Today we’d like to introduce you to Marilyn Rose.
Hi Marilyn, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My story! It’s a long one, being now in my mid-70s. To put it briefly, I’ve been painting professionally for over 30 years, taught oil painting for about a dozen years, have had many solo shows, and have participated in gallery shows and nationwide competitions. I’ve won my fair share of awards and sold many paintings in various venues.
I’ve painted many commissioned portraits of people, pets, and places. I’ve studied with many of the best, the top artists of my time, from the late 90s to the present, for I never stop taking workshops, online courses, and watching art instruction videos. What I am constantly learning, I pass on to my dedicated students in my weekly oil painting class. The people I have met and worked with over the years, the generous and fun-loving artists as well as the kind and appreciative clients, have helped create some magical moments over the years. Kindly indulge me for a minute with a few brief highlights that marked turning points in my artistic development.
I started my serious study of art with community college basic art classes, then I branched out to study portraiture with Juan Pena and landscape painting with Susan Sarback, and later with many top artists in the Sacramento and Bay areas of California. I was among the first plein air painters in Sacramento, long before it became the big business it is today. After a few years as a landscape painter, I felt the need to get back to basics, so in 2012, I promised myself I would only paint still life for one month. Four years later, I had been painting still life almost exclusively and had amassed a body of nearly fifty still-life paintings!
In 2016, I took some online courses with master artist, the late Dennis Perrin, and added florals, figures, and interiors to my repertoire. I discovered the fun of finding musicians in action on YouTube and other social media, following them, and asking if I could create paintings from their videos. I then found the scene in the video that spoke to me, froze it, and saved it as a reference along with their written permission. In 2017, I painted small portraits of several of these musicians from all over the world, and I developed a love of their creative and emotional expression as well as an appreciation for the hours and years of long practice to hone their skills – something I could relate to in the endless color-mixing and drawing exercises I had experienced.
In 2018, I was having coffee with my dear friend Bobbi Baldwin, a wonderful artist who was also my mentor for studying The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, and I told her I had been painting musicians. She casually remarked, why don’t you paint a musician a day? You could call the project “Music as My Muse”. I had a sudden flash of inspiration that took me by surprise as if a floodgate opened and poured forth all the answers I needed. It played out in an instant! I would contact as many Sacramento musicians as I could find and ask if I could take a video of them playing their music, getting written permission of course.
Then, I would paint a 9×12 portrait of each one. I would have a one-artist show at a local music store. I would hire one of the musicians to play for the reception. I soon found that painting one portrait a day wouldn’t work if I were to capture a likeness, so I opted to paint 30 musicians within whatever time it took me. I had a great time finding these folks, attending their coffeehouse gigs, or making an appointment to meet them at a park or their studio. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to their music, from classical to country, from blues to jazz, and felt lucky to have entered into the world of the Sacramento area music scene.
The project took about 6 months to complete and at the end, I organized a reception at Watermelon Music in Davis, CA. One of my subjects, Sean O’Connor, played classical guitar and my wonderful husband took charge of refreshments. Most of the musicians attended, and many of them were old friends, so it was a joyous occasion. Over time seven of the portraits have been purchased either by the musicians themselves or as gifts from family and friends. This was one of those highlights of my art career, and the entire project can be found on one of my Facebook Pages titled “Music and More as Muse”.
I changed the title because the next year, I painted another series of portraits of painters, sculptor’s dancers, and even a violin maker! I continued my study with florals and self-portraits until 2021 when we moved to St. George, Utah. I was able to create a beautiful studio in our home, so I began to paint interiors and I hired clothed models for some projects I had in mind. I took a video of one young woman dressed in a hat and shawl, drawing back the curtains to look out the window in preparation to go out. I painted this 16×20 scene three different times, and each time the interior became darker and dingier but the view outside the window became brighter and more inviting.
Then in a flash, I realized I had no desire to paint this scene! I wanted to get outdoors and paint landscapes again! That was in the summer of 2022, and within a week I was up in Pine Valley painting a 16×20 plein air painting of the historic chapel. I have painted only landscapes since then, either on location or in the studio from plein air references. I occasionally get together with friends from the St. George Plein Air Facebook group, but often I just head to an area and drive around until the muse strikes. The folks here in southern Utah are so friendly and interested to stop and chat, and I always feel right at home whether capturing an old barn in a meadow or the grandeur of Zion.
Painting is my way of communicating my feelings about something I see that has stirred a memory or visual impression of something basic and true, comforting and safe. Each painting is an adventure, a collaboration of heart, head, and hands. The heart is first – I don’t paint anything that has not evoked an emotion. The head follows close behind – the solid principles of design that start my mind moving elements into their proper place before I begin the work. The hands do the work conveying what the heart feels and the mind redesigns.
When I go out to paint the landscape, I stop when I see something that expresses not only a good composition but also touches me deeply on a subconscious level. I prefer to work small. 8×10 or 9×12, and I try to get down something as complete as possible in the two-hour window typical of plein air painting. There may be some finish in the studio to create a better painting or tell a story. I don’t always have a story in mind when I find my subject, but when the painting is done there is always an underlying motif: a pathway for the eye to travel through a field or a woodland toward a distant mountain or stand of trees, often overseen by a celestial sky. This illustrates my path through earthly care and human striving toward a spiritual reality.
My figurative work is inspired by people engaged in a creative pursuit, making music or making art. I hire models, sketch, and take videos of them in action, or I obtain permission from artists to paint from their videos. I use the video to freeze the action where I want, and I create a design for the painting using that frame as a springboard. The likeness is not important unless it is a commissioned piece. My objective is not to portray the face or instrument in detail but to capture the emotion and movement of the artist.
I love painting still life because I can create my world and tell the story of light as it falls on objects in space. I start with an object that I’m attracted to and add fabric and objects that create a vignette that implies human action: a musician has taken a break from a practice session and casually left his instrument lying on the chair and her music strewn about on the table. A writer had left her pen and glasses on the paper with the light from a nearby window washing over them along with the cup of tea and the vase of flowers on the desk. I use a red film to see how the values create a light and shadow pattern through the setup and most importantly to create the mood I’m after.
My materials are always of the highest quality: archival linen panels or gessoed Masonite boards, artist-grade paints, and mediums, and my process follows the accepted application practices laid down by historic masters. I use various tools to express what I’m after, brushes of course, but also palette knives, scrapers, rags, and fingers. The emotions and the process keep each other in balance as I work toward the finish, and they are far more important than the painting that results. The painting is finished when I feel it expresses what I wanted to convey with the skills I have at the moment. I only revisit it if I see an error that can be resolved without disturbing the original concept.
I feel blessed to have this means of getting to the core of who I am and to feel the inner power that comes from creative work. My wish is to encourage others to find their inner power and shine their light. If a visual image helps to tap into someone’s knowledge of who they are and what they love, or if I can open the door to their painting adventure, then I have accomplished my goal.
I taught for several years in the Lincoln, CA, retirement community where I lived. My classes have always been for retired folks and seniors, and I have seen what the creative process does for the elderly. I had a student in her late 90s, a sweet, humorous yet peppery Englishwoman who always came to class dressed impeccably. She had started painting some 12 years before and never missed class unless she was bedridden, which was just about never. She’d come to class sometimes with bruises from a fall the day before, but that didn’t stop her.
She was my hero. I had another student with macular degeneration so severe that she had to hold everything up to an inch before her face to see it. She had been a traditional painter, but with the loss of her eyesight, she was joyfully painting the most beautiful little abstract pieces you could imagine! Another hero. One of my students was a jovial Greek fellow with a heart as big as the ocean, which he painted so beautifully. He warmly welcomed everyone into his sphere and in his presence, we all felt we were lifted just a little higher. He passed tragically too soon, in his late 60s, but his generosity and kindness could fill a thousand lifetimes. He too was my hero, and I’m blessed to call all my students my dear friends.
I currently teach a weekly oil painting class at The Art Place of St. George, where students of all levels can learn or understand more deeply the fundamentals of the creation of fine art while working on their projects. It’s all about finding their creative process and developing their style – and having fun doing it!
So, my real story is a continuing unfoldment of the creative process of discovering who I am, what I have to say, and how I say it. I’m a big proponent of any type of creative work, whether it’s visual art, music, cooking, gardening, or dancing. Creativity is spiritual power. It keeps us safe, gives us purpose, and shows us something beautiful within ourselves that is at once part of a universal language yet is also ours alone.
Digging into ourselves and finding our purpose can be an internal battle that is largely fought alone, but it is empowering to know without a doubt who we are and what we love. Sharing and letting that knowledge evolve and unfold is what keeps us always young and vital.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
My challenge is always to overcome long-time feelings of inadequacy since I was not encouraged to become a professional artist as a young person.
That has been the catalyst behind my quest to find and develop my voice as an artist and to encourage others of all ages to do the same.
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
The main lesson I have learned through all of my years of experience is that people are the important thing, especially family and friends. In the end, that’s really what matters!
My work is exhibited at Sunset Framer and Art Gallery.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://artistmarilynrose.com
- Instagram: @marilyn_rose_artist
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artistmarilynrose/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/artistmarilynrose/
- Other: https://www.facebook.com/marilyn.rose.376/
Image Credits
Jim Hewlett
