blake rayne....
see his work here..

Paradise is an idealized place in which existence is positive, harmonious and timeless. It is conceptually a counter-image of the miseries of human civilization, and in paradise there is only peace, prosperity, and happiness. Paradise is a place of contentment, but it is not necessarily a land of luxury and idleness. It is often used in the same context as that of utopia.



jack pierson...
see more of his work here..

Faith is often used in a religious context, as in theology, where it almost universally refers to a trusting belief in a transcendent reality, or else in a Supreme Being and said being's role in the order of transcendent, spiritual things.




Howard Finster
1916-2001
look here..

"I do messages, for the spiritual people that believes in my messages, to try to help people to take care of the world, get it back in shape, I do messages on peace among men, I done a big message on world-come-together, I been preaching on things like that for several years."




"One day I had a vision to go full-time on my art and lay everything else aside. I was out on the porch looking down toward the road, and there was a man standing at the gate about fifteen feet tall, and his head was big as a refrigerator. He was familiar to me, I’d met him before, but I couldn’t think of his name to save my life. I didn’t know what to say to him, so I finally said what I say to the other customers, “What can I do for you, sir?” and he said, “You can get on the altar.” And that surprised me. I been preaching forty years, what does he mean? I asked him, “Did you say, ‘Get on the altar?’” and he said, “Yeah, get on the altar.” And when he said that he went down to a normal man, just looking over the top of the gate. And after that went away I said, “Lord, what does this mean?” The Lord said, “If you want to be pretty big in the art work, just reach on out there and go full-time. If you just want to go on and do art part time, you can be a little guy like you are.”







"And one day I was workin' on a patch job on a bicycle, and I was rubbin' some white paint on that patch with this finger here, and I looked at the round tip o' my finger, and there was a human face on it... then a warm feelin' come over my body, and a voice spoke to me and said, 'Paint sacred art."

read more of this interview here.....

Anne Truitt (1921-2004)


"I've struggled all my life to get maximum meaning in the simplest possible form..."

"That's what I've spent my life doing, and it's never been understood."


"Artists have no choice but to express their lives," Mrs. Truitt wrote. "They have only . . . a choice of process. This process does not change the essential content of their work in art, which can only be their life."




Roni Horn
interivew here.....

Horn: I want to make sensible experience more present. People have much more knowledge than they realize. I try to reach the viewer by addressing the bodily and not just the mental/nonphysical being. The viewer must take responsibility for being there, otherwise there is nothing there. Making Being Here Enough is just that. I don't mean it in the sense of dismissing the past and the future, but in taking what is here/now actively. It's like you're eating it. You are taking it in.

Installation view of Roni Horn's Gold Field (1992) in the foreground and Felix Gonzalez-Torres's Untitled (1991) in the rear

Eexcerpt of a 1990 text by Gonzalez-Torres read by Roni Horn at his memorial service:

L.A. 1990. Ross and I spent every Saturday afternoon visiting galleries, museums, thrift shops, and going on long, very long drives all around L.A., enjoying the “magic hour” when the light makes everything gold and magical in that city. It was the best and worst of times. Ross was dying right in front of my eyes. Leaving me. It was the first time in my life when I knew for sure where the money for rent was coming from. It was a time of desperation, yet of growth too.

1990, L.A. The Gold Field. How can I deal with the Gold Field? I don’t quite know. But the Gold Field was there. Ross and I entered the Museum of Contemporary Art, and without knowing the work of Roni Horn we were blown away by the heroic, gentle and horizontal presence of this gift. There it was, in a white room, all by itself, it didn’t need company, it didn’t need anything. Sitting on the floor, ever so lightly. A new landscape, a possible horizon, a place of rest and absolute beauty. Waiting for the right viewer willing and needing to be moved to a place of the imagination. This piece is nothing more than a thin layer of gold. It is everything a good poem by Wallace Steven is: precise, with no baggage, nothing extra. A poem that feels secure and dares to unravel itself, to become naked, to be enjoyed in a tactile manner, but beyond that, in an intellectual way too. Ross and I were lifted. That gesture was all we needed to rest, to think about the possibility of change. This showed the innate ability of an artist proposing to make this place a better place. How truly revolutionary.

This work was needed. This was an undiscovered ocean for us. It was impossible, yet it was real, we saw this landscape. Like no other landscape. We felt it. We traveled together to countless sunsets. But where did this object come from? Who produced this piece that risked itself by being so fragile, just laying on the floor, no base, no plexiglass box on top of it…. A place to dream, to regain energy, to dare. Ross and I always talked about this work, how much it affected us. After that any sunset became “The Gold Field.” Roni had named something that had always been there. Now we saw it through her eyes, her imagination.

Daniel Argyle
see more here...