Artists Describing Their Art:

Maryann Burton - Creating a painting is an adventure that begins with how I perceive the world around me. Inspiration, many times, comes from the play of light, how it creates and dissipates color, and whether it is absorbed or reflected. It is a challenge to my senses and technical skills, expressing these effects on paper. The flow, spontaneity, and feel of painting with watercolor thrills me. The unpredictability of the medium is part of the fun. Whether evoking a feeling or a memory, bringing someone a sense of peace or joy, or reminding them of a familiar time or place, I like to make an emotional connection through my artwork. ...

Mark Charles Fox - Photography has often had an identity problem. Over its nearly 200 years, it has won sometimes grudging and other times enthusiastic cultural acceptance. Today, everyone is a photographer. In my view, what I am is an image manipulator. Image manipulating is a daily yoga, I do it for the intrinsically meditative state it induces. In college, oops too late, at the end of my thesis preparation I realized what I should have been doing all along, studying iconography, how we might share wonder and convey the ineffable. This is part of my motivation and a hoped-for result of these externalized meditations. During the past decade or more, IaEURtmve engaged in image manipulating in a dedicated way and have created thousands of them. Each one starts with a photo I have taken and IaEURtmll begin to imagine transforming its shapes and colors. There are just a few rules for instance, never cut and paste, nor combine source images into one, work with one at a time. My preferences extend to the most spaced-out looking images, but I also do ones that might be called aEURoecontemporarily traditionalaEUR. Earlier on, it was all about experimentation, working an image until ...

Francisco Landazabal - In a world where life passes too quickly and the instant runs away suddenly I chose to live calmly to study the inner nature of things. I have been my entire life enquiring about the whole reality, and hence my journey through various disciplines like fine arts, philosophy and even technology. My art is a human art, where being in touch with people and nature is extremely important, but then, I always return to the silent retreat of my Atelier in the mountains of Colombia to find the essence of things on the tip of my brushes and painting knives which results in the form of colorful and vibrant compositions, where a sort of magic is revealed. Sometimes it is very close to impressionism or expressionism, and sometimes it is fully abstract, a dance of the mere color masses and shades changing to allow the watcher to dream and complete the artwork. ...

Radford Thomas - STATEMENT BY RADFORD THOMAS Art is my life and my art is a reflection of all the images, actions, sights, sounds and individuals that I have encountered during my tenure here on this earth. Painting is never approached from a viewpoint of producing a "thing" but instead it is the "thing" that appears as I work. All this means is that, for me, painting is a free flowing, creative process, one that evolves as the art work progresses. In my paintings, the initial implementation of paint tells me what to do and I follow its advice henceforth. ...

S Brian Berkun - Statement Brian personally prints each photograph using traditional black and white silver based processing on fiber paper, toning the prints in a selenium toning solution. Additional processing steps in the darkroom contribute to archival permanence. Some of his photos include handcoloring selected areas of the photograph which adds greater visual depth and interest to the image. Current works focus on historic subject matter found in the primitive and remote areas of Utah, and modern day "roadside attractions". Travels into remote areas of the desert Southwest have yielded images of ancient America. Traveling the backroads he has found a wealth of subject matter left over from the time before there was the national interstate highway program of the'60's. These images, combined with hand coloring, have provided a direction in his work reminiscent of picture postcards of the'50's. ...

John Gamache - If I come across something of interest that will be a focal point for me to build on, that excites my passion for elements of the pastaEUR"old, cast-off objects,aEUR"run down barns, old junk cars, and abandoned houses. These are the objects I collect and infuse with new life through my paintings. When I create such a piece, I wish to convey the emotions I feel for the scene or objects to the viewer. I want the viewer to be an active participant in my joy, melancholy, humor, nostalgia. Through my textures, layers, earth-tones, and choice of images, I strive to convey these feelings. To me, the process of creating a work is transcendental I am completely lost in the making, I am part of each piece. It does take time to finish each painting as I work on several at once. Each painting is a slow build up of many layers to reach the final detailing. My goal is to create and master my craft, not just in the painting but in the feelings Ive described previously to the viewer. To elicit emotion will make the piece and my goal complete as a work of art. ...