Hello WS :cool2:
Interesting and informative thread everyone. Thank you.
I was watching
Bob Ross last weekend on PBS, his shows are great even if you never intend to paint. Watching him create a new picture and the way he speaks about the process is interesting enough. He was talking about the mood of your painting. That, if you are in a good mood you will paint a happy picture and if you are in a bad mood that too, will reflect in what you paint.
I think he is right. Anything coming from a true creative place is going to reflect what is on the inside. Isn't that why adults are supposed to pay attention to what their children are drawing? Isn't that the whole meaning behind the idea of art? Whether it is good art or bad art, it will (by definition) reflect the emotions of the artist. Patsy sure chose "cheery" subjects to paint, imo. One would think her subject matter might reflect a bit more sadness, I understand she had faith and faith can give you strength but you would think still have a deep sadness(if only for Jonbenet herself) that would show itself sometimes especially in art or the art she chose to copy.
Maybe Patsy's art does tell something about her. She was more comfortable making a copy of someone else's creativity than her own. She either could not tap into her own creativity or had none of her own(I don't know if it is possible for someone to have no creativity but maybe that is true?). It makes Patsy seem like a poser. That was the word we used in the eighties for people who never come up with anything of their own or original, they always copy others, those around them. The joy of painting(or creativity of any kind) is that creative process where you (excuse the prose):give birth to your own.
I think Pasty spend much of her life posing, as in the pageants(her own and the teaching of Jonbenet to pose) and her life as daughter to her parents and wife of her husband. It would be great to see something painted by her that is an original, to get insight into her mind because I think someone's art/writings are sometime the only way to see deeply into a person who otherwise is shut down or puts up a facade. But then I think, that is exactly what we have got here, a look inside Patsy where we find she is a poser.
Patsy tried to push her likes onto Jonbenet, it seems. To dress like her, like the dolls she wanted Jonbenet to have, etc. Patsy wasn't so empty inside or damaged into submission enough not to try it on her daughter, or maybe she did it because it was done to her and that is all she knew? She tried to make her daughter like the things that Patsy pretended to like because Patsy's mind had decided these were the things that other people liked, so she would be liked, envied even. And Jonbenet was a huge part of that for Patsy, it really was important that her daughter conform exactly to what Patsy needed Jonbenet to be. But like all children, Jonbenet was her own. Person.
The artwork could say a lot about Patsy. My understanding is the original artist of "Pals"(the one of the two children looking out to the sea)was kind and said she understood that Patsy might have been using her art as a guide, that was normal for beginners and had sympathy for Pasty's illness and passing. I don't know if all of Patsy's paintings are "reproductions" or whether those artists take issue. If Patsy was the one who penned the RN, the author has been accused of coping or taking lines from movies and books. In that case, I suppose even a great artist/writer might have to use more than their imagination when writing such a note.
IMHO, Pasty reproducing such sunny images shows something uncaring about her feelings regarding what happened to Jonbenet. More than wanting to cover up for her hurt feelings and put on a happy face, it gives you a "generic" feeling, what she chose to admire. And in turn, it gives you the feeling she had generic feelings toward her daughter and her death. I do not sense her mourning. I do not even sense mourning for herself.
:cow:
