I was born into Gauguin’s canvases, even as a child and especially in adolescence, continuing to live through his colors and images into adulthood. I will never be able to figure out how a bad man might produce beautiful art. The moral ambiguity stings. I think of Van Gogh as a good man, if it is realistic to make those comparisons at all. Does creative passion and drive overrule personal choices? Gauguin’s way of life attracted me, as far as turning away from society and living in a more or less uncivilized world. His use of color, his departures from conventional perspective, his female figures portrayed so naturally in their beauty. Van Gogh’s life was troubled, just on the edge of society, and he must have
been a difficult person in many ways, but his canvases are remarkable in their innate understanding of line and color and composition. To me everyone of his paintings is a prayer of thanksgiving just to be able to live on this earth and to paint. Over and over, as I..
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Barry Brown Joined: Jul-20-2021 |
Catherine Ferguson, poet, painter, and santera, lives in the village of Galisteo, New Mexico. She was born in Mexico City in 1947 where both her parents studied art atthe Escuela de Pintura y Escultura under the tutelage of Frida Kahlo (her mother called Maestra Frida), and other noted Mexican painters and sculptors. Developing a keen eye for nature, Catherine grew up in a geography without borders, floating between the (then) small desert town of Scottsdale, Arizona, down to the interior of Mexico, and the west coast beaches of La Jolla, California. She studied art at the University of Arizona in Tucson, afterwards joining the intimate art scene of Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the early 1970”s. Catherine has continued to paint and write poetry all of her life. She has written numerous chapbooks and has won two New Mexico Book Awards: one for poetry as co-author of The Sound a Raven Makes, and another for her retablo illustrations in You Who Make the Sky Bend by Lisa Sandlin.
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