The Art Room

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Philip Koch, Northern Pines, Morning,  oil on panel, 12 x 24", 2012
The artist Taryn Day writes an intriguing blog titled The Art Room that I believe many of my readers would enjoy. Taryn likes to focus on a theme for each month to organized her posts. Previously she had featured my work in a series she ran on the theme of windows.

 This month she is writing about artists who write blogs themselves and invited me to contribute a few favorite paintings and some comments about why I chose them. And she added some choices of her own and gave some of her thoughts. So I'd like Taryn's blog post to make a "guest appearance" on my blog for today. Here is the link to her feature from yesterday on my paintings. 

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Edward Hopper- Looking Out

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Edward Hopper, Cape Cod Morning,   oil on canvas, 1950,  Smithsonian American Art Museum Above is a painting I've loved for some forty years. I'm fortunate to be able to see it often as it lives in the SAAM in Washington, D.C. . This painting contains a real clue to Hopper's art. I visit there often as it helps me learn how to see better. Often writers will talk about the loneliness of Hopper's paintings or how his figures feel isolated and rarely interact with one another. While there is some of that in Hopper's painting, it begs a question- why is Hopper's art so widely loved? I'd offer a couple of answers. First, he's one of the most talented painters and was able to invent visual equivalents for strong emotions we humans experience as we live our lives.  He saw color combining in unexpected ways and offered up generous servings of the most delicious color combinations. Yum. Usually, as in the SAAM's Cape Cod Morning above, when he paints
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Ever Wonder What's in the Next Room in Hopper's Rooms by the Sea?

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Edward Hopper's Poetry of Empty Rooms

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