Recognized or not, everything we do is an event.

 

We are here to explore them, watch, listen, talk about. We hear one thing and it gives us another idea - we start thinking and doing. We combine our memories with our present needs and we get a new mix.

 

Details, details, all in the perspective/experience of the observer; same event, each person sees it differently. A single photograph is a movie stopped at one frame. With a running movie, you can’t easily stop, go back to what you want to hold - the rest of life is too busy, moving on…or if you are a Buddhist doing a sand painting, the point is that the picture isn’t going to last. It’s that issue of “what does last.”

 

Painter, dancer/flyer, actor, psychotherapist, Andrew Purchin takes a different take on making an event last - he paints them. What you get is a still life that incorporates action - Andrew paints movement. He sees motion in his mind. Scroll down to the earlier article on flying theater; also note several of his movement paintings on display in the gallery to the right.

 




Ashlee and Eric’s Wedding

 

Andrew visits the site before the event. He does some preplanning and some prepainting. Let’s say it’s a wedding. The guests arrive - Andrew is painting. The ceremony begins - Andrew places the individuals on the canvas. Throughout the experience, Andrew is aware of movement and change. Ceremony over, the party begins - my imagination (that could be another painting, one attached to the other in the framing - a diptych). As Andrew observes and works, the guests can watch the artist; the painting develops…as life does. We all participate. Note the spatial division of the piece; most painters would place a line of green grass at the bottom as a border-like frame, but Andrew brings you into the space by starting the “action” there with the seated guests. Also, this forces your eye to the ocean/makes the ocean that much more important.

 

Andrew suggests paintings of birthdays, anniversaries, Bar/Bat Mitzah and plays/musicals/dance. He painted children’s theater performances - a benefit for West Children’s Theater. www.andrewpurchin.com

 



“The Green Wedding” of Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle

 



"Gathering at Water's Edge"