Making Art Soup

mysterious oil painting of a deer skull, crow quill pen, parchment, a frog in a jar and mysterious bottles by christine mitzuk
Alchemist’s Workbench, oil on canvas.

It’s bubbling away there on the back burner. My Art Soup. All the ingredients are blending their flavours together to make what is currently my personal way of picture making, or my style I suppose. Some ingredients I was given. Some I deliberately sought out. Some just kind of fell in to the pot.

Lately I’ve been thinking about influences. All the interests I have had. All the things I’ve done. All the choices I’ve made. All the people that have moved through my life. All are ingredients in my Art Soup.

I remember something Allen Williams said, “notice what you notice” (I might be paraphrasing).

Then the next question pops up, “why did I notice that?” “What characteristic of that thing made it interesting to me?” Sometimes I just have to appreciate the thing for a time and maybe the answer of why will come later. It’ll be added to my Art Soup and blend with the existing ingredients.

I’m kind of excited to sample my Art Soup several years from now. I wonder what it will be like?