Danielle Muzina

Danielle Muzina: Clear Fog (Rijeka), oil on panel, 24 x 24 in., 2014

Robert D'Arista, my mentor at American University, used to say, "Teaching is a privilege." A day doesn't pass that I don't feel the truth of that statement. After many decades of focusing on my own development as a painter, nothing seems so important as playing some small part in passing the torch to a new generation.

Every so often a student comes along who just seems to "get it" - to understand what painting, and what living your life as an artist, is all about. It takes more than talent. It takes a rare hunger for the practice, a need that can only be satisfied by working with materials and the mysterious language of art. It takes a restless curiosity, not only about art and its vocation, but about all that contributes to making us fully human. Danielle Muzina is such a one. She is one of those students that I have truly felt privileged to work with.

Now in her first year in the graduate painting program at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, Danielle has already produced a focused, personal, and surprisingly mature body of work combining elements of collage, painting and drawing. I'm proud to share it here.

Danielle Muzina, post on Painting OWU