Ann Hogle: Transitions

I am still painting at ninety and so grateful that I chose painting as a profession. It continues to gets me up in the morning and gives meaning to my life and allows me to reflect on how living this long has affected my painting and how painting has affected my life.

I appreciate this chance to show my recent work at Commonweal, and to see if my pieces can hold their own on gallery walls. Old age offers more freedom to do what you want but also constricts you with various maladies. My main hindrance is Macula degeneration that made me lose confidence which I have regained as I have seen my brain adjusting my two eyes to work together. So much is possible if I forget perfect details. I have done some political paintings, as the world seems to fall apart but also, subjects dear to my heart; my garden and trees. I have gone back into abstraction, which is the style I began when I first started seriously painting.  Most important to me is I am working on big canvases again and remembering happy days when I painted out of my pickup truck of the wondrous vistas around Bolinas.

I have often felt that dealing with composition and color, balancing a brick with a feather, all the actions necessary in making a painting, also acts as a balancing of the brain. I feel as I struggle with a painting I learn lessons for the struggles in life. It acts as a meditation, empting our mind for the artists’ stare and the journey across the canvas. It teaches us about risk and doubt and how to persevere. Above all, and the hardest of all, is the search for truth.

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