Do you have a passion?
Do you have a passion? Perhaps a sport like golf or tennis? Gardening? Music? Food? Your family? Your career?
Those of us that have one or more passions are truly fortunate. Passions bring joy and focused energy to our lives. All too often, however, the pressures of everyday life preclude us from pursuing our passions wholeheartedly. Without regular activity, the passion can become fallow.
Edward Arribas has a longstanding passion: creating beautiful art. Since he was a teenager, Ed has dreamt of building a career in the arts. Early on, however, his father convinced him to join the family’s manufacturing business and there he built a more conventional career.
Today, ten years into retirement, Ed has recovered his dream and indulges his passion wholeheartedly. He paints 3 to 4 days per week and is an active member of an artist’s group called the society for Creative Arts of Newtown (SCAN). Members of SCAN regularly meet to paint together, teach each other, and critique each other’s work in a friendly and constructive manner.
It is this re-energized passion of a talented artist that is now on display in the gallery of Shield’s Hall at the Meetinghouse. The exhibition tracks the artist’s progress toward expressing a style uniquely his own. He has poignantly included a piece from his high school days, a linoleum block print of a stylized owl–a reminder of the road not taken?
Without regular activity, the passion can become fallow.
A number of pieces in the show represent the explicit influence of master artists from Caravaggio to Van Gogh, Matisse, and Picasso among others. It is intriguing to observe Ed’s development of a personal approach, which primarily involves the minimalization and stylization of still-lifes and landscapes. In his most compelling original works, Ed reduces the natural emphasis on perspective and light, and focuses instead on line, shape, and color.
Ed feels the inherent personal risk in presenting a unique style of art, but he seems exhilarated rather than anxious about this. The Meetinghouse is fortunate to have such a beautiful and thought-provoking exhibition. The show will be on display during the month of September, with an opening reception from 2-4 pm on Sunday, September 11. Attendees at the opening will have an opportunity to meet Ed Arribas and hear his account of his journey as an artist. While his youthful passion was largely thwarted, he never gave up on his desire to create beautiful, meaningful art works, and for the many years ahead of him, he will be living the dream.
Shop Ed’s Artwork in our store
