M. Louise Stanley: Viaggi Artistici / Journals
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My work follows in the tradition of history and narrative painting documenting current and ficticious events using myth and allegory. The human condition, political issues, and art history are often explored. Voyeurism, a longing to 'be someplace else', and a sense of places and events remembered are recurring themes.
My paintings are based on research gathered during the annual Art Lover's Tour I organize and lead to Italy, Spain and France. In 1983, I received my first National Endowment for the Arts Grant and spent nine weeks in Europe beginning in London moving on to France, Spain, Italy, and Greece. With very little research under my belt and no language skills, I followed The Grand Tour blindly, trying to make sense of it all.
During that time I wrote 250 post cards, most of them bemoaning the fact that I hadn't studied enough and couldn't communicate and what was the meaning of life?
One day while standing in front of Giotto's Death of Saint Francis it hit me that as long as I was looking at a painting, drawing from a painting or just plain painting, I was home and in good company.
It was on that first trip that I began an ongoing dialog with my favorite dead artists through sketchbooks and studies of their work. It was a way to 'own the experience of having made the painting' as well as taking it home to savor. While on the road, I draw in museums, paint on location over lunch, and copy the post cards adding color (gouache) and gold leaf in my hotel room at night. I collect ugly babies, bloody feet, gargoyles, and architectural embellishments. At home these books have become my 'visual laboratory', the research for my paintings.
Rules for keeping a sketchbook:
Uno: Never, ever tear out a page unless you sell it, in which case you can replace it with a copy!
Due: Start on the third page to get your courage up.
Tre: Go back to the first page and do a self portrait when you've got the nerve.
Quattro: Strap your journal to your body, don't leave home without it.
Cinque: A little gold leaf and some color peps up a page.
Sei: Always carry a pencil with you, most museums won't let you use ink.
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