You're Invited to Visit My New Website

Graduate school has created new connections, work and possibilities for major changes in my life.My return to Savannah is just months away. I am working on a  website that features my newest work created specifically for graduate projects. I invite you to view my art and share your thoughts.

With much gratitude,
Jude:)

http://www.judeharzer.com/

Moment of Truth  Jude Harzer Fine Art 2012 oil on aluminum plate

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Progress: On Top of My Head

Maintaining balance in life is key. Physical, psychological and emotional balance...moderation in most things,  is desirable. But of course this is also unrealistic and idealistic. At any given moment, added pressure and weight , the unforeseen and unexpected, threatens  to topple our steadiness and stability. So we readjust our stance. We shift and redistribute the weight and sometimes we change, trying once more to  keep centered and hold on. I believe the solution sometimes is to simplify, release and lessen the load. It takes strength to admit weakness and weary.

Here's my recent progress: On Top of My Head.

 

Change: On Top Of My Head

Life itself  is change. It is inevitable. We struggle to preserve and protect what is and what was. Our minds grow attached to the comfortable and familiar, the safe and the sound. I only know that for me, decades of holding on have left me in a place of fear, anxiety and discontent. I lay awake rationalizing my life and my choices, all of which have led to a lovely state of being....quiet, secure but very alone. "Get a life right?" "Quit the complaining!" "Have a grateful heart and stop the self centered babble!" I mentally scolded myself for years with these reprimands. But the gnawing desire to leave, to do more and be more, to find like minds in work and in my heart persists and paralyzes. So change is due. It is now. It is terrifying because those I love most, now know what plagues my heart and mind and they are waiting. My change will be theirs as well.

On Top of My Head is a series of paintings that I will continue to develop, inspired by my Child's Play work. Within them I explore the idea of self imposed mental clutter that creates an emotional and psychological weight .These burdens, both real and imagined, threaten to crush the spirit. I am not here to lecture or solve or reflect on how to make change. I do that with myself in every waking moment it seems. I just know that leaving means changing and changing requires unloading the heaviness. I can't run and fly with all of this extra weight. And now to decide...where the heck am I going...I believe post grad school, will take me to where my art and the art of others surrounds me daily, where my heart is understood.This requires   painting and more painting to get me where I want to be! (Oh and welding, I need to know how to weld !) x

On Top of My Head....some new images in process:

All images are copyrighted by Jude Harzer Fine Art and CRO Designs 2012

Child's Play

Simplicity is necessary this year in order to focus on refining ideas and producing a finished body of work that I intend to exhibit. Child's Play, On Top of My Head and other series of paintings are becoming inextricably connected as a cohesive unit of thought and art. Graduate school has helped me to consider more thoughtfully what the heck I'm trying to do here and why:) I am confident in the value of my work. I have a lot more to say. So this year I will make it matter and share it.
During my short hiatus from school, I struggled with a few new images.I continue to paint my way to my dreams and remind myself daily that the joy, the inspiration, the promise and hope, are in the process. I am awake so as not to miss it.
Here are a few recent explorations...all related to the Child's Play concept.

Child's Play: Awake Jude Harzer Fine Art 2012

detail Child's Play: Awake Jude Harzer Fine Art 2012

Child's Play: Wisdom Jude Harzer Fine Art 2012

Child's Play: In My Arms Jude Harzer Fine Art 2012

A Belated New Year Wish...

I crave the art of writers who expertly string together words ,capable of evoking emotion and empathy , capable of challenging thought or inspiring imagery. I sometimes share their text because they so adequately mirror my own mind and heart. The simplicity and purity of author Neil Gaiman's wishes for the New Year, are so perfectly enough:) Happy 2012. May you make magic and surprise yourself!

“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.” ― Neil Gaiman

 

Progress: Child's Play On Top Of My Head

In recent months, I have developed these symbolic visual narratives in greater depth . They are a culmination of concepts and images from previous works, all aimed toward the exploring the importance of "child's play" as a venue for learning, communication, collaboration and self exploration. It is a time when secrets are revealed, roles are defined and emotions are expressed. In 2012, I will compose text that more explicitly defines the story of these works.
Here is a glimpse of this evening's effort! Enjoy!

 

“The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create -- so that
without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.”
― Pearl S. Buck

On Top of My Head

I intend to surprise myself this upcoming year! I do. I have set in motion a path that will markedly change my life. I am apprehensive and a bit frightened but more fearful of standing still . My art has also begun to change and is more genuinely representative of who I am and how I think. We are our thoughts after all. Our ideas are inextricably tied to how we navigate and react to the world in which we live. For me, the awareness that I alone am responsible for my life, is more important than ever before in this season of my being.
A dear friend, unknowingly inspired me to retrieve and recover a creative project that I set aside, one that embraces all that I value in my art and life...children,love,whimsy and wonder. And so I have begun a new series of works that are tied to my Child's Play paintings, entitled, "On Top of My Head..." I hope, I know, I pledge...to surprise myself:)

“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.”
― Neil Gaiman