Last Call for our Expressionistic Painting Class!

Ready to start the "Portraits of Passion" Show at the Sanctuary

This was an exciting weekend for me with my first solo art show on Friday!  We had an elegant evening in the beautiful Sanctuary space.  I talked so much that I forgot to take pictures during the show!  Thanks so much for everyone who came out in support.

The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand,

as in what direction we are moving.

-Oliver Wendell Holmes 

Reincarnation
Copyright 2012 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
18" x 36"

And now I am on to my next endeavor... our Expressionistic Painting Class starts this Thursday- so this is the last call to join us!  We are gathering an amazing group of people who are at all levels of painting skills.  I tell my students often that there isn't anything I can do that you can't do... it will just come out in a different voice.  This class will focus on expressing that unique voice with lots of fun splashy experiments!  More info below...

Class: 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 world is moving so fast these days that

the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.

-Elbert Hubbard

Artist Statement

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

This is the artist statement I just wrote for the "Portraits of Passion" art show opening tonight...

As I was gathering together the pieces for this event I realized that when I created many of the paintings I was trying to prove something to myself.  I was trying to prove that love is real.

Sometimes I have this deep seated fear that we are just selfish 'spiraling coils of self-replicating DNA.'  I fear that everyone is just out for themselves.  But I don't want to believe that.  I look for evidence of open fun-loving giving everywhere I go, when it is in 'giving that we receive and loving that we are loved.'

I want to believe that we need each other, that we support each other.  I want to believe in love.  Where is the line between love and lust?  It can be blurred.  It is hard to distinguish between the two sometimes.  Yet that can be the spot at which love can be the most exciting, when you can't separate your mind from your body and your lover from yourself.

It is my hope that if you are also in that spot where you are finding it hard to believe in that beautiful sacred energy of love that you will find it here.  It is my hope that we will find it reflected in each other.

Join us tonight:

Event: Portraits of Passion
The Sanctuary on Penn 
701 N. Pennsylvania St.  Indianapolis, IN 46204
Friday July 5th 2013 6-11pm

Silence Sleeping

Silence Sleeping

Copyright 2012 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"

 The human heart has many treasures, 

in secret kept, in silence sealed.

-Charlotte Bronte

A Labor of Love... Portraits of Passion Art Show this Friday!

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

 When I gathered up all of the paintings for my art show tonight there was a total of 73!
 

73!  I am going to have to narrow it down.

This is what we call a labor of love.  My art is my expression, my safe-place, my love, my passion... it is just plain fun for me and it is wonderful to have yet another chance to share it!

 Event: Portraits of Passion
The Sanctuary on Penn
 701 N. Pennsylvania St.  Indianapolis, IN 46204
Friday July 5th 2013 6-11pm

 Live music with the HoosierTones Danceband and Troika!
 

Full Many a Glorious Morning Have I Seen
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
Prints available on Fine Art America

Controversial Stuff...

Since I started this sharing my experiences through paintings I have received hate mail from religious extremists for my work.  What steams people up is that I create both religious paintings as well as works that celebrate sexuality.  These messages make me feel that I am being asked to be silenced. I feel that I am being asked to not speak the honest truth about what it is like to live in a human body.  

So I am go on record and make a statement here.

I believe that the human body is a sacred object.  

The divine energy that propels all life forward pushes us to love and lust in that messy act of creation.  Ethically speaking as long as you aren't hurting someone else through abusive coercion I do not view any act of sexuality to be 'wrong' or 'right'. One of the main purposes behind art is to be a vehicle for expressing inner emotions and desires, things that we can't always put into words.  And although it often makes me feel exposed and vulnerable I throw all of my messy honest truth into my paintings in the hope that it will bring comfort to others... in the hope that you will see yourself reflected in it.  Then we will transcend the petty differences that keep us apart.  We will be united. By depicting the beauty of the human body and nature I am celebrating what I see as the divine spirit.  In the words of the Roman playwright Terence, "Nothing human is alien to me."

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful,
for beauty is God's handwriting.

-Emerson

Several of the paintings that have been targets of negative criticism will be part of my art show this Friday.  I welcome you to join us there:

Event: Portraits of Passion
The Sanctuary on Penn
 701 N. Pennsylvania St. Indianapolis, IN 46204
Friday July 5th 2013 6-11pm
 

Friday Feature: Watts Mortuary Chapel

Another place on my bucket list to visit before I die:

Watts Mortuary Chapel in the village of Compton, Surrey, England.  

The creation of the chapel was orchestrated by the artist Mary Fraser-Tytler. Many villagers contributed to both the design and construction of the ornately carved gesso plaster paintings adorning the interior walls as well as the terracotta exterior. The intricate weaving of design was obviously influence by Celtic calligraphic manuscripts but I also see a hint of Indian architectural painting as well.  Perhaps this was influenced by Mary Fraser-Tytler's early life in India.  Regardless it is a unique and stunning example of both the Symbolist and Arts & Crafts movements.

Inside the chapel "the morning stars sing together" and the tree of life grows up to the heavens.

Creation from chaos is natural.

We've come to a place where we've realized that we have this actual physical need to create things. We've discovered that we hate people en masse, we're sick of homogenized culture, and these realizations have left holes in our hearts. We create to fill those holes, to be able to sleep at night knowing we've done something, even a small something, to confront the manufactured culture that is currently being churned out.

-Renee Rigdon Zabet Stewart

Before this River Becomes an Ocean

We Come From the Water
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"
Prints available on Fine Art America

This is another painting that will be part of the "Portraits of Passion" Show next week!

Join us July 5th 6-11pm at the Sanctuary 701 N. Pennsylvania, Indianapolis

Before this river
Becomes an ocean
Before you throw my heart back on the floor
Oh baby I reconsider
My foolish notion
Well I need someone to hold me
But I'll wait for something more

Yes I've gotta have faith.

-George Michael

The Nativity 2

The Nativity 2
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
22" x 28"

I know, I know...

here I am celebrating Christmas in June

and probably giving you an earworm of "O Holy Night"

but inspiration strikes when inspiration strikes.  

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.

-Robert Louis Stevenson

Floribunda

Floribunda
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
18" x 24"
Prints available on Fine Art America

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower

Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees

Is my destroyer.

And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose

My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks

Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams

Turns mine to wax.

And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins

How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool

Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind

Hauls my shroud sail.

And I am dumb to tell the hanging man

How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;

Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood

Shall calm her sores.

And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind

How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb

How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.

-Dylan Thomas

One Life

One Life
Copyright 2012 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"

If I can stop one heart from breaking

I shall not live in vain.

If I can ease one life the aching 

or cool one pain.

-Emily Dickenson

Friday Feature: Anna and Elizabeth

Anna and Elizabeth presenting a "Crankies" shadow puppet show

The duo, Anna and Elizabeth, offer unique performances combining old-time music, storytelling and shadow puppetry.  Go to their website, www.annaandelizabeth.com, and watch a "Crankies" video.  Their shows look like a magical experience!  I can't wait to see a live performance.

One of the things that is so inspiring about artists like Anna and Elizabeth is that they are using classic traditional formats to present fresh new work.  This is the sort of art that strikes a universal chord that can cross culture and boundaries to get at the essence of human experience.  Yes- I am a fan.

Westfield Road Tree

Westfield Road Tree
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"
Original available on Etsy
Prints Available on Fine Art America

The earth is our origin and destination.

The ancient rhythms of the earth have insinuated themselves into the rhythms of the human heart.  The earth is not outside us;

it is within:

the clay from where the tree of the body grows.

- John O'Donohue, Beauty

Indiana Sunrise

Indiana Sunrise
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"
Prints available on Fine Art America
Original Painting available at the Art IN Hand Gallery

Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it.  

-Rabindranath Tagore

My Expressionism Class is Filling Up!

Ancient Clay
Copyright 2012 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
18" x 24"
Prints available on Fine Art America

My upcoming Expressionistic Painting class is filling up quickly!

Join us this summer for an exciting painting class at the Indianapolis Art Center.  In it we will 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

One of the artists we will be studying!
"Head of a Woman" painting by Odilon Redon

Another work of inspiration by Hundertwasser

Art IN Hand Gallery

Illinois Street Bridge in April, Indianapolis 2013
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"
Prints available on Fine Art America

I am pleased to announce that I am now showing artwork with the Art IN Hand Gallery of Zionsville, Indiana!  I feel so blessed to have yet another opportunity to share my work with others and celebrate the beauty of the natural world through my landscape paintings.

Join me on the evening of Friday June 7th 7-9pm as I celebrate my first "First Friday" at the gallery.  Click here for the facebook event.

Words are a pretext.
It is the inner bond that draws one person to another, not words.

-Rumi

Guilford Avenue Bridge

Guilford Avenue Bridge, Broad Ripple Indianapolis
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"
Available at the Art IN Hand Gallery 
Prints available on Fine Art America

We were always intoxicated with color,

with words that speak of color, and with the sun that makes colors live.

-Andre Derain 

Friday Feature: The Bloomsbury Group

Members of the Bloomsbury Group
Including Lytton Strachey, Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell

Virginia Woolf, Lytton Stracheny, Duncan Grant, Dora Charrington, Roger Fry and Vanessa Bell were a few of the artists in what is now called the Bloomsbury Group.  It was a loosely defined group united by friendships, the occasional dinner party, artistic style, and liberated feminist ideals.

George Edward Moore's book Principia Ethica greatly influenced the philosophical musings of this group.  It focused on the idea that "good" is not a trait that can be rigidly defined but rather is formulated by the "intrinsic" gut feeling of an individual.  Moore wrote, "all moral laws are merely statements that certain kinds of actions will have good effects" meaning that an action in itself is not good or bad therefore morality should not be based on rules of conduct.  For example many of the Bloomsbury group questioned the moral judgement held in much of British culture during that time  that homosexuality was a sin.  They renounced ethics that were based solely on past societal structure and not on the rights of the individual.  Taking it one step further many of the Bloomsbury group members also questioned the idea of traditional monogamous marriage.  Several of them practiced polyamory maintaining relationships with multiple consensual partners.  This notion of redefining morality and where the line can be drawn between good and bad ethics is as fascinating today as it was a hundred years ago during the heyday of the Bloomsbury Group. 

Living Room at the Charleson House

Anyway... back to art.  One of the many places on my bucket list to visit is the Charleson House in England.  It was the home of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant two members of the Bloomsbury Group.  Littered with murals and art the Charleson House is a unique example of an English country home.

The prime objects in life are love,

the creation and enjoyment of aesthetic experience

and the pursuit of knowledge.

-G. E. Moore

Virginia Woolf Painting by Roger Fry

"Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?  No, no, no not I."

-Edward Albee

Dora Carrington

I am a Rock

Lovers
Copyright 2012 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
18" x 24"
Prints available on Fine Art America

I don't want to be another wave in the ocean

I am a rock not just another great accent

I want to be the one you turn to when you need a shoulder

-Bon Jovi, Because We Can

All kinds of marvelous things go on,

I don't see how anyone who has looked, and seen,

can do ought but say,

'where I stand, wherever I stand, I am on holy ground.'

-John Wood

Nothing Gold Can Stay

My Grandfather's Roses in bloom once again

The other day I had one of those scary moments when I thought "Shit, I am going to loose it... this thing I love it is going to be gone, and there is nothing I can do about it."  It was an irrational fear- the kind that happens only when I am feeling insecure and want to nail down everything that I love tight to my chest where I know it is safe.  I am so lucky to be showered with so much love- this makes me bloody scared and thankful all at once.

But it will all be gone one day.  In a hundred years everyone I love will be gone.  This is what Robert Frost meant when he wrote "nothing gold can stay."  Then again I transplanted my grandfather's roses to my house after he died.  Now those blooms are a strange paradox... blooming for a short time yet faithfully returning each year.  

So something about all this IS constant... in a North Star sort of a way.

__________________________________

I know that what I am feeling has been felt before by countless folks behind me who were all fabulous in their own way but seriously...

***you are made of gold***

__________________________________

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay. 

-Robert Frost

Friday Feature: Romare Bearden

Chorus Provided by Romare Bearden

Romare Bearden was one of the most influential modern artists in recent American history.  He produced a prolific number of paintings many created with collage.  My favorites are his pieces created on the island of St. Martin.  They truly capture the hot vibrant zest of the Caribbean.

There are roads out of the secret place within us which we must all move as we go to touch others.

-Romare Bearden

Khayam and the Black Girl by Romare Bearden

The artist has to be something like a whale swimming with his mouth wide open,

absorbing everything until he has what he really needs.

-Romare Bearden

The Lamp by Romare Bearden

Sunset Over the White River

Sunset Over the White River
Copyright 2013 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"

Clouds come floating into my life,

no longer to carry rain or usher storm,but to add color to my sunset sky. 

-Rabindranath Tagore

Style

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

A style is the symbol of an overall feeling,

of an era's attitude to life,

and is only visible within the universe of all the arts.

-Peter Behrens, "Celebration of Life and Art"

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"
Prints available on Fine Art America

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"
Prints available on Fine Art America

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"
Prints available on Fine Art America

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