cmsa; the artist him/herself usually doesn't live long enough to see the ripples through time their work has made as it has influenced others, (artists especially ), sometimes centuries later..... one of my favorite things about art history is that i can look back and add my bit to an artistic, thematic chain that i can trace back to the beginning of our history as image makers. I have found in my own body of work numerous eves, venuses, ophelias, odalisques, messiahs (i'm currently in the planning stages of another"jesus" ), innocent babes, mermaids, mermen, holy mothers, femme fatales, witches, virgins, angels, "whores" etc etc...the coolest thing is these images don't feel like i'm "borrowing " them from art history, but more like they bubble directly up out of some some some personal, subliminal, soul based well and THEN i notice they've been painted often before and i feel like part of something greater than myself...feels pretty good ! i miss validation in the art world i occupy now, but i feel better when i think i can hear all these old dead artists cheering me on; saying "you go girl", hmmmmm i may have to paint that. All images; oil, c valle, scattered through the last 40 years...
