Greetings! This website, and particularly right now, this “about” page is a work in progress. I’m writing it now, it’ll be different in a few days. Here’s what I’ve got so far:
I want to live more generously.
When I was in my early 30s I started attending a life-drawing group. I thought it would be therapeutic. It was a revelation. I found it so moving, humbling, to spend long minutes simply gazing at another human being. Drawing was the means. Whenever I picked up a piece of charcoal and looked at someone– the lines around her eyes, the shadows on his back– and began to draw, I felt I was on the trail of something vital.
That was years ago. Since then I’ve lost the trail many times. But I keep coming back to this sense that art can be a way into a deeper and more joyful and more compassionate life. That’s what I want it to be.
Paintings and drawings happen along the way.
In this website I want to share things I’ve done over the years. And what I’m working on now. And I want to write about why art making has been so important to me. I’m not sure what that will look like, but I’m hoping that writing will help me to clarify some things for myself.
I think of art as a sort of message in a bottle. You make a painting, put it out into the world, and hope it speaks to someone. This website is like that too. I’ll be glad to hear from you.
“One’s art goes as far and as deep as one’s love goes, and there is no reason for painting but that.”
— Andrew Wyeth
“Drawing is the discipline by which I constantly rediscover the world.”
–Frederick Franck
“… the world offers itself to your imagination,/ calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –/ over and over announcing your place/ in the family of things.”
— Mary Oliver
“We have all known the long loneliness, and we have learned that the only solution is love, and that love comes with community.”
— Dorothy Day
Andrew Pate © 2018