Art Thought

Summer Days

2011-07-25T14:30:00.007-04:00

Newport, RI

Returned from a recent harbor cruise I am confident in my belief that this area is magnificent. Contrary to early pining and departing from basic tendencies, this new millennium has brought a test of my perception of actuality, my own reality and that want to discover and depict it's beauty. Thus, the production has been meager but the results none-the-less satisfying if it were not for the self-doubt wrought from this radical departure from the erratic constancy of my oeuvre. It being grounded in vague definitions.

Let me pine less and beg you the viewer to dare more and examine these works and find what you may of them. Here is depicted the corner-post of the public wharf-age at Newport, Bowen's Wharf, on a fine summer day.

The PLAN

2007-11-30T09:01:00.000-05:00

This month some significant changes occur at my website http://billmurphy.com. Among them, links to the tired "guestbook" routine have been taken down. After years of service, the notion seems old-fashioned and has "fallen" to the new fashion - blogging. It's time for this artist to get with it. The same is true of the ePostcard, it does appear... and this aspect is being toned down at the site and the BLOG link replaces many intros to the postcard service... it remains available, just slightly less obvious.

Though not flattering, the photo of myself here was taken at Keleti Station, Budapest some years back. Recently, for some unexplainable reason, it has been on my mind... so voilà, it's here for "share." Let me end this by remarking that the "hope" is that we hear (read) more from y'all (as my MS uncle might say) in the near future.

PARIS

2005-02-21T20:55:00.000-05:00

Intentions

2005-02-21T20:47:00.000-05:00

My initial intent was to challenge our notions of seeing, to demonstrate with a painting what is "in the mind's eye," if you will allow the cliche. More often I have fallen into the simpler ambition of creating something interesting to look at, remarkable would be better. Our ideas bear some relationship to form and color; by accepting the Unknown we may come closer to a personal reality and that may bring us even closer to describing the actuality. Imagery might appear as combinations of thoughts based on memory, shaped by experience and influenced by personality. Our environment has a strong influence. Someone once said, "we see through our own filters," a unique set of filters. Wm. Blake suggested that experience informs our views. If you know Songs of Innocence and Experience, you know this much. Today, I seek to "join the circle", seeking innocence "beyond experience." Often, I am distracted. Was I commanded to "be one of the little children?" Beyond remarkable, the artist might reach for completion... the last painting might be named "Innocence Regained".

CATHOLIC GIRLS

2005-01-12T08:39:00.000-05:00

"THE CATHOLIC GIRLS"

by Bill Murphy

Emblem of the Universal

Search for Sophia

In the desert of Sodom.

Distant lights beckon

The flower girls of virginity

Oh, Holy Pope!

A Picture

2005-01-12T08:26:00.000-05:00

CHAMPOUX - 2005 68"x46"

Beginnings

2005-01-12T07:02:00.000-05:00

I began painting as a child. If you have modeled clay or "painted-by-the-numbers" then you should know what this is about. In my early teens, I completed my first oil painting. Within weeks, I had received an unsolicited offer to purchase that first painting. Can you imagine? The would-be buyer was full of praise for this, my first work. So much so, I was compelled to confess that I had copied a painting that had graced the cover of Sports Illustrated Magazine. It was not my original. Immediately, the buyer reduced her offer by two-thirds. Well... the second offer I declined and the piece remained with me. Since then, it has vanished like so many other things and people. Nonetheless, some value was gained. I learned two things: that my paintings might sell and that originality is more valuable than imitation, by at least 200 per cent. Today, I use computer graphics programs to produce nearly all of my images.