Ghelar, Romania - 1942

Ghelar, Romania – 1942

I earned a graduate degree in Applied Art, however, with children to raise and a job to hold, I found no time for artistic pursuits. I hoped that later in life I would be able to find time to express myself as an artist. That time came in 2006 when as a retired widow, I came to the US, joined my kids and started a late painting journey.

I chose painting because I could transform my living place into a small art studio.  I was  scared about the process, not knowing if I could handle my chosen path, if I had something to say. I avoided classes and decided to go my own way. I spent time in the library reading books about art, materials and process. I started drawing, wanting to improve my hand-eye coordination. Soon I acquired a visual vocabulary and I tried to implement it into my work. I started with watercolor and discovered by chance the pleasure of painting on Yupo – a type of synthetic paper.

Two years later I moved to acrylics and tried  spontaneous imaginary composition. A visit to Puget Sound’s Jones Island enabled me to discover unusual beautiful rocks that triggered a series of paintings. Later I found a good source of inspiration in stumps and bark, observed while hiking. Painting them, I proved to myself that nature is the best teacher. Later, a fascination with “energy” got hold of me, and I began painting around that concept.

 I was attracted to abstract art, but I understood that I could not jump directly into it. I needed to grow as an artist in order to approach it. I dreamed about painting in an abstracted painterly style, but that did not come easily to fruition. It came easier to have a stylized, decorative, design style, somehow colder and rigid, determined by my early construction, decorative studies.  This approach did not satisfy me. I learned that I am attracted to express myself spontaneously, to develop my ideas directly on canvas, without prior sketches. The more uninhibited I start, the more doors I unlock for imagination to flourish.  Most of the time, the result is abstracted with an organic touch. I am still  fascinated by the way the creative process works; the way it extracts information from my background, and expresses  through intuition – like coming from nowhere. I am an intuitive painter, more feeling than imagining what I want to say.

Now, eight years later, I am still challenged to find the best expression for my feelings. I am still chasing the state where my native openness and lyrical predisposition will freely translate into a spontaneous expression of flowing masses of colors and energetic, restless brush strokes. I want my art to be abstracted, ambiguous, spontaneous, full of energy and flooded with colors. I am working on it, wanting to please my lonely spirit on this journey without a destination. (written in 2014)