Blog

It’s a new year, the beginning of the third year of the pandemic.  Here we are in another spike with a new variant raging.  Over the last two years we have all suffered losses and a great deal of stress. Once again, I find myself not interacting with anyone except my husband and the cat who has survived into 2022.  As the spike goes down and Omicron recedes, I know I’ll see my friends again in person and appreciate them more than ever.  We’ll drink wine and laugh and talk.  I’ll go places other than quiet nature preserves and treasure each moment. Hopefully I’ll travel. But meanwhile…. What has sustained me since March of 2020 has been painting and teaching art. I’ve created a large body of work and much of it is the best I’ve ever done.  I’ve learned to adapt my teaching to Zoom and have grown as an instructor as I share my love of painting and all things art related. The classes have become a community that reaches across time zones and into one another’s’ studios. Painting is, often, joy. Sure, it’s frustrating and often a struggle, but those times when you go down the rabbit hole and you’re in harmony with the muse are magical moments. Someone recently asked me if I make digital art.  I don’t because I love the process of painting. I love mixing colors and making marks, the touch of the brush to canvas, breathing life into imagery.  In my classes I love helping others discover their abilities and creative selves. Sometimes it’s difficult to get motivated to create, especially during hard times.  But perhaps that’s the time we need to do it most with no expectations or judgement except to allow the process of making something to soothe your soul. Make anything!  Use art supplies, words, sounds, movement, plants, food, found stuff.  Don’t worry if it’s “good”. Let go of that and experience how creating something can bring a sense of peace and fulfillment.

Sometimes paintings need to be revisited.  A painting isn’t done until it’s done.  Often, when I think a painting is almost finished, I hang it in my home and live with it.  Looking at it outside of my studio I notice little things I want to tweak.  The painting may go back and forth between a room in the house and my studio several times before it’s complete.  Occasionally I require a lot of time to see what a painting needs to become fully harmonious.  The painting accompanying this blog shows the image on the left…how the painting looked as it lived on my wall for over a year, and, on the right. how I tweaked it. It took me a long time to figure out what I needed to change.  A lot of the areas are subtle, a couple are more obvious.  I reworked the arms and hair on the upper mermaid, thinned her tail and popped the contrast on both mermaids.  I added the cascading starfish to balance the strong horizontals. In addition, I lightened some areas in the background and made the color stronger on the small fish.  Now I’m happy with it.

The inspiration for this painting was a day that I spent with a friend a couple of months ago.  The big surge of Delta in Florida was finally waning, and we decided we needed a day to relax and just be.  She has a dog and I have a cat.  I went to her house (without my cat) and she and I and her dog hung out and talked and drank wine in her beautiful yard.  It was lovely.  This painting “To Friendship” came from that day.  As I was working on it, I realized that it could be about any of my friends with dogs.  And then I realized that the painting was, more than anything, a tribute to friendship, to all my women friends near and far.  My women friends are my sisters and time spent together talking, laughing, sharing stories and confidences is a treasure.  In the painting I changed the drinks to martinis because I love the shape of martini glasses.  She and I don’t look like these women, nor do the cat and dog look like our particular furry family members, but that is the joy of creativity.  We take from life, filter it through our personal muse and see what evolves.

Recently I started a painting of a woman with her fist raised, eyes open and glaring.  I was angry and frustrated about some things and decided to express those feelings through my art.  The painting was still in beginning stages but it had a direction.  Then, we had to say goodbye to our sweet 22 year old cat, Zoe. She was very old and starting to suffer.  It was her time to cross the rainbow bridge.  When I kissed her goodbye, I whispered that she would live on in my art.  I was thinking of all the books and paintings she’s been in, whether as a featured muse or a little cameo.  But when I began to work on the painting again it transformed into something else entirely.  It became about love and letting go.  The fist turned into an open hand releasing a butterfly, the woman’s eyes closed and many features of the painting changed.  Zoe’s spirit is the butterfly. The woman is at peace. Those changes were a conscious decision, although I felt the painting talking with me, telling me what it needed to be.  As I worked on it I became aware that this painting is about letting go of many losses and that it is about not only my own losses, but loss in general. Most of us have lost loved ones.  My husband and I have lost our youth and aspects of health that we took for granted.  We all lost a year of our lives due to the pandemic and many of us lost people to it. There are lost hopes, dreams and opportunities.  Along with loss comes sadness, regret and, often, anger. And, while I feel those things most of the time my work brings out the best aspects of myself.  I’m very grateful to Zoe and to the muse for guiding me to create this painting and for helping me to feel acceptance, if only for a time.

Sometimes ideas flow easily, just waiting to get out onto the canvas.  At other times I want to paint but I don’t know what to paint. That’s when I start putting down colors and marks and allow the painting to dialogue with me.  What emerges can be a surprise. For me, inspiration can come from anywhere; travel, interaction with friends (or, in the time of Covid wishing for these things), the state of the world, my hope for a better world.  My imagery can be somewhat literal, from something I’ve experienced, or can be a manifestation of something I wish for.  There are times when I don’t even realize that a variety of things in my life have become undercurrents that contributed to a painting until that painting is complete. I did this painting, Soar, when I was recovering from traumatic hip surgery and total hip replacement.  I broke my hip 3000 miles from home. My husband and I felt alone and scared…until we didn’t.  The caring of my doctor and the hospital staff was a lifeline as were the friends who kept us connected to them with messages, calls, cards and flowers. The friends of friends who lived in the area and came to visit even though they didn’t know us were the kindest people.  We spent 5 days in the hospital and then a week recovering at a beautiful lodge before I could even fly home.  The lodge staff rearranged their bookings to give us an ADA room when they were fully booked.  People who worked there dropped by to visit with little treats or just to talk.  I can think of so many acts of love and kindness that happened on that trip. It was the best of humanity and we felt so cared for.  And so, this painting emerged. She is soaring through the sky, arms and heart open, strong, protected by love and compassion. Healing light shines on her hip.  Every painting I do has a different story behind it.  We all have stories.  How we interpret them as artists is what make each of us unique

We all have stories.  Each experience, emotion and adventure, each person or place we’ve encountered or imagined, unfolds though our personal take on life to create the stories we live.  A fold book is a creative way to use images and/or words to address what we would like to express.  Fold books are intimate.  They can be created with a variety of media; gouache, colored pencil, marker, inks, collage, watercolor. They fold up to one square or rectangle but open up to be displayed as a long, double sided work of art. They have roots in manuscript illustration or story books.  One thing I love about fold books is that they are, at the same time, one work of art and several works of art that flow into one another to create a unified whole.  Like a Mobius strip, they end where they begin, the cover is also the last page.  A fold book takes the viewer, as well as the artist/writer on a magical journey. The combination of words and imagery powerful, touching minds, touching hearts.

One of the things I love most about painting in acrylic is the luminosity and lusciousness you can achieve with layering and underpainting. The building up of thin layers of color can create a glow and a depth that is different from working with one or two thick layers of color. And the look of how paint lies over layers of paint is very much more sensual than thin paint just laid over canvas. I almost always start with dark under painting, in a deep purple or pthalo blue or turquoise or, sometimes, black. Although that color may completely disappear from the painting it provides a base that gives the painting depth. Then I work up my colors gradually, in small increments of value, usually with a scumbling technique. This requires patience. It’s also important to remember that acrylics dry a shade or two darker, so you have to go a little bit lighter than you think you want your layer to be. Otherwise, twenty minutes later, you’re back to where you started! To me there’s something magical about having layers of paint underneath that are no longer visible but contribute a luminous richness to my imagery and colors.

First of all, creative ruts are normal! They’re part of the artistic process. Our inspiration ebbs and flows. As artists we often make demands on ourselves that are unrealistic. Not every piece will be our best, not every one will be easy. I’ve found that the paintings I struggle with the hardest often teach me the most and, that when I come through a creative block, it’s often with renewed inspiration and creative energy. So, what do you do when the art isn’t flowing? Above all, give yourself permission to experiment and be in the process rather than making product. When I feel this way, I imagine a bubble surrounding me that allows me to say “this is not my serious art, I’m just playing”. Often you need something new to get the creative juice flowing. If you usually work in a particular size change it up. Try a different medium to spark new ideas. Work from an existing piece in a new way to create a series. Put on your favorite music, sip your favorite beverage and mix colors. I find this particularly soothing. Perhaps, take a break. Only you can be the judge of when you need a few days or weeks off. And if you take time away come back to it, just as the muse will always, eventually, come back to you

It’s been 10 months of lockdown and, like everyone, I’m frayed and tired. But there is one place that restores my weary spirit. My studio is my haven. Though I can’t go much of anywhere in the outside world I continue to have artistic journeys and to create and participate in art community. I’ve created thirteen acrylic paintings and one foldbook and have taught 15 Zoom art classes since March. Partly, this is because it’s what I love to do and it’s my career. But also, my studio is my place of joy. All of my paintings have been influenced by Covid and 2020, though mostly in a less than obvious way. Many paintings are expressing a new beauty, even though we are in sad times. I filter my imagery to create a hopeful vision. For other artists what they choose to express may be different. It’s all valid. This is a time to be more in the process than anything. Painting FEELS good and we all need to feel good right now. One thing I love about teaching on Zoom is that I have students from different places in the world. Our Zoom class has become a community where we share and talk about the good stuff; paint, color, composition, personal vision. It’s a place to feel connected to other artists and to be encouraged. I’m grateful.

2020 has been a most difficult year, perhaps the most difficult in many of our lives. In the midst of a pandemic, we trample on the planet and one another. My cynical side feels that we’ve entered a dystopian universe from which there’s no return. But there is also heightened compassion and appreciation of small wonders. We have found new ways to connect and show kindness. And so, my art reflects beauty, joy, connection and harmony. When I paint, I feel like a conduit for the imagery that wants to be created by me and through me. World events influence my imagery, but I filter them, searching for a sense of wonder and mystery, expressing hope and love. This is my authentic personal expression and my purpose as a painter. Although there is much in life that is frightening and saddening that is not the story I’m meant to tell. The world of my paintings is not “realism” but perhaps it’s “magic realism”. It is the reality of what makes my life worth living and what I want to bring forward into the world.