"Courage in Transformation"

This purple plant was amazing! I photographed it

endlessly because I was always seeing something

new in the colors. The base of the plant was filled

with the lifeless drying leaves of the past and at the

top was the new growth of improvement, reaching

for the sun! In-between is where the struggle takes

place.

Purple was once a symbol of royalty and can be regal

and elegant. The "Purple Heart" is the highest award

for our country's military.

I've also read that purple is the color of change,

a color of metamorphosis. A dear friend who had

just lost her husband helped me name this artwork.

Life changes, like the plants and trees of each year,

but life continues.

"Remember that as artist is always a student. We strive for perfection, but, if we close our eyes to new ways of seeing, perfection slips further from our midst. It is nice to have praise, money, honors, etc.; but, if we do not develop self-gratification, we'll never intuitively know when our work is right!

Rita ... a personal note ...

I feel some "in-between-the-line" anxiety from your role as student and from your role as a working artist; this is typical of your dual circumstance (we all feel this). But, as Bettelheim said: "Education is never painless..." and it is from working through this dilemma that we gain an understanding of our individual capacities to contribute to the art world."

The above is a quote from one of my favorite instructors, Professor G, to me on 2/24/85. As I work on painting a series of artwork for my upcoming exhibit in September, I think about my mingled past as a student and as a lifelong artist.

"Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything."

(Eugene Delacroix, 1798-1863)