warren criswell

1996: Tango, oil on wood
 
2012: Angry Birds, terracotta, & Conjunction,watercolor

watercolors, oils, prints, drawings & sculptures
from the past, present & future 
at
CANTRELL GALLERY
June 29 - August 18, 2012

8206 Cantrell Road, Little Rock, AR 72227

 
Pyche, 2012, terracotta

 
"Quite so, Watson. You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear."
...........................................................................................(Sherlock Holmes)

Time flows faster when we're younger because new experiences are coming at us all the time. The unknown lies ahead of us, waiting to be discovered, inspiration not a problem. When we get older the world has gotten older too. Fewer things surprise us. We start repeating ourselves without realizing it. This is the time the artist and the mathematician dread. We see our creativity going down the drain. We have been there and done that. Time seems to speed up and we can see Death down the road, trying to thumb a ride.

But wait a minute…. That too is inspiring! That may be one of the "future" images this show promises. Recently I sat in on a life modeling class at UALR and did some terracotta sculptures. I thought of it as just an exercise, since all of us were working from the same poses and I already knew what a naked woman looks like--or so I thought. But nobody else's sculptures looked like mine, and it was as if I had never seen a woman before! Entropy, in the form of an angry bird, appeared out of nowhere. Art had somehow emerged from the exercise. And then going home late one night from one of those classes, I got out of my car and was ambushed by the universe. A sky full of menacing constellations, with Venus and Jupiter drawing a bead on this planet I was standing on! It was as if I had never seen the sky before. I'm still trying to paint it.

For an artist, the trick is to preserve one's insanity. Sometimes I think I've been cured and doomed to repeat myself until I catch up to that damned hitchhiker. But then the Muse shows me something I have seen but never observed, and I realize I'm still crazy after all.

Warren Criswell, May 5, 2012 

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All images and text on this Web site Copyright © 2012 by Warren Criswell