Artist's Notes: Art and the Texture and Depth of Experience

Experiential Realism—Honoring the Texture of Lived Experience

With varied marks, pigments and textures, I build up the material  quality of the dimensional surfaces of my paintings and ceramic sculptures. In addition to the actual layers comprising the works, there is a layering of processes and a combining of media that contribute to the totality of each piece.  I love the tactility of surfaces that invite me to touch, to explore, and to consider the manner that each of the elements have become unified to contribute to the feeling quality of the whole.  

"Autumn Gesture: Leaf Passage II" by Linda L. Anderson. 30" x 40" $3,560

Textures are evidence of material events and substances intersecting throughout the medium of time, and have the potential to connect us to a deeper reality.

Both photos: "Fire-Formed" by Linda L. Anderson. Ceramic sculpture inspired by the beautiful traces of geological history.  Hand-built ceramic, with raku glaze, copper gilding and applied pigments; inclusions of copper specimens. My sculpture is on a slate base with natural patina and fossil imprint of a fern.

The highly textured aspects of my compositions reference my interest in the inter-relationship between what is visible to us, and what is beyond the perceptual field of our senses. Part of the deeper reality of life and experience that my art is connected with is that of deep history. 

I am intrigued by the trace of time upon the surface layers of Earth as it is altered by way of history, geological events and natural cycles.  

Two additional perspectives of my ceramic sculpture,"Fire-Formed", by Linda L. Anderson.

Changes occur undetected beneath the surfaces of our contemporary cultures. I may or may not be aware of the unseen changes influencing the outermost facets of material reality.  And I may not always actively consider how human actions are part of this deeper reality.  But in its tactile, layered qualities, my art does connect with the truth that human activity—inclusive of both creative and destructive acts—often is the catalyst of additional changes of appearances and functions of material forms.  

"Aurum" by Linda L. Anderson. Hand-built ceramic, with raku glaze and mineral specimen.

So I create with an awareness of the dynamic interaction between interior and exterior forces in our lives. This consideration of the interchanges and intersections between material and non-material energies underlies my approach to the creative process and contributes to the inherent feel and aesthetic quality of my artwork.  

"Opening to the Secrets of Stones", by Linda L. Anderson. 24" x 30" SOLD

My activity to bring forth the final—or most recent and visible—surface of each work involves cycles of creative destruction occurring through the over-layering of initial and intermediary layers with new passages of color, textures, tones and materials upon the substrate. In truth, there is, throughout the process of bringing forth a new work— the re-creation of many of the initial strata of marks and materials, and a placing of these in new relationships. 

The new relationships, as they evolve and are made visible are experienced as meaningful because of the interconnections between each of the parts contributing to the evolved composition. And this manner of working occurs throughout the creative process. 

I have learned to proceed without fear to honor the entire process of creating my art—even while knowing that whole passages of imagery, marks and color will be subsumed in the very act of allowing for the emergence of what is to become the most visible layers of the composition. 

"August Patina: Changing Light" by Linda L. Anderson. 22" x 28" $1,940

By relinquishing the need for creating a perfect surface that is identifiably finished, I feel that my work communes with the deeper and meaningful aspects of reality.  

Often I experience my art as open compositions—perhaps having achieved a state of harmonious interplay between the pictorial or dimensional elements—yet ever holding the possibility for additional changes, or cycles of creation.  

Peering into the central depths and textures of my hand-built ceramic: "Fire-Formed".

And as I continue to discover additional avenues to experience the inherent qualities of the artwork that is ever coming into being, I am intrigued to allow change to leave it traces, with the hope that others will share in my creative experiences and discover meaning therein.

Entering into "deep history", Ithaca, New York