WELCOME to the Artist's - Writing Desk
To anyone interested in the life and thoughts of an artist.
Gold Coast, Australia November 22nd 2009 (11.49am)
Since the beginning of my career as an artist, I have filled a lot of diaries and other notebooks etc. As time permits I will attempt to give you excerpts from these. Some might find them more interesting then my art. That's OK.
I don't think Vincent Van Gogh ever thought his letters would be published either. Mine are very personal and several psychics (yes, I do believe in the unseen) have recommended I have talent as a writer. We'll see.
You will notice mistakes. English was never my best subject at school. In fact it may have been my worst. I think it was. So please excuse me in this regard. I will try to make up for this with my content and IDEAS but there are no guarantees. We can only ever do our best and leave it up to others whether there is VALUE in what we have done.
This is fun, and I hope you find it that way too. Like my art anything might happen here. I do believe in attempting to reveal the deepest, most profound part of our beings for the benefit of others. This is no easy task as it takes complete honesty with ourselves and others. Also it means we must accept our failures as learning experiences and know that they are ALWAYS leading us in the right direction even when we seem to be going backwards.
Sorry, that is getting too heavy. I must continually remind myself too LIGHTEN UP. Everything seems to work better that way.
There, I wrote nearly a half page of nothingness and it did not hurt at all. Hope you found it interesting enough to visit again soon. Oh, a plea for HELP before you go ........please go to eBay and buy some of my super cheap (low priced) art listed there. I REALLY do NEED the money so I can go on and fulfill my BIG DREAMS.
Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts.
Robert
November 22 nd 2009 (3.51pm)
Just wondering why I am living on the Gold Coast. It is about as opposite to New York as I can imagine. Then the thought just crossed my mind. I LOVE opposites. I LOVE contrast. I LOVE all things. By being in a totally different place you can appreciate everything. You notice things we can all take for granted and quickly project them in your mind against another screen that locals are NOT familiar with. A screen of far-a-away places. Most people are content with sameness. I am not. One is not better than the other. Just different.
My art seeks structure and certainty but only to a point. Then I love to brake the flow, stretch myself with new and unfamilar challenges. Get out of a rut. An example of this is music. I love The Blues but too much begins to bore me and I may go to classical music for a change. The people I know who love The Blues would NEVER go to classical music. I am different. To me the thumping driving beat on Blues only makes a violin concerto that much more profound and tender. These are at extreme ends of the emotional scale but I LOVE both.
From my diary entry of : July 6, 2006 (5.13am)
Yesterday I photographed and had printed two of my drawings. I am going to put the prints on eBay to see if they sell. The whole question of modern prints hangs over me. I wonder about not being able to produce the highest quality prints, like the Old Masters did. Still, with new technologies and modern thinking, I came up with a term this morning which might be more acceptable and satisfy my artistic goals - "Print Imperfect".
I do not want each print exactly the same. Since I am striving to express the human spirit, which is diverse in every human being - we all have our strengths and weaknesses - why not show it in my prints. Engineering, manufacturing, etc. strive for perfectly reproduced items. Art aims to set the spirit FREE; to remind us of our human qualities - the beauty of us just as we are. So I accept, and will encourage, my imperfections, knowing they make me... me.
Drama comes from our imperfections. Great drama comes from first accepting, then re-organising, those imperfections to create something magnificent. What is regarded as imperfect today will be the fashion in another day. Expressing our inner vision is far more important than what we see. How we feel - express that and allow the imperfections.
Every part of us is real and important. Express it all. But allow the imperfections freedom - welcome them, embrace them. We are all "perfect" just as we ARE....WITH all our imperfections. It is OK to mess up, we all do that sometime in our lives. It's OK to regularly mess up, there are no rules. Messing up is only another way of discovering more about ourselves and the world around us.
The truth is we are all fragments of the same stuff. We have been given individual expression for some purpose and our faults are included for a purpose too. Without them, our lives would be "perfect" - predictable and boring. Maybe we are like a tree - all green and magnificent to those who see it above ground, but knotty, dirty and messy below ground. However, it is the same tree, and one could not exist without the other. We need to SEE and ACCEPT the beauty of the roots. The tree could not exist without them. And we could not exist without trees.
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Gold Coast, Australia
June 15th 2011
Have just linked my 2 new online galleries to this site and the intention is to make my art and that of my students and friends available for sale there. Any support or purchase would be greatly appreciated and can be arranged through PayPal. Also we hope your investment returns to you many fold.
Gold Coast, Australia
April 25th 2012
This new website seems to be setting up quite easily and I am taking what I can from my old burgessart.com site which is due to close at the end of this month. Weebly seems to be offering me the best site for my current requirements. It was another case of "Ask and you will receive." After many, many hours of searching and almost giving up I found Weebly. Previously I had found Wix.com which I love and have set up a couple of sites there. It offers a lot but this seems to be just right for me. Particularly enabling me to write as I am at present.
I would love to write more and often and will make a special effort to do so. Last night I read what I had written earlier in this page and it seemed written for me NOW. How weird? So I MUST write even if to just clarify my own thinking....and it might just help others too.
Must add ........... LOVE ART! and hope you do too.
If you get to this point of my writings and feel like you would like to comment ...for any reason, please go to my contact page and send an email. Art is mostly created in solitude so some feedback would be helpful. Particularly if your name is David Hockney who I know is always seeking new ideas and ways of expression. It was J.M.W. Turners birthday recently and many people on facebook celebrated it too. I was one. I would never have become an artist except for him. His artwork changed the direction of my life. It inspired and gave me purpose. I always laugh when I remember when I sat before a panel of selection judges at THE top Australian Art School at the time and I gave Turner as one of the artists who had influenced my art. "Turner? Turner? why Turner? how could HE influence you?" asked one of the judged with great indignation and pomposity. He was only looking for the artists of the day. The artists who were "in Fashion." I was only wanting to be influenced by the really GREAT ARTISTS and still am. Although I did not realise it at the time I did not "FIT IN" there and went on to learn my trade where real skills were appreciated and encouraged. Like DRAWING. How I love to draw.
Enough, now I must get on with my art.
Copyright Burgess 1997 - 2022 (c)
