[TaLisa.]

here goes  🙂 answers for me & my process, to Michal’s tough but excellent questions.

• Wanting more specifics about my family and cultural background? Looking at my photo and try to guess what it might be? This is probably the toughest for me, because of my life experience with it. Women in my family have been very strong, positive, powerful role models for me (mother, grandmother, godmother, aunts, cousins). Sometimes too strong for our own good. I’m attracted to painting women with big hair (we all don’t have big hair), and don’t have the same urge to paint men. The cultural piece is that i’m Black. I am technically biracial – however i was raised in a Black home; 2 black parents, all black extended family. Unsure what someone sees when they look at my profile photos. Then my full name is totally misleading and outside of the standard norms for names in a hispanic culture. Its very confusing to others that are not in my immediate family. So after a lifetime of all this confusion, i wonder does it really mater? Should it matter? Why do people want to know this? It seems that when i tell them, they don’t want to accept it. I’m rambling now…
• Yes, I have been very safe with my word choices. I agree that I need to be confidently in charge.
• What is universal beauty? Can you specifically describe it? Universal beauty is aesthetically pleasing and/or inclusive for everyone, every race, every background, every culture. While my paintings will not be aesthetically pleasing to everyone, i have given them the invitation.
• What specific types of flowers and arrangements and how do you incorporate it into your work? A lot! off the top of my head i’ve done roses, anemones, ranunculus, magnolias, and my own spin off of all sorts of florals. From my studies, true technical botanical illustrators would probably hate my work, lol. Botanical illustrators were masters of detailing every nuance of their subjects, often from live flowers too. Just that amount of time and detail is fascinating. Contrarily, I’m an abstract painter and i paint quickly. Perhaps i haven’t arrived at the end vision of this exploration, but florals are very inspiring.
• is typography just intriguing or does it inform your work? i have used letterforms in my work. i often write into my paintings (my brushstrokes). Black & white typography is minimal yet bold, makes a statement with out all the fluff.
• Leave out the words expressive, soulful, and sophisticated and let the viewer make those assumptions? I would argue then, to also leave out my cultural background details and let the viewer decide. I’m not stuck on having that line in there. They are words that i connect with though.

anyone else can chime in.

 

[TaLisa.]

Michal – wow, what a story! now i have to go back and find your site. i am especially attracted to your statement about how stripped-down life is. Perhaps we have different meanings of that, but to me, its why my own statement is kind of minimal.