Description
By Ronald L Oliver
Published: 2022
Pages: 146
Key Themes: Art
Description
I am a product of the lower income working class. My father worked with machinery while my mother was a variety store clerk for most of her adult life. You could say that I was a poor boy, and my story has been told so many times before. I want to tell it one last time, because a lot of people do not pay attention. This collection looks back at the drawings and paintings done over a lifetime. It began with a hunger to draw that I first noticed and acted on when I was around twelve years old. This book represents a chance to put them altogether into a whole that traces my development over the years, and I hope it tells my story in full.
From the start, I have used drawing and painting as a of seeking truth. It allowed me to focus better on the world at hand and ignore everything else. By calling them artwork, they looked more lasting as I wanted them to remain and stay. I thought they could speak with my voice and say what I wanted to say.
It came natural to me from of an inner desire to get things right, to speak the truth. It seemed that there was a basic need to draw, paint, and express what was on the inside. I could organize and put things together on paper or canvas that went together in no other way, at no other time. It was a way entering the bigger world outside myself and I walked into that world eagerly.
I was first inspired by a glossy photo‐journal of the early sixties with photographs of Caroline Kennedy on top of a horse. When I later tried to ride a horse in imitation it ran to the middle of an interstate expressway and stopped in its tracks, frozen with fear. I loved horses until I learned they had a will of their own that was often greater than that of the rider. Regardless, they were often better on paper than in real life.
I started drawing with a pencil and charcoal but later graduated to oils paints, acrylics, pastels and finally watercolors. I always felt lost until I made it my own and was comfortable with it. I still search for a permanent beauty, a harmony that may not be there otherwise. It gives me a deep satisfaction when it comes out as I wanted it in the first place. It helps me to keep me away from telling scattered and pointless, disorganized stories. Art was good therapy then now. The process still works. I would encourage anyone with the smallest well of desire or need to jump in the water, to get wet. It feels good, and the water is fine.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.