After Vita’s tulips
When I was about twelve, Vita Petersen came into the – by invitation – after-school art class with tulips in her arms. They were wrapped in brown paper and she put them in a vase, found some patterned fabric and paper and then she gave a brief talk. She showed the class (about ten of us) some painters, including Matisse. The class was life drawing, but the model was absent, so Vita had brought tulips instead. I was six years younger than many of the students in the room and had never worked in oils. Vita set me up with the new material, an A2 piece of paper near the tulips and I began painting.
I looked at the tulips, a similarly mixed bunch, with an equally open Apeldoorn red tulip and felt a peculiar love of the tulips and the fabric around them. Perhaps it was the first time I had REALLY looked at and seen Tulips and was registering their beauty.
Vita, a German who fled during the war, studied with Hans Hoffman. She was an abstract expressionist and was one of the people who showed me how to be a painter – she was, determined, critical , beautiful, and had a great laugh.
As I composed this one, these tulips awakened my 12 year old self, and I painted with Vita in my heart. As I take one last look, I wonder if I have to remove the self-portrait from this…
When I was about twelve, Vita Petersen came into the – by invitation – after-school art class with tulips in her arms. They were wrapped in brown paper and she put them in a vase, found some patterned fabric and paper and then she gave a brief talk. She showed the class (about ten of us) some painters, including Matisse. The class was life drawing, but the model was absent, so Vita had brought tulips instead. I was six years younger than many of the students in the room and had never worked in oils. Vita set me up with the new material, an A2 piece of paper near the tulips and I began painting.
I looked at the tulips, a similarly mixed bunch, with an equally open Apeldoorn red tulip and felt a peculiar love of the tulips and the fabric around them. Perhaps it was the first time I had REALLY looked at and seen Tulips and was registering their beauty.
Vita, a German who fled during the war, studied with Hans Hoffman. She was an abstract expressionist and was one of the people who showed me how to be a painter – she was, determined, critical , beautiful, and had a great laugh.
As I composed this one, these tulips awakened my 12 year old self, and I painted with Vita in my heart. As I take one last look, I wonder if I have to remove the self-portrait from this…
When I was about twelve, Vita Petersen came into the – by invitation – after-school art class with tulips in her arms. They were wrapped in brown paper and she put them in a vase, found some patterned fabric and paper and then she gave a brief talk. She showed the class (about ten of us) some painters, including Matisse. The class was life drawing, but the model was absent, so Vita had brought tulips instead. I was six years younger than many of the students in the room and had never worked in oils. Vita set me up with the new material, an A2 piece of paper near the tulips and I began painting.
I looked at the tulips, a similarly mixed bunch, with an equally open Apeldoorn red tulip and felt a peculiar love of the tulips and the fabric around them. Perhaps it was the first time I had REALLY looked at and seen Tulips and was registering their beauty.
Vita, a German who fled during the war, studied with Hans Hoffman. She was an abstract expressionist and was one of the people who showed me how to be a painter – she was, determined, critical , beautiful, and had a great laugh.
As I composed this one, these tulips awakened my 12 year old self, and I painted with Vita in my heart. As I take one last look, I wonder if I have to remove the self-portrait from this…