Making Memories

From early childhood in the 50s till now, I have always had an unabiding love for making and preserving images through the visual arts.  Whether photographed explicitly or drawn in great detail, few things reproduced exactly look as great as we remember them.  When we are in a place, or seeing someone, we see with all of our senses.  We can feel the wind blowing on our face, smell the spring flowers, hear children playing in the distances and the array of other stimuli that a picture simply cannot capture.

This is where art comes in.  Whether a professional painter, photographer, illustrator or other artist, the goal is to stimulate your imagination sufficiently to make you feel the work.  Adding a texture to a photograph, emphasising the center of interest in unique ways, creating an illusion of movement, putting people or animals in the scene and many more techniques are used by professional artists to enhance the feeling the artist wishes you to experience.  Color, lack of color, contrasting values, shadow and light, and the like, all move toward treating you to the visual experience you expect when viewing the work of a professional.

Have you ever sat and wondered why the works of the Old Masters and works of more Modern Masters from Norman Rockwell to Robert Wade are so very inviting.  It is because their works elicit emotion and stimulate the imagination.  They take you places you have never been and make you feel their experiences of having been there.

Luckily, I have lived long enough to have seen the world’s outlook on art and artists change.  I remember in my portrait and event photography days slaving over a negative with a magnifier trying to retouch a child’s portrait, or working with sepia prints and transparent oil paints to enhance the image of a loved one.  Now, most of those tasks can be done quickly in Photoshop or some other program.

Some say this is a bad thing.  They claim the use of modern methods has in someway reduced the integrity of the work.  I leave everyone to their own point of view, but I personally believe modern methods are as valid an artform as any forms before them.  There is no harm in loving the traditional and grasping the modern.

If we look at the mere history of art, we see art changing throughout history.  Each new style or school of thought led to new and improved methods and fostered the genres of work we all know and love.

Having said all of this, there are great accomplished artists that display and promote their works on the internet.  The fact is, in this day and time the artist must have a presence on the web, through websites and social media to be found.  I find it intriguing each morning to sit at my computer for a short while and search through the various artists’  websites and view their beautiful creations.  It is like having an art gallery available 24/7 and the creations of these talented individuals are there to stimulate your imagination, bring back memories, calm and relax you or simply for your enjoyment.

Thank you for your kind indulgence and please support the art of your favorite artists.