Friday Feature: Samuel Palmer

Garden in Shoreham by Samuel Palmer

The saddest part of the story of the artist Samuel Palmer's life is that his son destroyed his personal writings and notebooks after his death.  I have to wonder if Palmer would be more well known today if this desecration had not occurred.  He was a mystical landscape painter who was greatly influenced by William Blake.  We can only speculate on those lost philosophical writings.

The visions of the soul, being perfect, are the only true standard by which nature must be tried.

-Samuel Palmer

Interesting... from this quote I deduce that Palmer viewed the soul of man and the natural world as separate, the natural world being of lower form.  Why then did he focus so much on landscape art?   At any rate I tend to view our natural reactions to be of a higher level and more in tune with the core of our souls, but that is perhaps the transcendentalist influence of my background.

Oak Trees in Lullingstone Park by Samuel Palmer

When less than four years old I was standing with my nurse, Mary Ward, watching the shadows on the wall from branches of an elm behind which the moon had risen. I have never forgot those shadows and am often trying to paint them. 

-Samuel Palmer

Moonlight by Samuel Palmer

The Breath of the Earth

The Breath of the Earth
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
18" x 36"

The wind is the breath of the earth.

It reaches into every corner,

unfolding,

without choosing between high or low,

exalted or humble,

it touches everywhere.

Let us gather here together

from every corner,

from high and low,

exalted and humble.

Let us gather here and everywhere.

Let us mix the dusts of every land.

Let us worship together.

April on the Broad Ripple Canal

April on the Broad Ripple Canal
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"

I have come to believe that there are infinite passageways out of the shadows,

infinite vehicles to transport us into the light.

-Martha Beck

 

Madonna

Madonna
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
18" x 24"

We cannot live only for ourselves.

A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men, and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.

-Herman Melville

Happy Mother's Day!

Illinois Street Bridge in April

Illinois Street Bridge in April, Indianapolis 2013
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"

Life stands before me like an eternal spring with new and brilliant clothes.

-Carl Friedrich Gauss

 

A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"

You have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream.

Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

-Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

(This past weekend I got to see Shakespeare at the Indiana Repertory Theatre!!!  Sweet.)

Registration for my Summer Classes is Now Open!

Join me for these upcoming classes at the Indianapolis Art Center:

Promoting Your Business through Social Media
Indianapolis Art Center
Saturdays June 8-29, 2013  9am-12pm
Getting the word out about your art has never been easier than it is today. In this class we will learn about the many new options for marketing and promoting your work. We will cover website creation, blogs, facebook fan pages, photographing work, as well as "old-fashioned" methods. Get a fresh start by refining your goals and learning new methods of sharing your message with the world.
Register here:
http://reg131.imperisoft.com/IndianapolisArtCenter/ProgramDetail/39383632/Registration.aspx

Expressionistic Painting
Indianapolis Art Center
Thursdays July 11-August 1st, 2013  7-10pm
Join us in this class as we explore the master painters of the Expressionistic movement. Inspired by their methods and philosophy we will create paintings to release emotion and express the beauty of the world around us and within us.
Register here:
http://reg131.imperisoft.com/IndianapolisArtCenter/ProgramDetail/39393530/Registration.aspx

The Hourglass

The Hourglass
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"

The long unmeasured pulse of time moves everything.

There is nothing hidden that it cannot bring to light,

nothing once known that may not become unknown.

Nothing is impossible.

-Sophocles, Ajax

Full Many a Glorious Morning Have I Seen

Full Many a Glorious Morning Have I Seen
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"

SONNET 33 

Full many a glorious morning have I seen

Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,

Kissing with golden face the meadows green,

Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;

Anon permit the basest clouds to ride

With ugly rack on his celestial face,

And from the forlorn world his visage hide,

Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:

Even so my sun one early morn did shine

With all triumphant splendor on my brow;

But out, alack! he was but one hour mine,

The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.

Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;

Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.

-Shakespeare

 

Friday Feature: Maxfield Parrish

Reveries
Maxfield Parrish

With painstaking attention to detail Maxfield Parrish created paintings that both realistically portray the human form and landscape AND surreally create scenes of fantasy.  Yet these are not the uncomfortable surrealistic scenes of Salvador Dali or Magritte.  Parish's world is soft and reflects only the gentle side of our experiences.  Using art as a means of calling attention to the beautiful side of creation.

Princess Parizade Bringing Home the Singing Tree
Maxfield Parrish

The hard part is how to plan a picture so as to give to others what has happened to you.  To render in paint an experience, to suggest the sense of light and color, or air and space.

-Maxfield Parrish

Heart

Heart
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"

My crown is in my heart, not on my head;

not decked with diamonds and Indian stones, nor to be seen:

my crown is called content,

a crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.

-Shakespeare

Measure for Measure

Measure for Measure
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
18" x 24"

What's mine is yours and what is yours is mine.

Truth is truth to the end of reckoning.

-Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

Friday Feature: Edmund Dulac

The Little Mermaid by Edmund Dulac

I worship this amazing illustrator, Edmund Dulac.  Sweeping arches of wind and rain bring each piece to compositional perfection.  My favorite is his depictions of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid."

Love and Beauty by Edmund Dulac

To be of use to the world is the only way to be happy.

-Hans Christian Andersen

Dulac

I only appear to be dead.

-Hans Christian Andersen

Sunrise

Sunrise
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Acrylic on Canvas

The grand show is eternal.

It is always sunrise somewhere;

the dew is never dried at once;

a shower is forever falling;

vapor is ever rising.

-John Muir

Saint Therese of Lisieux

Saint Therese of Lisieux
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
30" x 15"

This painting depicts Saint Therese as I imagine her... alone in her room as she sits writing "The Story of a Soul."  Despite her illness her youthful optimism perseveres.  It is dark and dismal yet light is streaming through the window like a beacon of hope.

Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love?

Great deeds are forbidden me.

The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love.

-Saint Therese of Lisieux

Friday Feature: Arthur Rackham

Alice in Wonderland by Arthur Rackham

Dark and mysterious the artwork of Arthur Rackham had a profound influence on book illustration at the turn of the 20th century.  I especially love how he mixed realism with an ethereal mysticism transporting the viewer to the world of fantasy.  Wolves bare their teeth and bodies are floated off into the air... as if each character is not a solid structure but the spirit of an emotional idea.  Check out his dynamic renditions of "Alice in Wonderland" and "British Fairy Tales" if you favor creepy depictions of these classic tales.

Fairy from Peter Pan by Arthur Rackham

To move, to breathe, to fly, to float,

To gain all while you give,

To roam the roads of lands remote,

To travel is to live.

-Hans Christian Andersen

Wolf Hunt by Arthur Rackham

Hoosier Women Artists

6PM on the Broad Ripple Canal
Copyright 2012 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"
Prints available on Fine Art America

I am happy to announce that this landscape painting depicting the Broad Ripple Canal was selected to hang in the Lieutenant Governor's office in the Indiana State House for the next year!  Lt. Governor Ellsperman selected this piece as part of the Hoosier Women Artists Program.  

So it is official... I am a Hoosier!

(If my degree from IU didn't tip the scales surely this does.)

Hirschten and Lt. Governor Ellsperman at the Indiana State House

The Immaculate Heart of Mary

The Immaculate Heart of Mary
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
15" x 30"

His mother kept all these sayings in her heart.

-Luke 2:51

Come One, Come All!



Brigid
Copyright 2012 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"
Prints available on Fine Art America



This Saturday night April 6th, 2012 at the Harrison Art Center in Indianapolis we, the friends of Jude Odell, are hosting a benefit party in her honor!  There will be live music, drinks, food.  I have donated the painting above to be part of the art auction. 

Find out more about it on the facebook event page:
Benefit Party at the Harrison Art Center.

When you start a painting, it is something outside you.
At the conclusion, you seem to move inside the painting.
-Fernando Botero

Our Bodies are our Gardens

Our Bodies are our Gardens
Copyright 2012 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"

Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners.

-Shakespeare, Othello

Friday Feature: For the Muses

This first stage of a painting was inspired by a photograph of the artist model, Audrey Munson.  The more I learn about her the more fascinated I am.  She worked as a model for sculptors in New York during the nineteen-teens and created four very classy nude films.  But alas alack! no copies of these films are available.  One film is in an archive in France but they aren't giving up the goods.  Numerous sculptures of Munson are peppered throughout New York City.  She inspired so many artists that she is considered the muse to top all muses.

 There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip,

Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out

At every joint and motive of her body.

-Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida

"To the pure, all things are pure." Audrey Munson

Thanks to all of the muses who inspire us. 

The Most Docile Earth

The Most Docile Earth
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
18" x 36"

Consider all this;
and then turn to the green, gentle, and most docile earth;
consider them both, the sea and the land;
and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself?
For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land,
so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti,
full of peace and joy,
but encompassed by all the horrors of the half-known life.

-Herman Melville
 

Wallflowers vs. Favorites

The Wallflower
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
9" x 12"
Oil on Canvas

I am waiting for my case to come up

and I am waiting.

-Lawrence Ferlinghetti

The face for this painting was inspired by an old 19th century sketch I found entitled "The Favorite."  Something about that title rubbed me the wrong way.  Why do we have to have favorites?  Why can't we recognize the awesome qualities in everyone around us?  Then again we are drawn like a magnet to certain people.  (I am anyway.)  Maybe it is just pheromones?  There doesn't seem to be another logical explanation as to why some people turn your crank and others just don't.  

So... I made her a wallflower instead of a favorite.

That just seemed more humble or somesuch.

Then again-
we have all at one point been the wallflower and at other times the favorite.

And at other times you just want to rest- that is where I'm at now.

To everything there is a season.

Friday Feature: Elly MacKay

Upcoming artist Elly MacKay has just released her first book, If You Hold a Seed.  If you haven't seen it yet be prepared to be amazed.  It is illustrated using paper puppet sets reminiscent of Indonesian shadow theater in which lights illuminate the scene from behind.  MacKay's work has a fresh modern look that plays with layering in an innovative way unlike anything I have seen before.  

I am holding my breath for her to tackle the classic nursery tales and I have a feeling that the best is yet to come from this artist!

If you wait and wait...

Season by season, year by year...

That tree will grow so large 

it will hold you.

-Elly MacKay

The Work of the Soul

 The Work of the Soul
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"

There are two ways of spreading light; to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.

-Edith Wharton

This is the work of the soul- the work that all humans are meant to do.

To bring warm winds to cool places.

 Where there is darkness we bring light.

Saint Francis

Saint Francis
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
18" x 36"

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace,

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

-Prayer of Saint Francis

This painting depicts Saint Francis taming the wolf surrounded by birds.  I myself have been meditating lately on the first line of his prayer "make me an instrument of thy peace."   How can I better take action to create peace for those around me?  The most challenging part has been to create peace within my own thoughts...

To calm my fearful doubts and surrender to reality.
To be thankful for everything.
To absolve every transgression.
It is perfect just the way it is.

Friday Feature: Horace Pippin

Domino Players by Horace Pippin

Despite having wounded his right arm while serving in World War I Horace Pippin continued painting throughout his lifetime. I have to believe that he found much of the strength to continue working from his desire to express the injustice of segregation that he experienced. That and maybe he wanted to honor the quiet beauty of everyday existence... people gathering on a street, a family eating dinner. After the horrors of war and racism this is what he wanted to focus on.

by Horace Pippin

I did not care what or where I went. I asked God to help me, and he did so. And that is the way I came through that terrible and Hellish place. For the whole entire battlefield was hell, so it was no place for any human being to be.

-Horace Pippin

Pictures just come to my mind, and I tell my heart to go ahead. 

-Horace Pippin

Saint Patrick

Saint Patrick
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"
Original Available for Sale on ETSY

Let anyone laugh and taunt if he so wishes. 

I am not keeping silent, 

nor am I hiding the signs and wonders that were shown to me.

-Saint Patrick

Open

Open
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
20" x 30"

Be open to everything and attached to nothing.
-Tilopa

Love is always unconditional.  Reliance on someone else to fulfill your happiness is not love. Learn self-reliance and gain the ability to make yourself happy. If you are hunting for "love" with a long list of conditions you will never find it.

If someone wants to change you- they aren't expressing love.
If you want to change someone- you aren't expressing love.
Give without great expectations if you want to find the warmth of acceptance.

It is in giving that we receive.  It is in loving that we are loved...
-St. Francis

Fear holds more people back from love than anything else... fear of loneliness, fear of poverty, fear of judgments, fear of failure.  Years ago I talked to a woman who insisted she wouldn't date anyone who didn't have a credit card.  (So she could spend his money I guess.)  Possessive ownership is not love.  Marking someone as your territory with a ring, showing them off to the world, bragging... this is not love.  Let go of the security blanket of false promises.  Sometimes loving someone means letting them go to move on to their next phase of life.  Enjoy your lover's company now and give them the true acceptance, support and friendship you have been craving.  Let go of your materialistic expectations and give.

Give what you want to receive.  

Can you step back from you own mind and thus understand all things? 

Giving birth and nourishing,

having without possessing,

acting with no expectations,

leading and not trying to control

this is the supreme virtue.

-Lao Tzu

Friday Feature: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a Transcendentalist Unitarian who has greatly influenced my own philosophical religious development.  His essay on Self-Reliance especially strikes a chord with me at this time...

These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs. 

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.

-Emerson

Yeah... I want to have strength stemming from only my own courage.

I want to only cultivate friendships with those who offer unconditional support.

I am only interested in truth, not the facade of society.

Success is...

-to laugh often and love much

-to appreciate beauty

-to find the best in others

-to give of one's self

-to leave the world a bit better

-to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived
-Emerson