Artists – Barbara Materna, Andrew St. John, and John Whipple

JOHN WHIPPLE: Paintings that appeal most to me have three qualities: beauty, craft, and intrigue. The measure of beauty is that I want to hang them on my wall and live with them. Craft means to me that they can’t be made by just anyone: they go beyond a photograph or a digital image; they are more intentional than a random bunch of lines or colors.

Intrigue includes mystery, humor, emotion, and an invitation to enter a different world. Emotion is the hardest part for me. As a person of a certain age, I feel I should have something to say about emotions. Expressing them in a painting, however, is as hard as painting wind. Saying anything significant is an elusive goal for all of us. Yet we keep trying.

I look for beauty in my own environment. The rocks and trees and water, people and animals, sky and seasons that we see every day are a microcosm of the larger natural world. Insights into the small part of the world that we inhabit apply to the universe beyond us. I look for inspiration from things that I experience in daily life.