I have a love for art history that rivals my desire to paint. Its been on the back-burner for the last couple of years, due to time constraints and because I wanted to focus on other things besides art. Lately, that love has been rekindled. I am currently reading through THE AMERICAN ART BOOK like it's candy. I rented a Sister Wendy video on the story of painting, contemporary era. It is such a wonderful thing to have a nun explaining her love for Agnes Martin.

One artist I have fallen for in the last couple of years is Marsden Hartley. I am ashamed to say I don't know a thing about his life. I went to the museum of art in St Louis about two years ago and after hours of looking at everything from Van Gogh to Kiki Smith, I fell upon a small Hartley depicting a stylized cubistic waterfall and couldn't leave its side. I wanted to touch it. I looked at it for as long as I could without arousing suspicion that I was some psycho who was about to lash out and slash the thing (like someone did to a Da Vinci). It was a true masterpiece. I went back a year later and it was gone put away in a vault somewhere. I worked in a museum for three years and realized that they have so much more art than we see, only the tip of the iceberg is on display. (ooh a painting of an iceberg would be cool, note to self).

I look forward to reading about Hartley soon. Today in my studio I am going to be starting my own waterfall painting, which is another way to study an artist.