Marlene Struss - Painter

The most frequently asked question is, what is your inspiration?  I've chosen to honor Nature in my paintings by using organic forms and patterns, so surely nature is a big inspiration. The whole question of physical existence with all its interdependence, balance, paradoxes, mysteries, and glories enters into my internal dialog or innate aesthetic sense as I work on a painting. Music, especially jazz, classical, Indian, Japanese, and African, most music without words, including all the sounds and rhythms of the environment around me that create a symphony upon reaching my ears, also helps me to get into a joyful focused state that surely informs my work habit. What I can tell you I do, though, is spend an enormous amount of time observing and studying each layer of color, determining the next color and imagining how the painting will look if I apply it this way or that way or that way or this way. I decide, I do it, and if it works and it still needs another color in my opinion, I go through the process again...

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If the question means why do you create? why are you an artist? that goes back to events in childhood, the fun of making things, using color crayons, the praise of my teachers and parents, the games we played, my very DNA. As I got older I gradually made my life more about being of service, contributing to the smooth maintenance and protection of the world and its inhabitants.  So in my small way I would like to think that my fulfillment and pleasure in doing art is communicated through art to receptive viewers and patrons, who are positively affected by my works, that what is pleasing to me is also pleasing to you.  

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