Life for Art - Art for Life

The Women in Art post from last Sunday got some excellent comments. I thought it would be fun to share some more anecdotes on painting. A future focus on arts in general might be a fun ongoing post topic. The creative process weaves its way through so many aspects of our lives its important to stimulate it from time to time. Looking at art helps.

Today's post is a reflection on my friend Tim McMahon. See his work here. We've known each other since high school and attended University of Iowa together. I went one way, Tim another. Tim dedicated his life to teaching and making art and is now living in Charlotte. He speaks of Cezanne as his historical mentor.

"My historical mentor is Cezanne, who models my brushwork. Cezanne spoke of making paintings, "that are a kind of teaching." I view my paintings that way. The pure, broken color of both European and American Impressionism is my starting point. I try to balance the literal, objective aspects of the subject with the expressive gesture of the execution. The dramatic gesture of De Kooning and Kline inspire me."

I always dug his work...and him as a person. We've shared frail times and hardy times. We always stayed "generally" in contact. With any luck in life, you make that type connection. A couple years back, we touched base via email and last summer Tim came to visit. We shared a couple glasses of wine, talked late into the night, walked early in the morning along the river and had a great - albeit brief - visit. Its hard to explain - I hadn't seen him for 30 years and it felt like only yesterday.

Enjoy his art - better yet buy some of it :) Even if you don't buy his, get yourself out and look for art you can live with. Make it part of you.

I'm still looking for favorite artists :) - so far Robyn has named Georgia O'Keefe and Jackie has named John Singer Sargent.