STOP, LOOK AND THINK #8

Dear Reader,

This is the eighth blog in a series written to offer another way to experience art. I hope that you can give yourself several minutes to do this activity. One of my paintings is below, followed by a set of instructions.

STOP, LOOK AND THINK before you scroll down to each section. There are no right or wrong responses.

1. Here is the painting. STOP and LOOK at it for a few minutes. Stay with the image. Take a few deep breaths and pay attention to your feelings and thoughts. Positive? Negative? A confused mix of emotions? Nothing at all? What’s going on in your gut? Is there anything in the painting that you can recognize or relate to?

2. Here are a few facts about my painting: Title: “Family of Six, Dispersed” - Medium: acrylic on canvas, 24” by 18” - Created in 2005. This information may or may not verify or affect your first response. Now that you have some added information, compare your thoughts and feelings to your first response (image only). Is there anything about the title and painting that clicks?

3. Here is the story. A set of words took hold in the news media in late August 2005 and dominated our consciousness for weeks: storm surge, breached levees, category 4, evacuation, helicopters, New Orleans, Superdome, Ninth Ward. Does each word jar your memory? Does a kaleidoscope of images pulse in your brain? Hurricane Katrina took the lives of more than 1800 people on the Gulf of Mexico coast. Many more were displaced. Artists expressed their horror and sadness, as I did in my studio with “Family of Six, Dispersed.” Type Hurricane Katrina/fine art/ into your search engine to see thousands of examples.