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My Artist Inspirations: Jane Freilicher
I found out about Jane Freilicher (1924–2014) for the first time this year and it was such a refreshing experience to see her example as an artist. I was really struggling with what my goals were as an artist and seeing so many artists saying that the only way is to be in tune with the vast trends. I was searching for artists that could show me another way. But even artists classically promoted for this end such as Fairfield Porter seemed in my mind not to be actually taking a different route philosophically than their peers. This is the landscape where Jane stood out as different. She even said…
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My Artist Inspirations: Frederick Childe Hassam
I’ve been drawn to Impressionism since my mom read me children’s picture books about Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) and other Impressionists when I was little. Her, John Henry Twachtman (1853-1902), and Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935) were the most significant early American Impressionists. They made Impressionism famous in the U.S. Hassam had two main focuses in his career: scenes of cities and the countryside, with gardens and coast. I love his flowers and shorelines perhaps most of all the impressionists because they have a way of balancing realism and Impressionism that is very satisfying. I think he uses his color and line in a way that gives a little more definition and beauty…
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Your Art Doesn’t Need Perfect Accuracy to Be Stunning
At an art exhibition I was at, an artist whose works I admired came over and looked at my paintings and said that the height and distance of certain parts of my paintings were inaccurate and that I should make sure to correct that in my future works. I knew that what he said was true and I had not painted that scene accurately to life. (It had been intentional to emphasize the emotional points, but that didn’t seem relevant to him). But, do you know what happened shortly after having that conversation? It sold. My painting with the bad perspective sold for more money than I had ever sold a…
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The Nature of Making Art (The Single Most Life-Changing Perspective an Artist Can Ever Hear)
Making Art is a Gift—Grace—We Receive and Serve “If the work comes to the artist and says, ‘Here I am, serve me.’ then the job of the artist, great or small, is to serve. The amount of the artist’s talent is not what it is about” — Madeleine L’Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time, Walking on Water, pp 23. Our job as writers, painters, and artists of every endeavor is not to try to think up the greatest thing, to create something contrived that we think will look great and be admired or impactful. It is instead, simply and powerfully, to receive the work that comes to us and…
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Success, Sweet Conviction, and Uneventful Inbetweens
Lord, this is significant that so many people want to buy my art. And, significant that You have so valuably and sweetly shown me to start planning a focal point in my paintings. John Mark Comer is right that, “We should expect our work to be a mixed bag… to give us a sense of meaning and purpose and to be regularly frustrated by whatever it is we do. (Garden City, pp 176) I can’t find satisfaction ‘under the sun’ — in this life apart from You. But, by being with You, and working with You, I can be “indifferent to getting slain in the duel” and be obedient to…
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The Most Important Thing in Making and Selling Art
I was so blessed to have the sweetest established artist reach out just to encourage me when I was first starting out selling my paintings, Gwen Duda, and what she said to me has encouraged me so much throughout the years. I hope it can encourage and bring clarity for you in your art journey as well. The vital instruction, from the culmination of all her decades of making and selling art, was this: “The most important thing — love the art you are doing, do what you love, paint what you love. Create what you love. That will give you what you need to deal with everything else.” What…
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Unlock Your Creative Potential with John Newton’s Timeless Writing Tips for Modern Creators
John Newton (1725-1807) was a preacher, a key figure in abolishing slavery in the UK, and the hymn writer of many songs, including “Amazing Grace.” Gleaning from such an impactful communicator is a no-brainer, but I’m particularly excited about his advice because it helped me transform my scattered thoughts into confidently creating this blog. While his insights focus on writing, I believe they apply to all forms of content creation—art, videos, and more. I’ve organized his timeless advice using the 5 Ws (Who, What, When, Where, Why, How) to capture this gold for both myself and you. 1. Who Should Write? If you don’t usually write, John Newton would encourage…
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How The “Indefinitely Wild” Art Exhibition Impacted Me
In August 2023, I visited the UCI Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art. I immediately connected with so many of the paintings in it. I was working on painting a Laguna cove and wanting to learn how better my craft from the previous cove paintings I had made. I walked around the exhibit for about an hour taking time to look at each piece. I wanted to learn what made these pieces good, what their strengths were. I decided that lighting was one of the most prominent strengths. It seemed that the artists had arranged the lighting for maximum glow and that the lighting itself was…
Amy Morris Fine Art
