Jump Start the Holidays!

'Tis the Season! JOIN ME AT OUR HOLIDAY OPEN HOUSE DILWORTH ARTISAN STATION Friday, December 2nd, 2016 6 pm to 9 pm and Saturday, December 3rd, 2016, 10 am to 2 pm Lesley Powell Art Find me on the Third Floor--Studio #35 118 E. Kingston Avenue, in Charlotte's South End Above: "Village in the Vaucluse", 12 x 18, oil on linen, (c) Lesley Powell 2016. Come be Jolly!! The halls will be decked when I co-host the Holiday Open House at Dilworth Artisan Station, the first weekend in December. More than twenty-five artists will open our studios for the event. Here's who we are. Whether you enjoy art that is abstract or realistic, flamboyant or quiet, large or small--we have it all! NEW THIS YEAR: Most of us will also be open on Saturday, December 3rd, from 10 am to 2 pm. So if you can't make it Friday night, all is not lost! Take advantage of Saturday for a stroll through the studios. Friday night will feature live music, beverages and nibbles. Saturday promises to be more sedate, but I will have tea and cookies, and good conversation. Come, bring a friend, and get into the holiday spirit! Above: "Harmony in Yellow", 16 x 20, oil on linen, (c) Lesley Powell 2016

Where to Park? The lot beside our building; spaces on the street; and in the overflow parking deck behind Carrabba's restaurant. Or be adventuresome and take the light rail. I hope to see you Friday night or Saturday--or both! Above: "Straightaway", 7 x 14, oil on linen, (c) Lesley Powell 2016. See more paintings on my website, Lesley Powell Art

Seeing the Light

"Hodgkin's House"
Oil, 28 x 36 inches
Edward Hopper, 1928

It was the great painter Edward Hopper who said "All I really want to do is paint the light on the side of a house."  We can certainly  see and feel his enthusiasm for that endeavor when we look at his paintings. I love the light and shadow he captured in the top painting. I can almost feel the warmth of the sunlight on one facade, especially compared with the coolness of the shaded side of the house. I think the reason that these paintings of Hopper's have endured as masterpieces is that they are no mere architectural renderings of structures--they are stories about light and shadow!

"House on Pamet River"
Edward Hopper, 1934

Equally compelling is Hopper's "House on Pamet River", just above. This one is more complex--a marvelous melange of shapes. I love the geometry here! Even though there are a lot of angles and rooflines, the painting retains a simplicity that is striking. I would not dare compare myself to Hopper, but lately I have been experiencing the same pull  to paint

Maggie Siner Workshop Announcement: 2017

(c) Maggie Siner, 2016
Oil on Linen

Exciting news--the dates are set for Maggie Siner's workshop in Provence this summer! We will be painting in Provence from July 8 to July 15, 2017.  You can check out the details here. 

"Wheatfields at Les Lombards"
6 x 13, Oil on Linen
(c) Maggie Siner, 2015

Our location in the Luberon area provides many inspiring painting motifs, ranging from perched villages to sweeping wheat fields and vineyards. And of course, Maggie is an incomparable teacher. Maggie used to live in this area of France, and she knows all of the

Art with a Will of its Own

Robert Frost

I recently re-read Robert Frost's wonderful essay, "The Figure A Poem Makes". I was struck by how much of what Frost says about poetry also pertains to visual arts, and especially to painting. Frost speaks of a poem as a living thing, one that "finds its own name as it goes".  The idea of an artwork as an independent being--something with a mind of its own-- is so striking. I think Frost would say that the poet is caught up in the poem, and that the poem is leading the way (not the poet).

Richard Diebenkorn
from his Ocean Park series

I know it's an unlikely comparison, but as I read Frost, I could not help but think of Richard Diebenkorn's remarks about painting. Diebenkorn said "I don't go into the studio with the idea of 'saying' something. What I do is face the blank canvas and put a few arbitrary marks on it that start me on some sort of dialogue." This comment suggests that, like Frost, Diebenkorn sees the art as having a life of its own--it is the other party to the dialogue.

I think that Diebenkorn would also agree that what Frost calls "the wonder of the unexpected" is what fuels the artistic process. For example, Frost writes that a poem "discovers the best waiting for it in some final phrase at once wise and sad..."  Ah yes, that moment of discovery at the end. Is there a painter out there who has not struggled at length with a painting, and only at the very end come upon the stroke that brings the entire work to fruition?

I will conclude with the last few sentences of Robert Frost's essay. "Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting. A poem may be worked over once it is in being, but may not be worried into being. Its most precious quality will remain its having run itself and carried away the poet with it. Read it a hundred times: it will forever keep its freshness as a petal keeps its fragrance. It can never lose its sense of a meaning that once unfolded by surprise as it went."

Don't you wish we could all create art like this!?!