Wednesday Inspiration::Vincent Van Gogh

I also obsessed over Vincent Van Gogh for many, many years.  I viewed everything I could that was created by him and read everything available about him, but my favorite were his letters.  About ten years ago I created a series of landscapes but I was never totally happy with them.  I couldn't capture the light and colour that I wanted so badly but am trying once again.

I was inspired by his dedication to his work in spite of the fact that no one collected it during his lifetime and he created over 2100 pieces.  He drew on whatever paper he could find with the charcoal from his fire.  And, interestingly enough, he worked as a missionary in a mining region which I connected with as I grew up in a mining community and spirituality is very important to me.  I've also always been drawn to the connection art and religion, which seemed a theme running through Van Gogh's life, "...to try to understand the real significance of what the great artists, the serious masters, tell us in their masterpieces, that leads to God; one man wrote or told it in a book; another in a picture."