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Curioser and curioser…

unraveling-copy

Unraveling, 15 x 15″ Acrylic on Illustration Board

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”

– Albert Einstein

I suspect that while we can find all degrees of talent among great beings or great actions, at the heart of each of them is this same passionate curiosity. It’s certainly at the root of all great art.

It’s what makes us continue to try new things, to do better, to explore different approaches, to come up with new ideas about what to paint and how to paint.

If we were not passionately curious, we would be satisfied with good, but never seek great. Curiosity is the fuel – passion is the spark that turns the fuel into energy. Have you ever met a good artist who wasn’t curious about, not just art, but most things in life? And isn’t their curiosity always a passionate one? I think this is one of the qualities that most attracts people to artists – they get to feel the wash of this energy fueled by curiosity as it emanates from the artist in pursuit of their work.

So nurture and develop your curiosity – keep an open mind and don’t label things too quickly, ask questions, enjoy not knowing rather than viewing it as a handicap.

bobcornelis

4 responses to “Curioser and curioser…”

  1. Virginia Wieringa Avatar
    Virginia Wieringa

    This is incredibly rich! It looks a lot bigger than 15″!

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  2. Rick Barba Avatar
    Rick Barba

    Okay, your stuff is good. But what I’m looking for is a recreation of the tapestries we hung in our 10th floor Swig room junior year.

    Now THAT was art …

    Rick

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  3. bobcornelis Avatar
    bobcornelis

    Rick –

    Wow! A totally unexpected and very cool blast from the past! What’s it been, 30+ years?

    But what about sophomore year, when we painted our dorm room deep blue and hung a glass green orb from fish netting in the middle of the room? Clearly our aesthetic sense was highly developed even back then.

    Seriously, good to hear from you. It would be great to reconnect and catch up – what’s the easiest? Email, Facebook, ?
    You can get my email here – what’s yours?

    Virginia –

    Thanks! One of the interesting things about seeing artwork online is that very small or very large pieces can be shown at the same size which really changes the experience of them. I guess almost everything is seen smaller on the screen than it is in real life.

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  4. Rick Barba Avatar
    Rick Barba

    Yeah, we’ve got a little catching up to do.

    It just hit me that my oldest son is the same age we were when we first roomed together in Dunne … and painted that exquisite recreation of the Yellow Submarine album cover on the wall outside our door. Ha, I should have known you’d end up a painter.

    I fill you in on more via email. I’m at rickbarba1@gmail.com

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