Diane Love

“It all started with a box of crayons at age three. From there it was finger paints, charcoal, pencils -anything I could get my hands on. Then using the shelves in my closet, I arranged my postcards, pictures, photos and trinkets. At camp I could always be found in the arts and craft cabin, at school in the art studio. Summer of my freshman year at college I was hired as a salesperson at Brentano’s and ended up creating merchandise displays. Finally, in 1971, when I opened my own store, Diane Love on Madison Avenue, I was free to design whatever I fancied: fabric flowers, jewelry, decorative objects, home fragrance,

and fashion accessories.

My first book, Flowers Are Fabulous For Decorating published by Macmillan (1975) was my take on flower arranging; my second book, Yes/No Design, was a guide to finding your own taste and style. Published first in French, by Flammarion in (1999), then in English by Rizzoli in 2000. I’ve had many wonderful teachers but none more important to me than the esteemed painter, Milet Andrejevic, with whom I worked from 1984-1989. He said, "never question why you are attracted to something, trust your instinct". When I puzzled how to render something, he’d say “just put down what you see". When I questioned the value of something I did easily, he'd say,"... that means you’re good at it".

I am a perennial student and experimenter, always exploring new techniques: Ikebana to expand my understanding of flower arranging; sumi ink painting to make my brush strokes more expressive; art history to learn what came before. By applying oil paint to a canvas with a palette knife I focused on the planes of an object. Painting on raw wood I incorporated the wood grain in the image. Now I combine fragments of my own photographs and watercolors on a newly painted image to make collages.”