Composition V
1911
Oil on canvas
190 x 275 cm (6’ 3 7/8” x 9’ 1/4”)
Wassily Kandinsky

The great Russian painter, Wassily Kandinsky, was born yesterday in 1866.

Here’s a quote from my book, An Artist Empowered:

While winning a prize for your art can certainly make your day, it doesn’t ensure immediate acceptance and success. Gaining critical acclaim cuts both ways, and most often does.

History is replete with great art being rejected in its time. Around 1785, when Mozart started composing for himself instead of the public, his audience began leaving him and his ‘too’ complex music. Mozart, who was in desperate need of money, soon began writing more familiar notes to win his audience back.

In 1909, Wassily Kandinsky became a member of the influential New Society of Munich Artists. In time, other members of the Society became increasingly at odds with Kandinsky’s abstract work. Some derided his art as being the work of a madman, or someone under the influence of drugs.

Two years later the Society rejected Kandinsky’s masterwork, Composition V, for an exhibition because it was too big, an infringement of the Society’s rules. Kandinsky resigned in disgust.

Fire from Heaven

All comparisons in art are a trap.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t know what we are doing. My excursion with each piece is a trek into the unknown. This suits my temperament. The experience is clear to me.

When asked to elaborate, I say this: Here are two experiences to ponder. You go to a travel agent to pick up your ticket. You have booked a flight to Los Angeles. You know your destination. Now, the other experience: you go to the travel agent and he hands you a ticket, but no destination labeled. What’s this? He explains that you’ll travel until you get there, wherever there is. Now, this is the juice that keeps me a dedicated painter.

I have faith that the Great Unconscious will take me to a worthwhile destination—and the miracle is that it does so without fail or hesitation; you can’t fool the source of art.

Back to the Garden

Today is Picasso’s birthday.

Here’s an apt quote from my book, An Artist Empowered:

Remember, PABLO wasn’t born famous.

In the year 1881, the world of art and literature was enriched as it welcomed both Pinocchio and Pablo Picasso into its midst. These two figures—the marionette and the artist—would become international symbols, and in their own lifetime. The artist, who would become fascinated by puppetry, shared not only the same year of birth with the marionette, but a common bond in their quest to invent a life worth living, to search for the soul, and what it means to be a creator.

But unlike his living puppet confrere, who remains forever young as written by his author, Picasso was, after all, human—living out his life; then, as do we all, he exited from this incarnation to the next exhibit.

Mojo

It’s very well-known that the public is all too often on that shaky ground of: what is art?

Then, there is the other side where the artist or painter must from time to time ask himself this same question. If not, then how can her art evolve. Art, after all, instructs at your pace—that is if you are willing to be present and not married to dogma.

Art is one way to freedom, which manifests itself in subtle, not gross, displays of what is unique—and when I write unique, I don’t mean pedestrian sensationalism; I do mean magic.

So, if the artist is to keep his mojo, he must earn it daily.

Sanctuary

Janet Riehl has initiated a new achievement award in honor of her father, Erwin A. Thompson, who will be celebrating his ninety-fifth birthday in a few weeks.

Aptly named and welcome, the Second Mile Award recognizes Elders 75 years and older whose dignity, character, creativity, and connection to community have contributed to the world around them.

Erwin based his life on the parable of the Good Samaritan: Matthew 5:41: “And whosoever shall compel you to go a mile, go with him, go twain.”

The deadline for nomination essays is November 9, 2010—Erwin’s birthday.

To find out how to nominate an Elder, learn more about the award, the meaning of the Second Mile, and Erwin’s life go to this link: Erwin.