Perspective of Emotion: Seeing

If you want to know who I am, listen carefully to what I say about others. There will always be a bit of truth about me in what I say or think about you or others. Everything I perceive is seen through my own eyes and experiences. My beliefs about the world and myself are one and the same.
  No person who speaks of others is a mystery. I see what I am.
  Guard your thoughts and words. Be especially careful of any negative words. Instead of "stupid" or "idiot" try "struggling" or " still learning." In either case, you'll be announcing to the world who you are, not the other person. Seek to see beauty and find things to be grateful for. Talk about these things and often! You are becoming them. When invited to complain or gossip, give of love instead. See the beauty in those who might hide behind talk of others. They speak of their own fears. Love them away, and never condemn. To do so is to condemn yourself. To love them, to lift them, is to rise with them in dignity.
    You cannot improve yourself without improving the world. We are one. When you see fault in another apply love to correct it in yourself. Again, we see what we are. I am part of you, and you are part of me. To take care of me, to heal me,  love yourself. Likewise, when you see beauty in the world, guess who you're seeing? smiles. You.
   Bring smiles where you can, point out the perfection of dandelions, the dance of life, and see that all is well, and all answers are known. If I see anger, it is with my own angry eyes. If I see incompetence, it is with my own insecurity. Therefore, see the abundance of forgiveness and the wisdom of the simple. This is not to claim the nonexistence of pain, but to claim your place in Love.  The problem with what I see is never what I see, but a problem with my own eyes. I have to shift my focus and look in the direction of Love. Then I find the beauty I see reflected in me.
  It is in you too. I see it all of the time. smiles.
tina jones


"Patience"
(Self Portrait)
36x48"
Acrylic on Canvas



30 second Recap: The Bible

Best stuff ever written!
  You got your book of baby names upfront, extensive travels, diet recommendations, rampant sex, marriage advice including foot care,  sex with the wrong person, talking animals, poetry, solitary sex, wars, heroes, Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, a "star is born,"  your basic be nice and share your cookies advice, recipes including wine making and how to "break" bread (we use knives mostly today), murderers, hygiene/hand washing coverage, and some dudes on some serious drugs at the end. I mean Stephen King should have been so creative.
  I read it extensively as a youth, and it gave me nightmares. Still, one can't help but love the poetry in the middle, and admittedly, I do go back sometimes and read the naughty bits.
grins!
  Enjoy the end of the world, or whatever you've got going on this evening.
Ba-da-bum-Teesh~!
tina jones

Mad Marker Sniffing: Study of Social Skills

You know the feeling. You think someone is watching, but that's just silly. They have better things to do. You pick up the non-toxic, washable children's markers, take three out, just to see if they respond, and wonder if they have a smell. Ofcourse, you don't sniff them lest you're labelled a "marker sniffer," then again it might get a reaction if indeed they are looking. Have a sniff you do, be it discreetly, and they instantly respond, "Do they have a smell?!" like excitable people do. "Nah," You might say, "Not much, but a slight one." They appear to return to their work, then you think of licking the marker just to see if they're still watching.....grins.
  Ofcourse, you don't do that. Everyone knows that is socially unacceptable, still...
tomorrow is another day.
  Yeah, I thought you'd understand.
(hehe)
tina jones

Art as Codependancy? Rant

I have what some have kindly called a chilled view of my art. It's paint, an anything else seen is merely incidental.
 Nothing has so much incited "Harumphff's" from other artists as this fact. I don't have a meaning or wish to communicate anything. I paint what I see. I don't express my inner self or want the world to *understand* me. I'm not a particularly needy person, and why should they? They've got their own things going on, and frankly I don't find myself so intriguing as to think they'd spend a moment on it....still.
  I find it curious and often amusing what others think my art means. For the purposes of this blog, I write something, then go find a piece of art that may or may not fit. The art was "paint." Most of the time it's not deep or complex. I'm far too lazy for that. Seriously, I just paint.With the exception of a scarce few, my paintings were not about emotion. Further, I find painting while being overly emotional as successful as balancing my checkbook during an emotional outburst. In other words, for me, the two are a disasterous combination. Emotional housekeeping, however I do pretty well.
   I find the effort to communicate something with paint to be far more confusing than simply saying it, so I write instead.
   Sometimes I've had people get indignant that I must have meant to *say* something in paint, because that was what they felt. I'm not powerful enough to force someone to feel something. If paintings were powerful enough to *make* people feel certain things, we'd all just sit and look at something beautiful and feel good all of the time. Sure, it helps, but please!
   No, I'm not buying it. If a viewer feels something, it's their feelings to be responsible for. The same goes when I feel something. No one forced it on me. I have and am responsible for my own feelings, my own sight. I cannot feel your feelings, and you cannot feel mine.
  But "What did the artist want to *communicate?*" Many of them do want to do that, and that's wonderful. Most do these days, but it wasn't always so.
   Artists used to be skilled craftsmen like cabinet builders, brick layers and masonry workers, and they used to get paid like these do. Relatively recent in history (last century), was the advent of wanting to express oneself in paint. Imagine a bridge builder insisting that he be understood. Personally, I'd not drive over that bridge.
   Technique has taken second or third place to emotion, and I don't see why they can't work together. With a solid ground of know-how, any direction might be taken, but so few even want to learn to draw. They aim to be *understood,* and it saddens me that they don't seem to have self acceptance. The idea of Van Gogh lobbing off an ear is not romantic to me. It's sad.
   Still, there are those who will not own their own feelings when looking at art. Blame seems to be the route to happiness for these. Again, "The artist must have intended it, because I felt it." Ok, let's take that to some well known artwork.
    May I introduce the classic "Ink Blot Test?" These were created by artists, yet they are used to find out what the viewer is all about. The artist smashed two pages together with ink, no intent, just ink....."just paint." These tests reveal the viewer.
   If the viewer insisted that "No! That's what they really are! That's what the artist intended!" They might get an interesting diagnosis.
   This is not to say that occasionally I might not experience an emotion during a painting, or that another might not have that same emotion on viewing it. It's fine when it happens, but I learn more about others when it doesn't. Most often what I paint and what people see are two different, if not opposing things, and this is cause for delight, because I am learning.
   I've painted the wealthy who were *seen* as impoverished. I've painted the serene who were *read* as insecure, I've painted the sad who others insisted were *sexy.* ad infinitum.
   I don't see any value in trying to get others to understand me, and I'm not so sadistic that I'd want you to experience some feelings. Alternately, some are so good, I'd rather keep them to myself. hehe! Besides, it's much more fun for me to try to understand others.
   Admittedly, I like the puzzles in paint of emotion that others make. I get to guess what they felt, and every once in a while, I get close.
    In compassion, for the emotional voyeurs among us: In any painting I've done, most often what I felt while painting was peace, a quiet mind without thought. Sometimes, I've felt a little paint get on my fingers too.  Maybe that's "sad, sexy, insecure and impoverished," It could represent the deep inner meaning of, or the social impications of.......(not a chance)  but I doubt it. winks!
  A quote from James McNeill Whistler,
"As to what the picture represents, that depends upon who looks at it." _{Art quote source: Pot of Paint by Linda Merrill, p151. Quoted in} Like Breath on Glass p32.a'
_{Read other Quotes from Whistler  here:
 http://painting.about.com/od/artandartistquotes/a/art-quotes-Whistler.htm}
tina jones

Does Size Matter?

When it comes to paintings, yes and no. Miniatures are big on the market, often detailed, gorgeous, and sometimes less expensive. Extremely large sofa or wall sized paintings are popular too.
  The following is a tip for artists who'd like to do very large works, but simply don't have the space to do them.
  Why not do little paintings in a very big way? Lately, I've worked mostly with 11x14's. Commonly accepted is the idea that portraits be about 75% of actual size up to actual size. Well, I like them bigger than that. For myself, I find more room for the detail I love to paint when I oversize works.
    This is an early stage of  my latest painting in the Black and White Series of a hand. It's an 11x14" photographed with my own hand beside it to show the scale of this work. This painting, while on a small canvas is "larger than life," so to speak.

This way of painting wont be for everyone. There is the issue of having more space to fill where there may not be much detail in your subject, but noting subtleties of color and light and shadow can fill those spaces beautifully.

   Here's the finished piece:



"Hand Of A Friend"
11x14"
Acrylic on Canvas





The Dark Side of Beauty

The earliest records of painting on cave walls record the kill of hunt. Caravaggio presented his bodiless head on canvas to a pope, and Frieda Kahlo painted herself skewered by a rod through her abdomen depicting the most painful moment of life to her at the time. Then perhaps most gripping was "The Scream" by Edvard Munch.

 Beauty is sometimes in the countrysides, sunsets and billowing impressionistic parasols...

Othertimes it reaches into taboo, those things we'd alternately rather not think about, or we think about them when no one is watching....

"Kneeling Nude (The Prayer)"
11x14
Acrylic on Canvas

Never Judge Your Possibilities By Someone Else's Limitations.

I owe a great deal of my success in painting to someone who told me years ago,
 "You cannot teach yourself to paint in oils!"
I was never clear if they meant it wasn't possible, or that it was not allowed.
Either way, I had work to do and didn't have time for such nonsense.

"George The Entertainer"

18x24

Oil on Canvas

Never judge your possibilities by someone else's limitations.

tina jones

                                                     (self taught, be it impossible or illegal)