The painting I selected, done in late Spring, is a view of the canal that flows at the end of the street where I live in New Jersey. I walk along the canal almost daily, watching the water levels, feeding the ducks, picking up trash and following the cycle of the seasons. When I walk along the canal or the nearby Delaware river, by the fields or in the woods, when I look in the back yards, or down the streets, I am often filled by the fullness of what I see to the point of bursting. I usually feel this same way when looking at art in museums and galleries. I am compelled to respond creatively.
I paint to reenact and reestablish the intimacy I feel with the visible world. I paint small pictures to emphasize the intimacy. I paint to reconnect to the artistic aspirations of my grandfather and my mother, and to connect again with other artists, past and present. I paint to see anew and I look intently because I paint. I paint to share what excited my sight, and for others to see in my best work what motivated me to make it.
Often we spend an inordinate amount of our lives grasping for what is beyond us while neglecting or rejecting what has been given to us, until we gain the insight to open our eyes.
Frederick Franck wrote"...only if one sees one becomes harmless to all beings!" He writes about an inevitability of seeing, an inevitability of compassion and humanity that can come from the seeing and intimacy of painting, that leads to the right relationship to others and the world.
Robert H Lafond
Age: 62
"D&R Canal from the path across from It's Nutts Restaurant"
Soft Pastel 8 x 10
June, 2009
