|
Virginia Goodwind received her BFA in painting
from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1999. She is a new graduate of The
Wright Institute, Berkeley, CA, where she studied clinical psychology with
an added focus in neuropsychology and rehabilitation. For her dissertation
Dr. Goodwind surveyed four types of post secondary schools (a total of 290
schools) in the state of California to determine what services are
available for students with brain injury.
Artist Statement
This painting is on a 5’ x 5’ canvas
prepared in the old masters’ tradition: handmade canvas, prepared with
rabbit skin glue and layered with titanium lead white paint (15 coats).
The prepared canvas was “cured” for one year before the painting
commenced. The old masters during the Renaissance would prepare a canvas
this way to insure that the painting would remain true to its original
color for hundreds of years.
The story behind the painting involves a dream I had about an angel. The
angel was a traditional nude cherub with wings, just as you might see on
any typical Christmas card. Unfortunately in my dream the angel was
pulling on my arm so hard that it was hurting me. As I was pulling my arm
back I looked down and saw that the angel had a very large hypodermic
needle stuck in my arm. There was a glowing lighted material in the barrel
of the needle. The angel seemed to be injecting my arm with some kind of
light. I watched the glowing material moving up within my vein and up to
my shoulder. I woke up with quite a fright.
I reflected on the idea of enlightenment for many years as I tried to
paint that angel; canvas after canvas, I could not seem to paint this
dream. Over the years I eventually gave up and forgot about it. One day I
was furiously painting on a beautiful 5’ by 5’ canvas while I was an
undergraduate student at the San Francisco Art Institute. After about two
months of pushing paint around without a thought in my head, I looked up
at the canvas and realized that I was now finally painting that dream!
|
