rain an hour or two, waiting in line before the mad rush of arms,
elbows and heads bobbing when they opened the doors. Fortunately, I had gone
with another artist, my daughter Nastassia, who knew that art appreciation is
not to be rushed. Rounding the last corner of the exhibit in front of me was the “Wheat Fields”
and immediately I was consumed, transported to another dimension with every stroke of paint. I slowly and against all conventionality, wrapped my arms
around my waist and with a heavy sigh, I sobbed. After each stage of his life
had been retold corridor-by-corridor, the exquisite agony had finally come to a
conclusion on a French countryside.
I would never look at paint the same again. In the most basic human way,
he reached out with his pallet knife and touched me. Some decades of years in
between us-- a transmission sent and received-- I understood there was a way
for me to be free. A place where I could go and allow the paint to speak for
me- the things for which I had no words.
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| Me- begining the painting process on "The Bridge" |
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| Wheatfield with Crows, 1890 Vincent van Gogh |
