Signed Mimi Dee American Original Landscape Painting Ruby Road

WHAT IS THIS OBSESSION PAINTING TREES...?

 

trees are like people...they can show their tenacity and turned limbs...

 

A couple of years ago while on an art supplies shopping trip at a long established art supply store on Cape Ann, a lady struck up a conversation with me.  She asked if I painted...and as the reply began in the affirmative...

"Really?"  she asked, "what's your style?"  

Never wanting to describe my style, leaving that up to my patrons who commission my works to decide...sputtering and stuttering the reply was slow to start, 

"...Romantics and Tonalists move me...the Modernists* rather interest me..."

...to be promptly cut off with a nose wrinkling sniff and a wave of the hand, followed by her flyer with the list of her lessons and workshops!

In my mind I played the guessing game and thought 'wait for it...I bet it's going to be noisy, painterly lessons'.  Bingo!  That is what she teaches.   Not for me.  

Even if I wanted to take lessons or workshops, my plethora of phobias make me almost a recluse.  Besides, at this stage of the game...might as well continue with this forced solitary experiment and see where it takes me.  Although those who make their living "teaching" and as judges, would warn, you can not grow or learn without outside direction and opinions... to which my silent internal answer would be...'best leave that up to my patrons, as they pay and decide what direction I should take...'

As I have said before, the maddening, painterly dab, dab, dab of the brush pushing into the canvas is not for me, except when painting pet portraits, of course...when painting fur needs those dabs!   That syle seemed childish to me when I started and since it is time to grow up it is time to give up the silliness.  Now all grown up I seek, no... I need... for the most part... "quiet-er" paintings...often with languid swaths of color in places.  Speaking of swaths of color: at a very recent show there was a marine painting with an island and such a sky that could be seen a mile away because of the artist's use of delishly contrasted colors.  The sky was a swath of one color.   

I got it ...and said to myself, 'nope...that did not receive an award!'  Why? It was not painterly, of course.  Really people...that popular painterly "thing" can get quite silly - messy and unrecognizable with floating rocks looking like clouds.  Some so rediculous looking like a batch of colored match sticks...and where did the background and midground go!!??  Nexxxxt!

Here, note the deep ruby red road and a looming large far reaching limbed tree with a twisted trunk on one side of the road and a grove on the other as they almost meet at the buttery yellow luminous horizon that this painter relishes so.  Look at that sky zing against those distant hills in the far horizon.  A real horizon...imagine?!  All this with a very limited palette of 3 plus white!

*PS: An art historian, Mr M, who has taught art in schools for many years, upon seeing examples of my tree work, exclaimed: 'ah...a romantic'...(be still my heart - remember the Romantics move me) then he encouraged me, no, insisted that I explore the tree works of the long gone modernist Emily Carr.

Her work was new to me...it moved me almost to tears...

 

She went away and nobody saw... 

 

ALL IMAGES DESIGN CONCEPT TEXT ARE ORIGINAL AND SOLELY OWNED BY THE PAINTER AND WRITER MIMI DEE AND MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT PERMISSION - AUGUST 31, 2017