The Artist
Some fifty years ago, at seminary in Cambridge, MA, Polly Brown, a poet, artist, and friend, handed me a thick piece of black Conti chalk and invited me to be playful with it on paper, letting lines and shapes emerge from a self-directed but hidden place within. I had never held artist’s chalk before. The novelty of its feel gave me permission to jettison old apprehensions and imperfect associations related to artistic expression. The freshness empowered me to experiment boldly and to create freely without any degree of self-reproach. In that one moment, something new was born or rather something latent came to the fore with vibrant intensity and fresh authority. From that moment on I have not stopped creating.
In painting I try to be as personal as I can be, letting the essence and direction of the pattern, content, and order emerge from within my own self. I do so in the trust that that which is deeply personal at some point will touch upon and give expression to that which is deeply universal.
I have found that reality at its deepest level is trustworthy as a guide to its own source; and that truth and beauty will find their own expression through any engaged and sustained focus on individuation. The delicate and surprising uniqueness of any object of creation has power and gives delight, referencing as it will to its own underlying spiritual reality. The mundane, when truly seen, is superlatively sublime.
My ardent desire for these works is that they will evoke some wonder and draw the viewer’s attention toward the primal, universal element wonderfully hidden though graciously present in the ordinary, everyday realm. Gerard Manley Hopkins in God’s Grandeur writes: “there lives the dearest freshness deep down things.” I believe this to be true; and in painting, I simply hope to touch and express it.
Robert Goldsmith
Elliston, Virginia
Some fifty years ago, at seminary in Cambridge, MA, Polly Brown, a poet, artist, and friend, handed me a thick piece of black Conti chalk and invited me to be playful with it on paper, letting lines and shapes emerge from a self-directed but hidden place within. I had never held artist’s chalk before. The novelty of its feel gave me permission to jettison old apprehensions and imperfect associations related to artistic expression. The freshness empowered me to experiment boldly and to create freely without any degree of self-reproach. In that one moment, something new was born or rather something latent came to the fore with vibrant intensity and fresh authority. From that moment on I have not stopped creating.
In painting I try to be as personal as I can be, letting the essence and direction of the pattern, content, and order emerge from within my own self. I do so in the trust that that which is deeply personal at some point will touch upon and give expression to that which is deeply universal.
I have found that reality at its deepest level is trustworthy as a guide to its own source; and that truth and beauty will find their own expression through any engaged and sustained focus on individuation. The delicate and surprising uniqueness of any object of creation has power and gives delight, referencing as it will to its own underlying spiritual reality. The mundane, when truly seen, is superlatively sublime.
My ardent desire for these works is that they will evoke some wonder and draw the viewer’s attention toward the primal, universal element wonderfully hidden though graciously present in the ordinary, everyday realm. Gerard Manley Hopkins in God’s Grandeur writes: “there lives the dearest freshness deep down things.” I believe this to be true; and in painting, I simply hope to touch and express it.
Robert Goldsmith
Elliston, Virginia
