Search For Realness

“I search for the realness, the real feeling of a subject, all the texture around it… I always want to see the third dimension of something… I want to come alive with the object.”

- Andrew Wyeth

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“I believe that a kind of transcendental essence lies at the heart of all natural forms and objects. There is a concept in Zen Buddhist painting known as kiin-seido, meaning ‘living moment’ or the immediate, intuitive expression of a subject’s essential nature. While I am not a practitioner of Zen Buddhism, I am interested in this concept as it relates to our experience of landscape. My artistic goal is, through the process of painting, to distill and crystallize that essence and the vital rhythms that animate it.”

— Phyllis Shafer

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“And after your death, when most of you for the first time realize what life here is all about, you will begin to see that your life here is almost nothing but the sum total of every choice you have made during every moment of your life. Your thoughts, which you are responsible for, are as real as your deeds. You will begin to realize that every word and every deed affects your life and has also touched thousands of lives.”

~Ellisabeth Kubler-Ross