BEAUTY IN ISOLATION

Oil on Canvas

30 x 20 inches

Misty Lake - Oil on Panel - 14 x 14 inches After ten days of vacation, visiting family and friends over the holiday, I found myself incredibly behind in paper work, returning emails, packaging and mailing sold art work and just every day chores like buying food.  I know we all experience this.  By the time you have caught up, you feel like you need to take a vacation from your vacation. An artist life is not just making art, although I wish it were!  There are so many things you need to do as a business owner of your own company of one.     Creating the product (painting) Documenting the product (photographing, copywriting, creating a detailed document to put into an ongoing file of your work to keep track of it) Presenting it to the world (galleries, Facebook, social media etc.) Selling your work (gallery or personally) When I was in undergraduate and graduate school, these things, except for making the art, was never discussed.  I and many others like me, had to learn this on our own.  It really was a disservice! What goes into producing and eventually getting ones work sold can seem daunting and honestly, most artist hate doing it.  Sure, you can hire someone to do almost all of this, but that is expensive and for most of us, we do not come from wealth or have our own money to spend on this so we do it ourselves. Because the art market is fickle and unpredictable, even when we do have the funds to hire someone, we tend to hold onto our earnings for that rainy day because as sure as you have the desire to make art, there is always that chance people may stop buying your art. The life of an artist can seem very romantic and exciting, but the truth is, it is also a lot of work.  It is difficult to switch from your right to your left brain and back again.  Where being creative requires you to focus on your work on the right side of your brain, almost all the rest requires a left brain, organized being with a great deal of self discipline.  No one out there is telling you what to do.  You have to take it all upon yourself. A friend who recently bought a painting from me told me that he loves to by art work from a living artists to help them NOW in their endeavor to continue to paint and create work that inspires.  Wouldn't it be wonderful if we all did the same. In the past, many artists have relied heavily on the gallery system.  We had put all of our hope in that system to nourish our careers through promotions, exhibitions and sales.  Unfortunately, galleries are also vulnerable to the whims of the buying market and many have lost fortunes in the 2008 downturn in the economy.  Things like Presidential elections can change the sales statistics because people are unwilling to part with their money with an uncertain financial future.  This is truly a trickle down effect in the worst way. Yet, we artists keep making art through good times and bad because without our art, we would feel lost, even hopeless.  So, we keep on making our art with the hopes that someone out there will connect to what we do and have to have our art no matter what.  They say that these are expendable purchases unlike food, water and clothing.  However, the artists and those who love art enough to feel the need to have it in their lives, they would disagree. If you like what you have read, pass it on to others and encourage them to sign up for my once per month newsletter by going to my website at www.ginarossifineart.com.   Pools of Water - Oil on Panel - 36 x 48 inches If anyone is interested in purchasing this painting, please feel free to email me. Copyright © Gina Rossi Fine Art , All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: ginarossifineart@gmail.com

Autumn's Ecstasy

I recently decided to work on an old painting.  It is a large painting on canvas which is 72 x 56 inches.  Once completed, I had to ask a friend to help me bring it to the Pippin Gallery because of the size.  I was pleased that Pippin Gallery in Santa Fe liked the painting and agreed to show it.  I am excited that they wanted it because the work I am showing in that gallery is abstracted landscapes with a horizon line implied.  I see this as a "landscape" too, but mostly in a very magnified way.  My perception was leaves floating on top of water that is reflecting the sky above.  But, you may see it very differently and that is just fine with me.  The work looks three dimensional with a sense of gold and bronze colors that emulate the fall season.

My usual method of painting is to experiment on the surface of the canvas or panel creating all kinds of shapes and colors.  Then, I go about reducing that by blocking out areas.  Another way of putting it is to create and then destroy while developing a good design with color choices that create a mood and interesting light.  This has been my method since graduate school and it has served me well throughout my art career.  If you have a chance, stop by the Pippin Gallery in Santa Fe at 409 Canyon Road to check it out.

August 13 is my next one person show at Luminarte Gallery in Dallas Texas.  In this exhibition I will be exhibiting works that are both more traditional landscape and non-objective/abstract work side by side using the theme of color to tie them together.  I didn't think this would work but looking at what they have planned, I think it will be an exciting exhibition and an interesting way to look at my work since my true Gemini self always works in dualities.  The opening will be from 7pm - 10pm.  You are all invited.

Inspiration is key in making art, any kind of art.  My inspiration comes from a myriad of things like the sky clouds, atmosphere, plant life, scribbles on a wall, and pealed paint.  I see things in my every day life and they get stuck somewhere in my brain where they eventually end up in a painting.  The process is somewhat mysterious. I am not sure how other "creatives" do it but that is my process.  As an artist, it isn't just the seeing and the logging it in for future reference but the doing.  The doing is very important and sometimes intimidating.  For me, I usually need time between the seeing and the doing because I often do not know what I am going to do with that bit of inspiration.  It often just shows up.  It says, "Hey, what about me?  It would be perfect for the little area in the upper left hand corner that you are struggling with".  I listen for these bits of inspiration while I paint.  Assembling a good painting requires the ability to listen to the inspirational voice floating around in your head and it always requires the skill to put it down on the surface of the painting in your hand and in the way you paint.  I am always looking and following my inspiration.  It is usually in the flowing place of my mind's eye. 

I am pleased to announce that I am being represented by Luminarte Fine Art Gallery, Dallas, Texas.

Please check out the gallery and the wonderful work being represented.

URL:  http://www.luminarte.com

I have recently been exploring the idea of why I paint.  As a result and with a group of artists in Santa Fe, we decided to form an alliance of like minded artists.  Ours is a backlash to what is trending these days.  We all discovered that we often use making art as an escape.  Not an unhealthy one but one that is positive and hopefully motivating to others.  I and another fellow artist created a manifesto that was adopted by this group and I would like to share that with you below.

Scapism, short for escapism may also refer to one’s personal creative space, one’s individual scape as in, for example, one’s mind-scape, or spirit-scape, or inner lifescape. The places where landscapes, seascapes, and dreamscapes of all types are created. We escape from the day to day grind and worldwide travail to this inner scape in order to affect the alchemy of transforming our experiences in the world into works of art. We escape, not only from something, but more importantly, towards something. And that something would be the adventure of creation, of reinterpreting our experience to express something beautiful, or startling, or moving, and hopefully, something speaking to universality. This would seem a primary reason to escape to an inner scape where we can digest our experience and give it back, transformed.

Everyone knows the adventure of creation. Everyone at some time in their lives has created something, one way or another. Creation on any level involves escaping from something such as expectation, convention or self-doubt. But, creation also involves escaping towards the adventure of personally causing something new and unique to become manifest.

We invite others to escape into our various created-scapes and share the adventure of experiencing reality transformed.

We may fairly be called Escapists, in that we promote an understanding of healthy escapism, but we would prefer Scapists, as we retreat to our personal spacescapes in order to create our various artscapes.

So then, what exactly is escapism? In the context of an activity being taken to the extreme, "escapism" carries a negative connotation - suggesting that escapists are unhappy, with an inability or unwillingness to connect meaningfully with the world.

However, there are some who challenge the idea (as we do) that escapism is fundamentally and exclusively negative. For instance, J. R. R. Tolkien, responding to the Anglo-Saxon academic debate on escapism in the 1930s, wrote in his essay "On Fairy-Stories" that escapism had an element of emancipation in its attempt to figure a different reality. C. S.

Lewis was also fond of humorously remarking that the usual enemies of escape were jailers. Some social critics warn of attempts by the powers that control society to provide means of escapism instead of actually bettering the condition of the people. Escapist themes appear often in literature. In science fiction for example, escapism is often depicted as an extension of social evolution. Drugs cause some forms of escapism which can occur when certain mind altering drugs are taken which make the participant forget the reality of where they are or what they are meant to be doing.

German social philosopher Ernst Bloch wrote that utopias and images of fulfillment, however regressive they might be, also included an impetus for a radical social change. According to Bloch, social justice could not be realized without seeing things fundamentally differently. Something that is mere "daydreaming" or "escapism" from the viewpoint of a technological-rational society might be a seed for a new and more humane social order, as it can be seen as an "immature, but honest substitute for revolution".

The Norwegian psychologist Frode Stenseng has presented a dualistic model of escapism in relation to different types of activities. He discusses the paradox that the flow state (Csikszentmihalyi) resembles psychological states obtainable through actions such as drug abuse, sexual masochism, and suicide ideation (Baumeister). Accordingly, he deduces that the state of escape can have both positive and negative meanings and outcomes. Stenseng argues that there exists two forms of escapism with different affective outcomes dependent on the motivational focus that lays behind the immersion in the activity. Escapism in the form of self-suppression stems from motives to run away from unpleasant thoughts, self-perceptions, and emotions, whereas self-expansion stems from motives to gain positive experiences through the activity and to discover new aspects of self.

This has been a relatively brief examination of the meanings and implications of the idea of escapism. We, as “scapists”, choose to promote the more healthy manifestations of escapism.

Dear Friends,

If you are enjoying my website, it would be great if you signed up for my newsletter.  I don't post a newsletter often.  I post mostly when the mood strikes me and I feel like I have something to share but it may give you insight to why I do what I do.  Or, I may post something that I think is germane to the field of art.  I look forward to making new friends!

Gina

Collectors in the Dallas area ... new work will be on display at Luminarte Gallery in the Design District from February 15 - March 15, 2014.  Please join me at the opening on February 15 from 7pm - 10pm.  I look forward to seeing you there.  The work should be up a few days before the schedule of the show and if you call, I am sure they will be happy to show you the work.