Ay my opening, a friend who is also a painter and I were talking and the name of Charles Burchfield came up. My friend asked if liked his work and when I said that I did very much admire Burchfield’s work, my friend shook his head and said that I’d have to explain it to him because he just didn’t get it. Thought it was crap.
I told him that I always immediately engaged with Burchfield’s paintings, that I felt that I understood in a small way how his mind conceived his imagery and how he translated that to paper. His work just made sense in my mind. It was more about getting across something more than a scene or mere image and that clicked for me.
Charles Burchfield is a real presence in the art world of western New York state, having created most of his work while living in the Buffalo area in the early and middle part of the past century. There is a well known art center and museum bearing his name at the University of Buffalo and his work is in the collections of many major museums.
For me, his work is more about the spiritual elements of the everyday world. Things that are seen all the time and simply overlooked take on a meaning and a life of their own. This excites me because I consider that an important element of what I try to do. I always pull inspiration from his work and hope that someday someone will feel the same thing from mine.
Redtree Times 
Good call on Burchfield.
I too am taken with his amazing ability to make the invisible visible. Nothing fancy simply ordinary stuff electrically charged with the great unknown…how wonderful!
Thanks, Rhona. I’m always pulled into his work by some intangibles that seem to be just out of my grasp. I think that’s what makes you want to keep looking.
thank you for enlightening me, i had not heard of him before. They have a certain quirky charm about them
You’re welcome. Burchfield is a true original and remains relatively little known, unfortunately.
I read about him in Vogue, and he happens to be at the Hammer Museum. I will be going tomorrow because
I find him as Vogue does “ecstatic and underappreciated, but
possibly the most famous unknown artist in America.”
What an American treasure.
I love burchfield, his work is amazing
I just made a long quote from your piece in my tumblr blog; guess to lend support to how captivating I find Burchield’s images which I have just discovered.
Hope you don’t mind and thanks.
Hello!
Burchfield´s in now at Whitney Museum in Manhattan… Enjoy it if you can go. I wish i could, but I live in Spain.
(You have a very nice blog!)
I am afraid I am even further away, Istanbul here but thanks for the response.
I totally get it. His work manages to show a natural rhythm in life. His work is not simple.
[…] who can’t read it find less in the images and feel less drawn into them. In an earlier post about Burchfield I wrote about an artist friend who just didn’t get Burchfield’s work […]
[…] Those who can’t read it find less in the images and feel less drawn into them. In an earlier post featuring Burchfield, I wrote about an artist friend who just didn’t get Burchfield’s work in […]