Such Parting

Self-portrait
Copyright 2012 Addie Hirschten
Watercolor on Paper
8 1/2" x 11"

Such parting break the heart they fondly hope to heal.
-Lord Byron

By the Light of the Moon



By the Light of the Moon
Copyright 2012 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"
Prints available on Fine Art America

You can't stand up to the night until you understand what is hiding in its shadows.

-Charles De Lint

If we play the ink blot test on this painting...

I see a woman flying through the clouds in front of the moon. 

And our "real" woman she wishes she could do the same.

What do you see?

The Divide

The Divide
Copyright 2012 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"
Prints available on Fine Art America

I hate the divide.

When it feels like there is no bridging the gap.

I am at that point again where I feel that...

You are the dark night and I am a single candle,

my life is upside down because of you.

Then the friend whispers, 
"but I am your deepest being, Quit talking about wanting me."

-Rumi

Is there Symmetry?

Symmetry of the Jungle
Copyright 2012 Addie Hirschten
Gouche on Paper

Of all of the paintings I've ever done, my daughter said she wants this sketch inspired by a William Morris design.  "Why?" I asked.  "Because it is like the jungle!" she said.

Then...
she said that it is not finished and she wants to keep coloring it in.

I give up.

Symmetry is what we see at a glance.

-Blaise Pascal

Burning Daylight

Burning Daylight
Copyright 2012 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"
Original available on Etsy

 We burn daylight.

-Shakespeare

Thinking

Thinking
Copyright 2012 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"
Original available on Etsy

I have immortal longings in me.

-Shakespeare

I feel like I need to think, but everything is moving so fast.

All I have wanted to do lately is stare at the wall... nestled down in my cocoon. 

And then maybe when I wake I will know what to do?

Maybe the answers will become clear?

Our doubts are our traitors and make us loose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.

-Shakespeare

Who dunnit!

Someone stepped on my painting the other day!  Could it have been my geriatric cat? 

Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable must be the truth.

-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Luckily the painting was not warped by the process...

our lady has a foot print on the neck.  You can barely see it.

Portrait of a Woman
Copyright 2012 Addie Hirschten
Print available on Fine Art America

Portrait of a Woman

Portrait of a Woman
Copyright 2012 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"
Prints available on Fine Art America

When you start with a portrait and search for a pure form, a clear volume, through successive eliminations, you arrive inevitably at the egg. Likewise, starting with the egg and following the same process in reverse, one finishes with the portrait.

-Pablo Picasso

Eve in the Garden of Eden

Eve in the Garden of Eden
Copyright 2012 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"
Prints available on Fine Art America

Love doesn't grow on trees like apples in Eden

- it's something you have to make.

And you must use your imagination too.

-Joyce Cary

After I created this painting I remembered that I also made another Garden of Eden drawing last fall....

The Garden of Eden
Copyright 2011 Addie Hirschten

and something about the colors... 

the difference between the two paintings reflect how much happier I have been in lately.

Perfection

It is not the perfect but the imperfect who have need of love. 

It is when we are wounded that love should come to cure us- what else is love after all? 

All sins love should forgive. 

All lives, save loveless lives, true love should pardon.

-Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband

Save the Wind

Save the Wind
Copyright 2012 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"
Original Available on Etsy

Madame, bear in mind that princes govern all things, save the wind.

-Victor Hugo

Man and Woman



Man and Woman
Copyright 2012 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
11" x 14"
Original Painting available on Etsy

It is sad not to love, but it is much sadder not to be able to love.

-Miguel de Unamuno

My Art Board

My Art Board in my painting Studio

It occured to me the other day that the art board that I have use for 13+ years has become a work of art in itself.  It is a layered thing of beauty, the patterns on it having been formed naturally over the years. 

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.

-William Morris

Fixtures

A Child's Toy
Copyright 2012 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"
Original Available on Etsy

There are no fixtures in nature.

The universe is fluid and volatile.

Permanence is but a word of degrees.  

-Emerson

Moonlight on the Ocean

Moonlight on the Ocean
Copyright 1999 Addie Hirschten
Acrylic on Paper

If the infinity of the sea may call out thus, 

perhaps when a man is growing old, 

calls come to him, too,

 from another infinity still darker and more deeply mysterious; 

and the more he is wearied by life the dearer are those calls to him.

-Henryk Sienkiewicz

Life Is Action

Life Is Action
Copyright 2012 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"
Original Available on Etsy

As life is action and passion, 

it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time

at peril of being judged not to have lived.  

-Oliver Wendell Holmes

My Soul

My Soul
Copyright 2012 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"
Prints available on Fine Art America

My soul is in your body.

-Napoleon to Josephine

Gardening



My Garden

I try, try, try to depict all of this marvelous beauty around me with paint but sometimes it is just better to look a reality.  I will often see a tree or flower and think it is so perfectly balanced... it must be the most graceful thing on the planet... and then I turn the corner and see another.  I am so grateful for all of this beauty.

Woman in the Wind

Woman in the Wind
Copyright 2012 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"
Prints available on Fine Art America

The river is within us, the sea is all about us.

-T.S. Elliot

The Kiss

The Kiss
Copyright 2012 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
18" x 24"
Prints available on Fine Art America

Falling in love is not an extension of one's limits or boundaries;

it is a partial and temporary collapse of them.

-M. Scott Peck

Women Embracing

Women Embracing
Copyright 2012 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"
Original Painting available on Etsy

Who would give a law to lovers?
Love is unto itself a higher law. 

- Boethius