Morris Graves
Morris Graves
Morris Graveswas an American painter. He was one of the earliest Modern artists from the Pacific Northwest to achieve national and international acclaim. His style, referred to by some reviewers as Mysticism, used the muted tones of the Northwest environment, Asian aesthetics and philosophy, and a personal iconography of birds, flowers, chalices, and other images to explore the nature of consciousness...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionArtist
Date of Birth28 August 1910
CountryUnited States of America
I love and in a way need, a private secret place. It's a kind of deep obsession, but I also love to need and be with friends and the two things often need to be together... it's a painful conflict that will never be smoothly resolved.
Whales have two things to do, eat and look for something to eat. So they cruise from kelp bed to kelp bed and then move on.
Whales have two things to do, eat and look for something to eat, ... So they cruise from kelp bed to kelp bed and then move on.
We've actually seen them so close that you can see the spout but you can't see the whale. You have to crawl out on your hands and knees and look out over the rocks. They like to come up and rub against the rocks.
I paint to rest from the phenomena of the external world-to pronounce and to make notations of its essences with which to verify the inner eye.
I paint to rest from the phenomena of the external world - to pronounce it -- and to make notations of its essences with which to verify the inner eye.
Such compositions, line and color ideas, such wonders come into my mind and have stuck! - They will this time be dismissed only by being painted out...
I am able to make a contribution... Let me repeat my convictions, I can make a contribution to American painting.
The painting cannot be laid aside even for a day; for it takes constant work to keep 'flowing,' but above that it takes concentration, which in our language is consecration.
I paint to evoke a changing language of symbols, a language with which to remark upon the qualities of our mysterious capacities which direct us towards the ultimate reality.
It takes waking prayer and working prayer and going to bed in prayer each day with increasing dedication. I must be the best person that I am able to be when I am painting. Tonight the wind is howling and the barrels are full of sky water.
You must first realize the thing completely in your mind. Then grasp the brush, fix your attention so that you see clearly what you wish to paint; start quickly, move the brush, follow straight what you see before you, as the buzzard swoops down when the hare jumps out. If you hesitate one moment, it is gone.
It may not always be obvious at first, but I think that everyone can make a valuable contribution if only they put their minds to it.
The artists of Asia have spiritually realized form, rather than aesthetically invented or imitated form, and from them I have learned that art and nature are mind's Environment within which we can detect the essence of man's Being and Purpose, and from which we can draw clues to guide our journey from partial consciousness to full consciousness.