Judgement Day comes in many ways. It came for me yesterday in the studio when I realized I was way past the day for cleaning things up. One would think, one would, that with all the spare time during the pandemic, I might have made more effort to tidy up the studio. And I did make some effort, but “tidying up” is not painting and … Continue reading Judgement Day and Creative Chaos
“Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgement difficult.” — Hippocrates (460-400 B.C.) As the King of Siam once sang, “It’s a puzzlement!” I’ve worked my way through “puzzlements” in the past, but this one is so close to my heart that I’ve had more difficulty. I’m a born entrepreneur. Over the years, I have started and run several businesses. When other kids … Continue reading Life Is Short, Art Long
Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time. – Ornette Coleman Voila! One of my favorite graphics, one I’ve used more than once – The Cartographer’s Heart. This is a genuine cartographic representation of our currently not-too-happy planet, devised by one Johannes Kepler, a more or less contemporary of Columbus. Not one of my own designs. … Continue reading New Path to the Waterfall
Mr. P.C. from the Colors of Jazz Collection” © 2020, Molly Larson Cook 36 x 24, Acrylic on Canvas In any of the creative arts, revision is the name of the game. Nobody gets it perfect the first time. It’s always instructive for new writers to look at manuscripts left by well-known authors, manuscripts with scrawled new words or lines, other lines scratched … Continue reading Choosing – and Choosing Differently Tomorrow
“Well, You Needn’t” ©2020, Molly Larson Cook from the Colors of Jazz collection Acrylic on canvas 28″ x 22″ Available “No work of art is really ever finished. They only stop at good places.” So writes Robert Henri in his insightful and instructive book The Art Spirit. I’m here to testify that this statement is 100% true. Amen. Amen. Amen. The painting included here … Continue reading Joy, the Pandemic, Heineken and Snickers
“Kisses in the Rain” Molly Larson Cook, copyright 2018 20″ x 24″ Acrylic on canvas Elsewhere on the global readerboard otherwise known as the Web, I wrote recently about not letting pressures – specifically, other people – keep you from living your one and only life the way you choose. A lot of people connected with the idea of setting boundaries, of standing firm in the face of … Continue reading Kisses in the Rain and Your One and Only Life
“I don’t follow any system. All the laws you can lay down are only so many props to be cast aside when the hour of creation arrives.” —Raoul Dufy “Do what suits you…try to paint in the moment… forget everything you have learned…” –Jan van Oort The words of these two painters are near and dear to my creative heart. Dufy was a French Fauve painter … Continue reading Art, TEGWAR, and Sweet Songs in the Halls of Creation
The holidays are here in full force, but I’ll admit that my head is more in the studio than in wrapping packages. I’ll get the packages wrapped in time, I know, but it’ll be a last minute rush because something happened – a good thing – in the studio. Of course, each good thing is balanced by something else, and yesterday it was balanced by … Continue reading Forget the Axeman – It’s Finished When I Say It’s Finished
I’ve spent a lot of years in the world of words – writer, writing instructor, editor, and oh, yes, reader. I’m familiar with William Faulkner’s famous advice to writers that they must sometimes “kill your darlings,” those phrases you are particularly fond of which are really not all that good. This kind of murderous idea is a little shocking, I suppose, but I laughed out loud … Continue reading Knowing When to Stop: The Axeman Cometh
More and more often I find my paintings overlapping with my writing. To put that more clearly, I find that the characteristics of my painting style overlap with those of my writing style. In other words, I’m finding my voice. Today I worked on a painting I started earlier this week. I was pretty happy with the way it had gone – two large areas … Continue reading The Writer/Artist Is Finding Her Voice
Art and Tulips 