ARTIST'S STATEMENT ...

 My subject matter, though personal is broad based and usually ... without specialization.

 Currently I seek to use interesting, appealing marks to depict landscapes with some degree of simplicity.

 When working representationally, I try not to be victimized by the photographic ideal.

 I recognize and acknowledge business, technological and scientific skills. I try to avoid being dictated by them.

 I attempt the most honest, most direct and most accurate statement of which I am currently capable.

 I work toward a goal of artistic excellence, without excluding experimentation, personal expression, or abstraction.

 Realistically, I win some and I lose some; which is which, is for others to decide.

Woody Hansen

---

Random thoughts about Artist's Statements in general ...

"It is very good advice to believe only what an artist does, rather than what he says about his work." - David Hockney (b. 1937), British painter, draftsman, photographer, and set designer

"It is a mistake for a sculptor or a painter to speak or write very often about his job. It releases tension needed for his work." - Henry Moore (1898-1986)

"Whoever wishes to devote himself to painting should begin by cutting out his own tongue." - Henri Matisse (1869-1954)

"It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments." - Oriah Mountain Dreamer

"Well, Art is Art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water! And East is East and West is West and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now, uh... Now you tell me what you know." - Gracho Marx (from Animal Crackers)

A wife to a cartoon caveman regarding his work: "Yes, they are exquisitely rendered likenesses, and the use of the caverns' natural contours to heighten a sense of perspective truly makes you an artist far ahead of your time. Now go out and kill something for dinner." - Wiley

"An artist's main priority is to paint." - Mary Suzuki

"If you could say it in words, there'd be no reason to paint." - Edward Hopper

IN MEMORY: Mary C. Morse (6/13/96) ... Friend, ally, supporter, patron, artist, teacher, role model, gallery director. A special, wonderful, honest, caring, soft, strong, happy, beautiful, full-of-life, individual who - in every possible, positive way - exemplied the words ... human being, friend, and artist. Simply the brightest of the bright during the darkest of times. Truly, an artist's best friend, of the kind that are few and far between.

"Death is nature's advice to get plenty of life." -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe