Welcome to the official site of June Safford
PHILOSOPHY OF ART
I refer to myself as a colorist.
WHAT COLORS?
My middle name is CRAYOLA
I’ve wrapped myself in color
Since I was old enough to choose
Ribbons, anklets, scarves.
I came into this world and saw
No chasm between monochromatic
And monotony. Zing went
The flight of a vermillion cardinal
Neon in my gray midst.
Color is a tool that saturates my life with joy. I've recently come to know the early and later works of Wassily Kandinsky, a twentieth century Russian painter who chose to live in Germany, where I first encountered his paintings, whose treatise, The Effect of Color on the Spiritual in Art mirrors my having always believed there is soul in pigment.
FROM INSPIRATION TO PROCESS
My life as an artist has consisted of sketching while traveling, attending figurative drawing sessions in town, workshops by well known painters in a variety of genres and places and, of course, self-exploration. I have always wanted to be called, Cezannesque for my attention to form, made more possible because of a strong background in drawing. My work relates to a need for beauty and central to beauty is not the adjective, "pretty," but rather a coherent sensitivity to practiced pleasure which comes from the simple art of both looking and imagining. Each day in my studio I see and try to follow a written prompt: "Every brush stroke has to have love and magic in it." – Picasso