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| Here I am with Pinky, the sweetest, dearest little cat ever. She ’ s my first Persian and inspired me to adopt the others. |
For Joy of Sharing
Ever since I ’ ve been able to hold a pencil, I have been enthralled with making images. It has been my way of embracing the world and sharing my visions.
Painting is a kind of private performance in which my goal is to be a transparency for the voice of direction I hear within me. This voice apparently originates from a source more expansive than my own consciousness as I am often led to do things I ’ ve never imagined.
As I listen, I am no longer aware of the world, everything dissolves into sequences of form, color, and brush work. I strive for changes of tactile, sensual paint which describes subject yet is enjoyable on its own.
These changes and layering which take place over the surface of the painting I liken to the rhythm, tone, and layering of orchestration of music, which instead occurs over time. As a consequence, music, and especially the viewing of live performances, particularly jazz, is essential to my growth and enrichment as an artist, as I feel that I absorb the spirit of the performances and later apply it to my own work, in paint.
The immediacy of mediums on both paper and canvas may readily reveal my thought process as I build up images. Yet rather than pursuing a foreseen and known end result, each change I make to the canvas takes the work towards an end which is not predetermined. My method, therefore, most closely parallels music improvisation.
My new work is from photographs I've taken while traveling as well as from reference material gleaned from research. Still, the spirit additionally comes from the inspiration I ’ ve gained from family, friends, colleagues and students.
To help others have what I have enjoyed most in life, I have taught classes of drawing, painting and two dimensional design at various colleges, an art school and a university. Some four years ago, I took a fulltime art position at Imperial Valley College in California. Sharing is the engine driving my creativity and happiness in life.
I ’ m hoping I can find time to get back to studying Hawaiian slack key guitar (the predecessor of steel string) with my 12-string. I still love growing orchids, gardening in the beautiful California sunshine and dreaming of warm beaches, pristine mountains, crystalline seas and high altitudes.
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| Here ’ s Davey. He ’ s a wonderful companion, who is the first to greet all visitors at the door. He also likes to talk on the phone. |
| Copyright © 2009 by Carol Hegarty |
Please check out my page of links to sites about family, favorite artists, museums, causes, sources of all kinds and pictures of the rest of my cats.
Enjoy! . . .
Carol
