CIRCUS PERFORMER
Painted bronze, 1979, 12" x 8" x 19".
"I can't live where I want to - I can't go where I want to - I can't do what I want to -I can't even say what I want to. Schools and things that painters have taught me even keep me from painting what I want to. I decided that I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to and say what I wanted to when I painted as that seemed to be the only thing I could do that didn't concern anybody but myself. . . .I found that I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say in any other way - things that I had no words for."
-Georgia O'Keeffe
On a whim I painted Circus Performer. Painting bronze felt wrong, a violation of a cardinal rule, and yet the piece felt so right. It was three years before I had the courage to paint sculpture again. Instead, I drew a battered Alexander doll bought from a thrift store. Later, after we moved to the coast, I drew images from my new surroundings, but mostly shells my husband brought home; shells storms ripped from the ocean floor and deposited into his crab pots. I drew long after I lost interest in what I was drawing because I could use color. With each successive drawing, my need, my passion for color grew.
I kept the O'Keeffe quote pinned to the bulletin board above my worktable . . . but it was many years before I could read it without guilt. Deep down I was still trying to make real sculpture - sculpture that did not need to be painted to come alive; and I still believed resorting to wooden arms was a cop-out.
-Janet Geib Pretti
