Circle of Fifths, Peter Bradley, 1973, acrylic on canvas, 66 ¼ × 131 inches. Now showing as part of Hard Art at MoMA PS1. © Peter Bradley. Courtesy of MoMA PS1.
Hello, my friend,
Last week, I wrote about hope, and the unexpected ways it sometimes finds its way back into our lives.
I've been thinking about what happens next.
When hope returns, so does something else. Curiosity. Enthusiasm. The desire to create, discover, and engage with the world around us.
Inspiration is an interesting thing. We often associate it with artists, writers, musicians, and other creative people, but I've never believed it belongs exclusively to those who make things.
I find inspiration in all sorts of places. Art, certainly. A beautiful landscape. An unexpected combination of colors. A wonderful book. But just as often, it comes from people. A conversation that stays with me long after it's over. A generous act of friendship. A long, unhurried meal when nobody is particularly interested in looking at the time.
Love, beauty, and hope have always shaped how I approach my work and my life. And the longer I live, the more I recognize how closely they're connected to inspiration.
Sometimes, the most inspiring things are the ones we weren't looking for.
Morning Moon Spring (Ueno Park), Jude Morales, acrylic on birch panel, 30 × 30 inches. Courtesy of Stefani Art Gallery
Jude Morales: The Places We Carry With Us
Five new works by Jude Morales recently arrived at Stefani Art Gallery, and I've been enjoying the opportunity to spend time with them.
Jude's landscapes have an unmistakable character. Trees and buildings become arrangements of color and geometry. Familiar places take on unexpected shapes. His compositions can be wonderfully playful, yet they're built with extraordinary attention to balance, rhythm, and detail.
I recently interviewed Jude for an article about his work, and something he told me has stayed with me.
Rather than always painting directly from observation, he often works from an internal visualization of places he has experienced. He remembers the relationships between forms, the character of a landscape, and, perhaps most importantly, the emotional impression it left behind.
Those experiences eventually find their way into his paintings.
I find that fascinating.
The original landscape provides the inspiration, but the finished painting becomes something distinctly his own. Memory, imagination, craftsmanship, and intuition all contribute.
As a painter, I understand that process. We begin with an idea, but the work often reveals possibilities we hadn't anticipated. Knowing when to follow those discoveries is part of the pleasure, and sometimes the challenge, of making art.
Jude's paintings remind me that inspiration doesn't simply give us something to reproduce. It gives us something to interpret.
Hard Art: The Continuing Conversation of Abstraction
A fascinating exhibition opened this week at MoMA PS1 in New York.
Hard Art brings together more than ninety works by over forty Black American artists, examining the development of abstraction from 1969 to the present.
The exhibition includes artists such as Frank Bowling, Ed Clark, Peter Bradley, Howardena Pindell, and Mark Bradford, placing their work in conversation across generations.
What interests me is the relationship between artistic influence and independence.
Artists don't create in isolation. We study what others have made, absorb ideas, experiment with materials, and discover possibilities that might never have occurred to us otherwise.
Yet the objective isn't imitation. It's developing the confidence and judgment to make something entirely our own.
The exhibition also revisits the significance of PS1's 1980 presentation Afro-American Abstraction, bringing renewed attention to artists whose contributions deserve a more substantial place in the history of American abstract art.
I appreciate exhibitions that expand our understanding of artistic history while encouraging us to look again at the work itself.
Art is an ongoing conversation, and some of its most interesting developments happen when a new generation asks different questions.
Mary Oliver and the Practice of Paying Attention
Closer to home, the Portland Art Museum is presenting a screening of Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World this Sunday as part of the Portland Book Festival.
The documentary, directed by Sasha Waters Freyer, explores the life and work of one of America's most beloved poets.
Mary Oliver spent decades walking the woods and shorelines of Cape Cod, observing the natural world with extraordinary attention.
Her poetry reminds us that the seemingly ordinary can become remarkable when we take the time to notice it.
I've always appreciated that idea.
We live in a world that constantly competes for our attention. Yet so much of what enriches our lives asks very little of us beyond being present.
The changing light. The shape of a tree. The sound of rain. A conversation with someone we love.
Not every meaningful experience needs to become a work of art.
Sometimes experiencing it fully is enough.
Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity. Design renderings © Herzog & de Meuron. Courtesy of the Eames Institute
Worth Noting: A New Home for Infinite Curiosity
The Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity has revealed plans for a remarkable new museum in Novato, California.
Designed by Herzog & de Meuron, with EHDD and Field Operations, the project will transform a mid-century warehouse and surrounding landscape into a destination for art, design, making, learning, and gathering.
Charles and Ray Eames believed deeply in experimentation, craftsmanship, and the pleasure of discovery. Their work crossed the boundaries between furniture, architecture, photography, filmmaking, and education.
I particularly appreciate that the proposed museum will include places for people to work, learn, gather, and share meals.
It's a reminder that creativity flourishes through relationships and experiences, not simply through solitary work.
The museum remains in development, but its guiding idea is already a compelling one.
Curiosity is something worth cultivating throughout our lives.
What Moves Me: Inspiration
I've been thinking lately about how much inspiration we receive from one another.
A friend's encouragement. A thoughtful conversation. Someone else's enthusiasm for a subject we might never have considered. The pleasure of sitting around a table with good food and people whose company we genuinely enjoy.
And, of course, there is the beauty that surrounds us, asking only that we notice.
We don't have to turn every experience into something productive. Some of life's greatest pleasures are valuable simply because we have the opportunity to enjoy them.
Perhaps that's part of what makes inspiration so wonderful. It reminds us how much there is to discover, appreciate, and share.
And how much more beautiful life becomes when we remain open to it.
Have a fabulous weekend.
Christina
Christina Stefani
Founder, House of Stefani
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