From: Deb Clarke
“Karen”
This is Karen, the completed work documented in my earlier ‘wip’ in the series “Faces I Remember”. It is finished. During the process that brought the work to this point I was continually critiquing the work. I kept trying to get the eyes above the one third, but my inclination was to keep cutting the ‘shape’ down. This morning I finally decided to find the center of my canvas. Wouldn’t you know it? French painter Pierre Bonnard’s words critiqued the work, he said: “There should be nothing in the center of a painting.” Then portrait artist Helen Van Wyck words critiqued the work: “In a portrait the eyes should be around the one third point.” then I said: The Hell you say! I’m still in training! This is Karen and this is the way I do it. I broke the rules, yet it works. why? because it is didactic and self referential. so, there.
