Elizabeth MacFarland

I began painting in earnest in 2001 when I started studying oil painting with Marta Jaremko at the Artist Studio in Delmar, NY, and her excellent instruction and inspiration continues to influence my painting today. Though my professional training is as a pianist, I have always been drawn to the visual arts. When I began painting, I was struck by the similarities of the creative process in these two artistic realms. As a musician, one of the most difficult things to learn is the art of inner listening….beginning with silence and then creating or recreating what is heard within.

Whether composing or performing, I am recreating an ideal of the music that I hear within. I find that this process of inner listening is not very different from learning how to really see in making art, where there is a similar merging of ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ seeing that is intrinsic to the creative process. Instead of working with nuances of pitch, dynamics, and phrasing, I am working with the nuances of color, light, and shadow in order to convey meaning and mood. Whether or not a painting is grounded in realism, I work, ultimately, to convey on the canvas what I am seeing internally, and this is always a joining of the eye with the heart.

I love the quiet process of painting.  It is also rewarding to have a finished product there for the viewing, unlike in music, which can feel less tangible and always requires the next performance.