Welcome to AllArtWorks Featured Artist Series!
1. What other profession is similar to being an artist and why?
There are many professions that are similar to being an artist. It is any work that requires you to be open to the mystery of the creative process.
2. What’s the nicest thing you can remember someone said about your work, or an individual piece?
“That painting resonates with me” is probably the highest compliment I have received about my painting. I always strive for clarity and simplicity in every painting I make. I think we all want to create work, no matter how small or humble, that has the possibility of being a force for good in our complex world.
3. What’s one thing you’d like everyone to know about you as an artist?
Both my parents Jack and Doris Mueller were great appreciators of the arts and talented in their own right. We lived in Japan during my early childhood. Our time in Japan and my parents collection of Japanese woodblock prints influenced my perception of the landscape and my creative process. Like Hasui Kawase, I make plein air color sketches out in nature. The final paintings inspired by these sketches are made in my studio. (Hasui also created the painting in the studio. He then continued the creative process in collaboration with his carver and colorist in order to make his famous woodblock prints.)
4. What was the last piece of art that you saw that blew you away?
Earths Creation by Emily Kame Kngwarreye is a masterpiece. Her life story is equally amazing.
5. What’s something you haven’t done but you want to do in art/painting?
I would like to do a painting trip to the Redwood National Park. I have never been there. It's such a gift to spend time out in nature sketching and painting for an extended period of time at the same location. It takes time to study and document all the elements of a specific landscape. Each leaf, seed and blossom is like a universe unto itself. I feel very fortunate to live close to woods and a fen that has sustained me throughout the pandemic.
I have to admire them both for different reasons. If you study their drawings, it is easy to see the contrasts. The intellectual Ingres uses a fine line that is confident, precise and clear. He successfully brings to us the sitter, rendering him or her timeless. Delacroix is all about gesture that seems to spring straight from the heart. His line is spontaneous, inquisitive, and experimental. With his works, he brings to us the depth and mystery of the human spirit.
*The reason we ask about Delacroix and Ingres is because they were contemporaries with wildly different styles!
