Hi, I am Mary Loftus, a fine artist living in Southeast Louisiana.
Art is Life! Creating is as essential to me as water, light, and air.
For me, art is a way of transforming heavy emotions like anxiety, depression and fear into light.
It's a way to celebrate the great delight I find in nature.
Art is a way for me to connect with God.
A longer quote about why I paint:
J.R.R. Tolkien said it best in The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers.
Breathe the free air again!
"Look out upon your land! Breathe the free air again!"
From the porch upon the top of the high terrace they could see beyond the stream the green fields of Rohan fading into distant grey. Curtains of wind-blown rain were slanting down. The sky above and to the west was still dark with thunder, and lightning far away flickered among the tops of hidden hills. But the wind had shifted to the north, and already the storm that had come out of the East was receding, rolling away southward to the sea. Suddenly through a rent in the clouds behind them a shaft of sun stabbed down. The falling showers gleamed like silver, and far away the river glittered like shimmering glass.
"It is not so dark here."
Painting is breathing the free air.
For as long as I can remember I've loved the sky. I used to pray that in my afterlife I could help the angels paint the clouds.
Now, here I am... working on those clouds a bit earlier than I imagined.