Inspired by emotion in the paint, and by the artist who felt the color in people, could hear color and saw colors we closed our eyes to long ago, and painted them.

"My sister is always putting the past behind
her— Well I use the past to make my pics
and I want all of it and even you and me in
candlelight on the train and every "lover" I've
ever had—every friend—nothing closed out—
and dogs alive and dead and people
and landscapes and feeling even if it is
desperate—anguished—tragic—it's all part
of me and I want to confront it and sleep
with it—the dreams—and paint it."

JOAN MITCHELL

I have donated a piece to this upcoming event helping children at risk. Check it out!

Due to the weather conditions past & present, there will be an additional showing this Sunday, Nov. 6th, 11am-3pm. Hope you can make it then if you weren't able to before.

by EDUFILMi

http://alfredleslie.com/

I’ve been thinking a lot about my art and identity since the New Year. After what felt like almost birthing a series of paintings, I was left in astonishment. What the HELL is going on?! What am I doing?! Who is this?!!... I have been in both panic and exhilaration at the same time, but I guess they mix well together and make life interesting, so I am grateful. Much better than dull!

Is this art coming out of me or am I coming out through my art? I never imagined it quite this way, but I feel so alive that I am going with it, sometimes dancing with it and sometimes confronting it, not worrying about the “mess”. Embracing its truth because it’s me after all. And if someone doesn’t know what to say about it, that’s okay because I don’t know what to say about it either, except that it’s real and free.

I’m back into de Kooning’s biography, mid-book, page 327. I swear, reading what de Kooning has to say about art grounds me completely. I love what the authors open chapter 23 with: “An artist is forced by others to paint out of his own free will.” De Kooning did what he felt inclined to do no matter what. As de Kooning said himself when MOMA asked him to speak on abstract art, “Nothing is positive about art except that it is a word.” I love that.

Well, here is “The One Love I Can Depend On”. The glorious Big Apple...always new, always changing, but always the same magnetic energy! Always home. I love you dearly.

Happy Summer Solstice!

Spring is just days from ending and certainly the weather is making it terribly clear. Here is the beginning of the emergence of new works so much inspired by my beloved New York City, with its never failing sweeping percussion of soulful urbanity. I can't get you out of my system!

Every artist struggles with the void, and it is the void that often brings them to their art, the void that calls to them, the void that makes the need to create above all else. It is their connection to the world and to themselves. The past 3 days I have been struggling with the "void", as it sometimes taps me on the shoulder when I am caught in the spaces between the actions. Searching in my mind's sea, I am at times physically paralyzed, mute and anxious, but my mind spins with explosions of imagery. It can sometimes be exhausting. I need nothing more but a very gentle quiet space to myself, undisturbed, until the urge to physicalize comes. And it is sudden.

I have been in the midst of 3 new paintings: Windows, The One Love I Can Depend On and the 3rd remains untitled. I have been battling them a little bit, as art-making can sometimes be a battle, challenging like a relationship that’s meaningful. It can make the worst and best come out of you. Yesterday, on one of my worst days, my husband and I had a long discussion about art making and we used the very term "void" as we were examining what this means to the artist.

Later in the evening and strangely enough, when I asked him to read me some de Kooning—yes, we sometimes read bed-time stories to each other—when he opened the biography to where I had left off, a new chapter fabulously began, Chapter 19: Darkness Radiant and it began with this quotation:

"In Genesis, it is said that in the beginning was the void and God acted upon it. For an artist that is clear enough. It is so mysterious that it takes away all the doubt. One is utterly lost in space forever."

How convenient!

And then I saw Picasso's Drawings with Light this morning as I was drinking coffee and the urge came and ideas are rolling...

Picasso: Drawing With Light

Open Water     24 x 18"