Terry Anderson’s Pastel Artwork

For me, pastel painting is a lifelong process, a journey without an end.

I am a cat-loving, color blind, self-taught artist who began painting pastels 32 years ago in order to put form on and externalize inner images to try to illuminate early feeling-states in an attempt to better understand and overcome early experiences. Thus, much of the work is a reflection of the unconscious made conscious, portals to the soul, a personal exploration.

Many are metaphors, symbols of affective experiences, and of dreamlife. Some are the relation of a worldview, others simply recurring images that insisted on the light.

Once, long ago, in the years of my childhood, which have flashed irretrievably by, it was a joy for me to lie in bed at night and contemplate (initiated by my nightly whisper of the Lord's Prayer), the idea of endlessness (the forever and forever part). It inspired AWE in me, and it was the first experience I had of feeling a tiny part of something much, much greater than myself and I believe that these nightly reveries stimulated and created an opening in me of so much that was curious to the insatiable mind of that child.

As an adult, I am deeply interested in the human condition, and the exploration of what's it's like to be human. We are doomed as individuals to be separate, yet prewired from the womb to yearn for and seek connection with others.

These connections and the failures to connect that occur throughout one's life, generate emotions that, coupled with the individual's reaction to them, help shape us into the unique individuals that we are. My paintings are often tableau, or merely snapshots of these reactions, at times my own, and their aftermath.

Some are comments on our shared humanity, and depict a small sample of the joys and sufferings we all encounter in varying proportions. These experiences are inextricably woven into one's being, influencing how we encounter the world, present ourselves to it, and how it feels to undertake the awesome and wondrous journey we call life. The paintings reflect a portion of my journey. Perhaps some might resonate with a part of yours as well.

There is also a relatively new page, Moments, which portrays in written form experiences that seem better suited to words rather than pastels.