revised artist statement, Christine

Rauschenberg, Klimt, Ernst, Vuillard, Kandinsky, Matisse. These men inspire me. I love color, pattern, texture, collage, atmospheric mixed media. These are the buttons that push me to work. When I paint reality, it's because natural colors are much more complex and sophisticated than any I can imagine, so I use reality to create layers of complex color. I'm not really a realist at all.  I love mastering techniques that are a challenge, creating surfaces that are tactile and deep in their look, and sometimes even their feel. I enjoy experimenting, and since I'm about the process more than the product, I never get so attached to a work in progress that I'm afraid to try something for fear it will be ruined. As I tell my students, "faint heart never won fair maid."                    

 I love it when people love my work, but I don't really do it for anyone but myself. It satisfies something intrinsic to me, and I know this because I chose, for a short time, not to do art, and ended up painting rocks with shoe polish. It's something I have to do, that's all.   

Christine Long