Roc Paint Sip is a member of our community's Visitor Industry Council. This collection of businesses center around tourism and hospitality, but more over, highlight all that Rochester has to offer. It's a great resource as a small business owner to be able to network with those similar in size such as a Mom & Pop bakery or perhaps a hometown wine bar, along with larger scale restaurants and hotels and breweries. The common denominator is civic pride in where we live, work and raise our families. As Rochesterians, we honor our past from Frederick Douglass and George Eastman to Susan B Anthony and the birth of the women's suffrage movement, just to name a few. With eyes towards the horizon on our collective future we re-imagine a new downtown resurgence, or being on the cutting edge of photonics research and development.
So, what!! The purpose of this particular post was not a PSA for Rochester, NY necessarily, but to shed light on what can inspire us. Inspiration is a thread throughout this blog, it comes from what we see every day where we work and relax, and where we like to go out to eat or choose to spend a sunny day, etc. There's a long standing adage that great art only comes from pain and the struggle. I'd list examples but I would be here all day, and you're probably reading this while you wait your turn at the dentist's office. Thus, I find the creative light in those people, places and things I enjoy, my muse if you will. That's not to say that I'm rife with my own inner sanctum of spiritual blight, but I choose let the more positive subjects of my everyday life influence what I decide to paint. I don't ignore the darker side of my life, as they are as integral a part of the creative process, I just learned to tune those strings to play in key with the other strings.
So, back to Rochester and where I reside. Living in the continental Northeastern part of the U.S. has a distinct quality that any artist can appreciate. We have the gift of four seasons and the treasure trove of subject matter unique to each one of those seasons, in full color. From the fiery pageant of autumn to the fresh blooming greens and assortment of lavenders of lilacs in spring. Hazy watercolor sunsets of hot and humid summer nights to the...well... endless supply of layers and layers of grey that last a little to long.
Sometimes the views from where we maintain our existence through the filters of the changing seasons can sustain our imagination, if not anything else. Celebrating the moments and places, and perhaps immortalizing them in paint can give you that ever elusive feeling of complete belonging. I will need a canvas this big, with these brushes. I'll need these colors to tell to the world...
"This is my time, this is my place!"