SHARING THE VISION: This is What I Create . . .

Frequently I am asked to describe what I create as an artist, and to define my subject matter, themes and style of my art. And I must admit that I have often felt unprepared to give a succinct verbal answer that will provide true insight into my artwork.  But I have always done my best to provide an answer, which in my later evaluation, was probably too lengthy of an answer--and maybe didn't really convey the essence of what my art is about.

"Chorus of Light Singing upon Stone" by Linda L. Anderson 24" x 36" Mixed-Media on Canvas  $2,480

And so I have gone back to the drawing board, so to speak, to really define the essence of my art with the few words that paint a picture in the imaginations of those who ask the question: "What do you paint?"

And I do hope that my words will inspire another question: "Where can I find your artwork?"

"Ancient Roots" by Linda L. Anderson 11" x 14" Acrylic on Canvas and Paper $475

This is What I Create:

"I create Dimensional Landscape Paintings inspired by the natural beauty of our Earth environment.  My landscape paintings are infused with layered Color, Light and Meditative Beauty.

My style is best described as “Experiential Realism”, which is a style of realism that encourages more than just viewing the art.  This is a realism that invites the whole person to enter into the painting as it awakens all of the body’s senses to the beauty that is the center of each painting."

"Winter Solstice Light" by Linda L. Anderson Mixed-Media on Canvas and Paper 24" x 30" $2560

 

I appreciate this opportunity to share insights with you about the art that I create.

                                                                                               ~Linda L. Anderson~

Join me here soon for more insights, art and beauty.

Drawing Lessons

"Woodland Rhythms": An Experience in Drawing the Landscape from Life

 

"As I journey into the landscape, I discover that the natural beauty that surrounds me is also within me." 

~Linda L. Anderson~

 

I remember the experience that I had while drawing this view of a wooded landscape of Southwestern Ohio.  It was a lovely day in early spring—the type that calls to you to leave all of your mundane tasks behind and embrace the beauty of the moment in the sunny warmth of the fresh air that carries the scent of newness in the currents of a gentle breeze.   

Spring Unfolding, and beckoning to me to journey into the landscape

Answering that call to enjoy the day, I took with me a large sketchbook and an assortment of drawing pencils. I didn’t have a specific destination on mind, and so I just began to walk until came near one of the many little wooded retreats one finds on the campus of Wright State University--and indeed in many places in this area of Ohio.  

"Woodland Rhythms" Pencil on Paper, by Linda L. Anderson

Entering into the environment, I took in all that I saw. With keen observation, I noticed the soft leaf-strewn ground supporting wondrous configurations of low-lying bushes and the skyward reaching forms of trees, their umber trunks inter-spaced in architectural intervals, some with vines in arabesque moving around trunks and branches in sinuous rhythms. 

I had barely stepped into this environment of trees and dappled light, yet almost in an instant, my senses were alive and responsive.

I sat down upon a rounded and moss-covered rock and just took in all that surrounded me.  I observed the visual interchange of the tender green leaves and grasses emerging while remnants of past seasons formed a backdrop. I noticed how these added textural notes and the crisp edges of the organic traces of autumn and winter contrasted the delicate forms and colors of spring.

Roots

After awhile, I thought to begin a drawing of all that surrounded me from the perspective of being at the center of this place.  I placed my drawing tools within easy reach and I propped up my sketchbook on my knees.  But I felt I could not begin. 

The wooded environment I found myself in was so full of life and visual patterns, forms and textures that when it came to that moment of attempting to draw all that surrounded me, I wasn’t sure how to proceed.

Redbud in Blossom

And so I sat for another stretch of moments and began to meditate—to just peacefully sit in awareness of the life that was growing and changing and existing, in all of its variety. And as I allowed myself to be in this state of relationship to my surroundings, I became aware of a change within me.  I realized a growing sense of feeling at one with this community of trees as they grew from the same earth that was host to the skeletal layers of the decaying autumn leaves interspersed with roots and strewn branches among grass, lichen, moss and stone. 

Arboreal Embrace

Those moments that I spent in responsive silence within this natural environment forever transformed my manner of responding to—or seeing the natural world.  And once that transformation of the way that I place myself in relationship with the landscape environment occurred, I could draw.

Drawing the Landscape

I could then draw with fluidity and empathetic perception what had previously seemed a chaotic tangle of visual information.  I relinquished my reliance on the type of seeing that occurs as the analytical mind seeks organize information.  

Detail of "Woodland Rhythms" Pencil on Paper, by Linda L. Anderson

And as I relinquished this manner of seeing, instead allowing all of my senses to participate in coming to know and respond to this landscape, my drawing emerged from this deeper understanding and fuller perception of the natural environment that encircled me. Then, what I was drawing was a felt response to the harmonious flow and union between the life-infused forms that shared this environment. And my drawing reveals the sense of harmony and flow that I perceived and experienced as a being—as an artist responding in creative union with all that surrounded me in that moment in time.

An Artist's Insights: Creating Art as a Form of Communion with Life

The Breath and Living Essence of  One's Creative Life and Work

I have learned an important truth about my art as I have traveled along my life-path. And it is along this path whereupon there has occurred my creative flowering and a powerful realization.

Journeying into the Landscape: 

The artist learns to connect her life and her art in the context of the natural world. 

I have recognized that the purpose that directs my course as an artist, is the desire that my creative works are felt to have a true connection with life and lived experience.  As I journey into the landscape--with sketchbook or paintbox on hand--I am entering into an experience that offers the potential for creating an art and a life that comes forth from a deep understanding of the importance of being in authentic relationship with the world in all of its variety.

Quiet Communion

To the degree that I feel connected with that which inspires me to create a work of art--a drawing, a painting, a print, or a sculpture--I succeed in conveying the breath and living essence of my subjects.  Those of my works that feel compelling and real--always come forth from a direct connection with and response to the inner essence of a subject. Whether a landscape, natural formation, phenomenon, or person, I was first inspired me to invest the time, and to place myself in a position of responsive awareness of my subject before proceeding with the creative process.

"Eve" Intaglio Print on Paper, by Linda L. Anderson

I have learned that before I can, with honest ability, convey meaningful truths about my subject through my art, I must seek an understanding of the manner that I exist in relationship with our world.

Touching Earth

I have learned that I must actively cultivate my capacity to see and to feel, and to respond with empathy to my subject.  For this reason, I feel it is important that I not be blinded to the inherent life energy and presence of the living forms and environments due to an over-reliance on what my eyes see.

"November" Water-Media on Japanese Rice Paper, by Linda L. Anderson

Instead, I seek communion with the world--and recognize myself in relationship with that which inspires my creative work and nurtures my growth as an artist.

Sharing my Artist’s Insights Today:

Meaningful Moments in Time: 
Musing on the Intrinsic Value of Creating Art

I believe, and it is my hope, that the soul-centered aspects of why I create 

art in the unique manner that I do comes through in the entirety of the 

experience that people have in connection with my art.

And in this manner, what occurs is a soul-centered connection between

my innermost self and another person—with you.  
And this is the intrinsic value of what I create.

~Linda L. Anderson~ 

"Sylvan Rhythms, Copper Patina" by Linda L. Anderson

 

Today, I wish to share with you an important realization that transforms the way that I think about what it is that I am doing when I create a work of art.

I realized that I am creating something of far greater value than a beautiful object.  While I do attend to the beauty of the artwork as being an important aspect of the whole painting or print or drawing, what I am really creating is a beautiful experience.  And this experience has the potential of existing outside of the artwork itself.

Hopefully, you can connect with my line of “musing” on what it means to me to be an artist—and what inspires me to create and share my work.

Sharing insights about my art. 7 East Gallery, Woodstock, VA

The most valuable aspect of what I am creating when I am creating a work of art—is a conduit to connecting with the meaningful and the beautiful, soul-centered aspects of life.  It is a shared creation that bears fruit only in the hearts of people.  It begins in my heart center and continues in the heart-center of other people as they connect with my creative work and life.

As I share what I am creating with others; as I invite people to connect with this work that I have invested my whole being into, I have been given the gift of being a part of the transformational experiences in others lives.

An art patron explores my "Dimensional Landscapes". The Fisher Gallery, Alexandria, VA

And by inviting people to share in my creative work, I become a part of the re-awakening of each person my work connects with.  And this work includes assisting the inner sparks of connection to be ignited. From the soul-centered sparks a soul-inspired fire warms upwards from the hearth of connecting to a moment in time that is both meaningful and beautiful.

Art patrons share their connections to my art with each other the Exhibition Opening.

So my work is very much centered in our humanness and all of those wonderful feelings that inspire us to transcend anything that does not encourage us to feel alive.

And each moment of connection is a one-to-one connection; a soul-centered connection that I have the gift of sharing with another person by way of my life work as an artist.

Two patrons enter into the experience of  my art, at the exhibition opening event.

Link to the Fisher Gallery of NOVA, Alexandria, VA: http://www.nvcc.edu/schlesingercenter/gallery.html

And amazingly, even if I am not present in the gallery or the room in that moment when a person connects with my art, that soul-centered aspect of my connection with beauty and meaning comes through.  That reverence I have for life and a belief in the value of that which is beautiful transcends the distance.  In truth, there is no distance.

"Of Roots and Branches" by Linda L. Anderson

Acrylic on Canvas, with Intaglio Prints on Paper

Post-Blog-Notes: About the artwork: Sylvan Rhythms, Copper Patina" 
by Linda L. Anderson. An incised and etched copper plate created for the series
of intaglio prints for two of my mixed-media paintings in my"Dimensional--
Landscapes" Collection. I find that the metal plates that I create as part of 
generating prints are in their own right, independent works of art--having 
their own intrinsic value.

"The Reach and The Expanse" by Linda L. Anderson

Acrylic on Canvas, with Intaglio Print on Paper.

Within the Deeper Still: Meditative Journeys into the Landscape

Within the Deeper Still there is beautiful silence. And this experience of silence is full. There is ever the fullness of light, and 

energy, and the creative seeds of “All” that is.  I invite you to enter into this experience—becoming one with beautiful silence.

  ~Linda L. Anderson~

   Today, as I have joined the 21-Day Meditation Challenge™, Sponsored by the Chopra Center—I am reminded that I have benefited from the practice of meditating for many years.  However, this is not to say that I have for all of these years, practiced meditation in the traditional manner that we associate with the word, “meditation”.

While I have occasionally, practiced meditation in this traditional manner, sitting in lotus pose and quieting the mind while inviting a state of conscious stillness to emerge, the majority of my meditation practice has occurred in a different manner.

A primary way that I enter into a meditative state occurs in connection with my practice of journeying into the landscape.  As I journey into the landscape and allow myself to both walk and to sit quietly within a natural environment, I am entering into a relationship with creative source within the deeper still.  Essentially, as an artist, I naturally enter into this state of still awareness and heightened sense awareness as a vital part of my creative life and practice.

“Within the Deeper Still” by Linda L. Anderson. Acrylic on Canvas  36” x 49”.

“Dimensional Landscapes” Collection.

For availability and price of this or other works in the Collection,  please connect to my website: 

http://www.lindalandersonfineart.com

The title of my mixed-media “Dimensional Landscape” painting, “Within the Deeper Still” was so titled to honor that very state of awareness and the numinous sense of union with the natural world that envelopes me when I enter fully into the experience of communing with nature, and likewise, as I enter fully into the experience of creating a new work of art that connects with this meditative experience.

As I have continued—and will continue—to practice meditation in this manner, I receive the following gifts:   

   —The gift of “being” while centered in the total experience

   —The gift of enjoying the reality of calm awakening and growing awareness

   —The gift of enjoying a ‘knowing” sense of interconnectedness to all that surrounds me

   —The gift of enjoying a heightened sense awareness allowing my whole self to perceive life in-the-present 

“Have your attention on what is and see its fullness in every moment. The presence of the divine is everywhere. You have only to consciously embrace it with your attention.”
~ The Vedas ~

http://www.chopracentermeditation.com Above quote, excerpt from Day 1 of the 

21-Day Meditation Challenge™, Sponsored by the Chopra Center

Blog Feature: An Artist's Insights on Art & Life

An Artist’s Insights on Art and Life:
The experiences and processes of artistic creativity and the manner that we progress through life are similar in that each has cycles of active growth leading to pause, changes, and necessary reflection.
It is during such reflective moments--that in the stillness we connect with an inner, sustaining beauty that calls forth new growth from within--where lays the seed awaiting spring.   --Linda L. Anderson--         

.

The "Dimensional Landscapes" of Linda L. Anderson

‎"Winter Solstice Light", by Linda L. Anderson. 
24" x 30", 
Acrylic on Canvas, and Mixed Water-Media on Paper.
$ 2,560 USD 
 Post-Notes" To contact the artist about this artwork,
or to view additional works, please proceed to the 
artist's website:
http://www.lindalandersonfineart.com

       

. . . Leave those bones polished, there to feed

  The soil, warming while

The ground beneath the softening snow

Soon will be graced by the soft purple petals

Of the first re-emerging crocus;

Those living heralds of every March,

  Arriving, as the green force moves once again—

Quickening the seed

POEM: Excerpt from "The Meaning of Spring", 

from the manuscript, Singing Earthward,  

by Linda L. Anderson

All Rights Reserved

 

 

Connecting through the medium of Art:

I would like to thank Catherine for sharing her thoughts and feelings about my art. One of the greatest joys of being an artist is learning that others connect with and are inspired by their art. I would like to share Catherine's words:

"I just saw your work at 7 East Gallery in Woodstock VA and found a few words to describe it. I advise everyone to see it in person. I felt I was lying on the forest floor, aware of a dappled depth of possibilities with real branches, real stone. The trees/vegetation are archetypal. The works put me in an energized reverie."

                                                                                                                                             --Catherine--