Blue Circle, Thick, Dark Green

24" x 24", oil on panel

This one is definitely lunar, and I don't remember what I did to get that blue. The green is textured, taking the look of grass at night. The odd thing is that it isn't naturalistic despite these references. The blue circle doesn't "read" as a pool of water, nor does the green "read" as sky. It looks as if there is a hole cut out of the lawn and the moon is there, at the end of some earthy telescope. Or maybe the blue moon is full in a sky made of the darkest moss instead of air. It seems still, yet as if something is about to happen, sort of like when you are watching the night sky for a shooting star. It's somewhat surreal.

Whatever it is, I enjoy the opposing shapes, contrast of light and dark, and feel of the whole thing. I bet there are a bunch of Wiccans out there who would appreciate it.

Happy New Year!

Nativity

digital image

Finished in time for Christmas...
[Well, I finished an oil on panel, 24" x 24" version after doing this Inkart piece. I couldn't get a good shot without a glare, so I'm going with posting the digital.]

The square format, attention to geometry, and cobalt blue reflect my admiration for Giotto. The picture is divided into quadrants by a god's eye type of form. The black pupil is the center of the painting. The star in the upper left echos the structure as does the flattened legs of the wooden trough. They stick out at that odd angle as a reference to the crucifixion. The star and the crucifixion are symbols of hope. The figures are eliminated except for the baby Jesus. Joseph and Mary are signified by two interlocking halos, like wedding bands. The lower left corner has three purple/blue cubes symbolizing the gifts from the three magi. The animals are reduced to one big ox or bull, which I have explored as a motif in other paintings. The bull is not a tame animal, so I think its place in the scene is to say that while the night is peaceful, there is danger in the future. God's eye sees all and life is vibrant nonetheless.

White Square, Green

24" x 24"
oil on panel

I'm on a green kick: spring, fresh starts, optimism, positive thinking, hope, renewal, all those things. The white square in the center echoes those ideas, evoking the potential of the blank page. It feels full rather than empty, alive in its organic, wavy edges. It is like a white sheet hanging on the line in May. The different greens are close in value (lightness/darkness) and so shimmer. The paint is applied so that the greens interact but one does not seem to dominate. The pieces feel like the closely-knit greens of moss.
It is rather the opposite of a department store experience, so if you are taking a break from your holiday preparations to check out this blog, soak it up. As for me, my cookies are in the oven, I'm studying for a quiz on HTML, I just packed my son's lunch, did laundry, put paintbrushes into soak, planned a play date, boxed a painting to be shipped to New Orleans, re-arranged carpooling, did the dishes, and let the dogs in and out and in and out. That is why the painting is necessary. It is pointless in helping me with all those things, except that making it and looking at it brings me back to center so I can keep going.
Another place to refresh is The Poetry Foundation; check it out.

Yellow Square, Blue, White

24" x 24", oil on panel

I like this one. I mean, I like my work, but this has an all-is-right-in-the-world feeling about it. Of course, all is not right in the world (I'm feeling a bit like Lemony Snicket, and yes, I've read all the Unfortunate Events), but it is good to have that feeling sometimes. Optimism. Optimism is hard to come by sometimes in the gray, cloudy winters of Western New York, so this is especially for my fellow Rochesterians. There might even be a little of Niagara Falls in this one.

The yellow square is a solid sun, a star that seems as though it will never die. The square shape makes us relate to the sun anew due to its unpredictability. At the same time, it is stable, secure, and very predictable, immovable, unchanging. It contrasts with the wildness of nature it is in and a part of. Surrounded by water, sea foam turns to air and clouds; water turns to sky; the yellow form stands tall on a base of blue sea. It breathes. A vertical piece of white measures against its right, connecting the white behind the square and it front, defining space. The viewer's eye is led in a circular motion and one can imagine the pupil dilating as it adjusts to the mid-day summer sun, soaking up the light.

Photos

digital photos

Colored light and shape are what interest me most in these shots. I think they inform my paintings with the way they are focused on simplicity. The triangle is a singular shape appearing to hang in space, although it is light on a wall. My paintings of circles and squares are the same kind of idea. There is a relationship between positive and negative as well. James Turell is a master of the materiality of light. My photos are sketches compared with his symphonies. The first photo is Self-Portrait with Biscuit depicting my beagle puppy. I like the way my shadow snuck in there. In fact, it is much like the shadow of a head my friend observed in Square-spotted Yellow Mark. It reminds me of the domesticity and colored light of Bonnard as well as Bonnard's dashund.

Two Paintings: Green with Yellow Marks, and Ochre and Brown

Ochre and Brown, 12” x 24”, oil on panel, 2007

Green With Yellow Marks, 12” x 24”, oil on panel, 2007


Ochre and Brown is a strange painting for me because it is both subtle and straightforward. It is earthy and feels like a golden, burnt field of Millet and has the brown of a discolored varnished oil from the nineteenth century. The land and sky have an interesting relationship as pieces of ground seem to lose their density and become clouds. It is strange too for its mixture of modernity and history, organic and synthetic.

Green With Yellow Marks reminds me of a field of buttercups or yellow tulips. I’m not a gardener and I welcome and enjoy the site of dandelions covering my lawn in the spring. The stretched horizontal landscape format works well for this pastoral imagery; the yellow marks twinkle like stars.

Square-Spotted Yellow Mark

24" x 24", oil on panel

This painting is a link between my minimalist pieces with squares and circles and the butterfly work. The butterfly is coming out of the void into the green. It is equivalent to coming out from under a rock, as the saying goes. Light and texture play important roles in this one.

My friend, Andrew, had this observation, "The darker green appears to me as the shadow of someone’s head, an unseen observer watching the butterfly emerge from the square. Just thought I’d share that."

Usually when people say they see "things" in my paintings, it is often because they can't see the picture as an abstraction and are trying to latch onto something they can name, like looking for things in clouds. A face is typically the first thing picked out because it comes from a human need to make sense of another human, finding the eyes, nose, and mouth. In this case, Andrew is right on. It is funny when I haven't lived with a piece long enough to realize what I did. The meaning of this shadowy presence is a whole other thing.

A Butterfly in the Hands, Red-bordered Pixie

36" x 24"

oil on panel

The white hands are ghostly, holding the butterfly as if forming it. It is an allegory for a divine creator. It is also an individual accepting mortality and making some attempt at grasping life anyway.

The picture is simultaneously stark and atmospheric. There is a range of delicate linear elements, short brushstrokes, blurred and loosely painted areas, and bold shapes. It feels eternal and instantaneous, tangible and ephemeral.

Painting is different than music in that it is not linear in time. Painting is not bound by a start and a finish in terms of how it is seen by the viewer. This painting is in tune with its medium and the way time functions in visual art.

The Last Supper

24" x 24"

oil on panel

This was done after Hans Holbein the Younger's Last Supper. Renaissance paintings are so compositionally elegant. They are geometrically solid. I enjoy the three paneled background and simplified the image to focus on the shapes and the light. I removed the figures except for some disembodied hands and feet, not feeling the necessity to have twelve sets as the narrative is now familiar to a large population. The floating body parts remind me of similar pictures that I saw in Italy at the monastery where Fra Angelico lived and painted. As I am interested in golden rings as symbols, the singular halo and its austere significance attracted me. I think it is especially beautiful hovering in the blue sky. Its lightness is in opposition to the compression of forms on earth, represented by the table and floor at the bottom of the picture.

Passing the Butterfly II, White Peacock

16" x 12"
2007
Oil on panel

This painting is addressing the same theme as Passing the Butterfly (Homage to Andrew Forge). The analogous palette is limited to green, yellow-green, yellow, white, black, and gray. I reached a point in painting it where I thought it was done. It looked good close-up, but at a distance it seemed illustrational and tight. Illustration can be Art with a capital “A”. The problem that keeps illustration from being fine art in many cases is that it is in service to getting a clear message across in a very concrete way. That being the goal, it is not often at liberty to pursue the mysterious and push metaphors to the limit. These things add complexity to art and offer the multiplicity of interpretation and rich symbolism that makes art vital and timeless.
So how did my painting get stuck being so literal? Sometimes I like to adhere to a likeness and I was being fairly loyal to the particular butterfly, the White Peacock. Maybe I was feeling cautious. I let it sit several weeks, like putting writing away in a drawer, and then felt ready to dig into it again. It required a bold mindset, as one might imagine Sargent feeling when he painted brushstrokes with bravura. He was never fussy. I made the three forms relate more to each other by bringing colors back and forth amongst them. I like the way the black separation (space) between the fingers of the upper hand visually blends into the body of the butterfly (form), like a crevice. It is a split in half that is echoed in the bottom hand through the yellow vertical line and the division in light and shadow. It isn’t obvious which hand is giving and which is taking. Often the act of giving fills oneself, as the cliché “It is better to give than to receive” extols.

Yellow-rimmed Eighty-eight, Michelle's Colors

36” x 24”
Oil on panel
2007

The palette of violets, blues, reds, and black is one which appeals to my painter-friend, Michelle Albert. We met at Massachusetts College of Art where we were in the same painting section. One of the exciting things about going to art school is the process of learning from ones peers. It is like a laboratory of people experimenting and searching. Observing the process of others is stimulating and contributes to one’s own creativity and learning process. Lasting influences are forged as ideas are embraced or rejected, often unconsciously.
I like the light in this piece, its dim, rich vibrancy, like that of stained glass, reinforced by and the black lines like lead. I want the image to dazzle, as do the Tiffany windows in my church.

Everything I am about to say is already known by others, but I think it is useful in relationship to the painting.

I am doing a series of paintings of hands holding a butterfly. I feel as though I could paint the subject over an over with many variations as it is a strong metaphor to me of the fragility, beauty, and temporariness of life. It is something we can hold only for a little while; it isn't fully in our control. We are in the often difficult situation of being fully invested in life while acknowledging that it is not ours to keep. It has to penetrate our hearts and then fly away. This is true of our own lives as well as our relationships with others. It is a magical, difficult thing to have friends and family who are so loved live far away. Transportation in the modern world allows us to have relationships long distance, which is a luxury, but also presents the problem of hellos and goodbyes. Sometimes the goodbyes are harder because there lurks the shadow of acknowledgement of death. The Greeks thought that the gods were jealous of humans for their mortality because of the preciousness it gives to living. Celebrating the moment is a way to stay in that frame of mind. I write this in an airport, waiting to board a plane to return to my husband and son after a weekend away to visit my brother in Florida. The butterfly in the hands is the way we hold others in our hearts; the beating is stronger for the weight.

Butterfly Release

30 in. x 24 in.

A joyous painting, it depicts butterflies set free from a box. The action is important here, so details are mostly absent and forms overlap, suggesting the chaotic fluttering of a moment. It is impressionistic in that respect. The cream colored butterfly in the upper right is the most in focus; thickly painted outlines also offer tangibility during an emphemeral event. I think that I would like to explore this idea further. Like Van Gogh's sunflowers, yellow carries an uplifting mood easily; high notes on a keyboard.

Butterfly Pinned

36" x 24"

oil on panel

The butterfly appears to be mounted for display, but that was not my conscious intention. The space is suggestive of a box, the white plane behind the butterfly is like a flap. It is not the first time that I have pictured a butterfly as a crucifixion (the symbology is resurrection in Christianity). The grays, black and white allow what color there is (variations on the complements green and red) in the insect to carry more weight. The dynamic, linear veins defining the segments are rhythmic and strong, electrified currents in a clinical atmosphere.

Strangely enough, the thought of a Russian dancer from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker comes to mind. The drama of the dancer's outstreched arms and the struggle of the kicks while squatting, and the boldness of it all seems in sync with this creature. It seems ready to spring to life like one of the toy soldiers coming out of a box in the ballet. The dance is called the Trepak, and I found something similar in Russian Dance Ensemble Barynya's video clip:

http://www.barynya.com/video/nedorostok.mpg

White Circle, Blue, Black

24" x 24"

oil on panel

Despite the reduction, this image recalls Romantic landscapes, which has led me to the word "sublime". A Wikipedia entry regarding the sublime in art has expressed my intentions rather succinctly (I have cut and pasted parts of it below).

An artistic reference to this piece is Arthur Dove, a painter who embraced the sublime.

Wikipedia entry
Victor Hugo touched on aspects of the sublime in both nature and man in many of his poems (Poems of Victor Hugo). In his preface to Cromwell (play) he defined the sublime as a combination of the grotesque and beautiful as opposed to the classical ideal of perfection.

The experience of the sublime involves a self-forgetfulness where personal fear is replaced by a sense of well-being and security when confronted with an object exhibiting superior might, and is similar to the experience of the tragic. The "tragic consciousness" is the capacity to gain an exalted state of consciousness from the realization of the unavoidable suffering destined for all men and that there are oppositions in life that can never be resolved, most notably that of the "forgiving generosity of deity" subsumed to "inexorable fate".[15]

The sublime, as a theme in aesthetics, was the founding move of the Modernist period. Attempting to replace the beautiful with the release of the perceiver from the constraints of the human condition, these ideas were amplified in critical theory through the work of Jean-François Lyotard[16]. For Lyotard, the sublime's significance is in the way it points to an aporia in human reason; it expresses the edge of our conceptual powers and reveals the multiplicity and instability of the postmodern world.

Moving Cloud

24 in. x 24 in.

Drifting clouds are fleeting and paintings are fixed. The cloud is off-center, pushing towards the right. It is framed in a blue rectangle inside a white square, drawing attention to its placement and the artist's awareness that it is artifice and a slice of a larger thing, a moment of sky. Clouds are all about change, while squares are of stasis. Like photographs, the rectangle contains time. It is a window to get distance to look closer, if that paradox makes sense. The painting is monochromatic. The whites offer tranquility and the blue brilliance in motion. The cloud is passionately peaceful in its solitary direction.

September Eleventh

digital image

I have been making art in response to 9/11 since it happened and then a piece or two at each anniversary as a way to personally set aside time to think about it and as a kind of memorial. It is too big for art to fully encompass, and too world changing to ignore. The New York Times asked five artists to draw and write about the event and has their work on-line today: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/09/10/opinion/20070911_OPART_SLIDESHOW_index.html
They artists they chose work in a traditional, representational manner. While I like the work, I think it was a conservative move so as to take no risk of offense.
I think I am going to paint the digital version. The bright blue is the blue sky of that clear day, the black forms are the towers, Pentagon, and plane that crashed in Stonycreek Township (surrounded by green for the field). The black is for negation, voids. The white plane is also cloud-like. The figure is in a crucified position and is representative of all human loss and suffering surrounding that day. The hands and arms are drawn loosely, in order to be more like wings and feathers, echoing the wings of the plane and suggestive of resurrection.

Black Cloud, White Cloud

16" x 20", oil on panel

The diagonal axis in this painting creates momentum. The sky is not placid, but filled with marks in various directions albeit small in scale in order to emphasize the masses of the clouds. It has a narrow color range which is also in service to the main actors, the clouds, in their opposing black and white. The black cloud is in pursuit of the white, and comes close enough to cast its shadow. A clear blue stretches behind them into the distance as the white cloud bumps against the right edge of the panel in flight.

Constable is known for his cloud paintings; here are three:

http://markbarryportfolio.com/works/Assorted/Constable.jpg

http://www.german.leeds.ac.uk/RWI/2001_02project2/ccloud.jpg

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.metmuseum.org/special/KarenBCohenCollection/images/1.L.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.metmuseum.org/special/KarenBCohenCollection/1.L.htm&h=352&w=300&sz=35&hl=en&start=35&sig2=DeE9Q1Yl_Wb9DhStkSuh2g&um=1&tbnid=RAYvRnPRmRuAiM:&tbnh=120&tbnw=102&ei=xlPhRo2MBIaUiwHGqry0DQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dconstable%2Bcloud%2Bpaintings%26start%3D20%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D100%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox%26rlz%3D1I7GGIC%26sa%3DN

They are really impressive in their intensity, especially the last one. I think clouds' amorphousness gave this 18th/19th century painter the opportunity to use vigourous brushwork with emotional vigor not unlike what the Abstract Expressionists did later.

Butterfly Breathing

oil on panel, 30" x 24"

The air is like cotton candy, but the picture is not saccharine. Figure and butterflies are part of the same environment; the same air fills them. The butterflies are staggered and there is a halting motion to the piece, almost like stuttering, especially in the drawing of the mouth and first butterfly to emerge. The red lines forming the figure and the pink flesh are the colors of blood and life. The butterflies are extraordinary because of their vibrant coloring, freedom, and harmony within this environment. Butterfly breathing is the act of acclimating to the world. It is not always a smooth process, peppered with stops and starts.

Butterfly Box, Below

oil on panel, 28" x 24"

This picture aims at capturing the flutter. The assymetry, open form, atmospheric space with linear moments for definition all aid in the effect. The wings feel like the delicate membranes that they are. Hints at an open box at the bottom give a reference point to create a sense of space as the butterfly lifts upward.

Butterfly Hand (v.2), Pink

36" x24", oil on panel

I just finished reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. It was voted one of the top one hundred books of the century by the New York Public Library, and it is now one of my favorites. In the back of the novel is a quote by Smith, "I came to a clear conclusion, and it is a universal one: to live, to struggle, to be in love with life - in love with all life holds, joyful or sorrowful - is fulfillment. The fullness of life is open to all of us."

In The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion remarks about the way our culture doesn't encourage one to pause very long to mourn. Descendants from hearty pioneers and immigrants who don't look back, we are supposed to dust ourselves off and keep going. This instinct for self-preservation is important, but we can also lose ourselves if we get caught up in a whirlwind of busyness and distractions. There is a reason why religious people often seek solitude.

What I like about Smith's statement is that it is parallels the idea that everything has its time, but it goes further to say that it is better to experience all things than to be numb. It also reminds us that we should expect imperfection and change. We should not feel cheated because our lives do not mirror ads picturing happy people and their new car or trip to the Bahamas.

What does this all have to do with art? Everything. I use my art as a way to contemplate and express life's experiences, not to make mirages that a viewer might find easier to see. People who are engaged in life in a similar way might want to look here at my attempts to grasp what cannot be grasped. It is no wonder that walking into the studio is still daunting.

Cloud

24" x 24", oil on panel

This is a slice of sky, a window in a void, a look into blue sky from outer space. The sky is tranquil, cheerful, yet singular, solitary inside the larger black square.

I think it would be too simplistic to reduce this to a matter of pure optimism versus pessimism. Isolated and out of context, the relationship the cloud has to anything else is unknowable. A transitory part of a weather system, floating over a particular country, we see it here as a Platonic form. Rather than pessimistic, the void may be the unknown, not necessarily anything sinister. Maybe the ideal is unreachable, or maybe the cloud is a snapshot of something at its best. The painting is something about time and the human condition; the present is visible while the future stays persistently out of sight.

Female Loss

24" x 24", oil on panel

I shot this in natural daylight, but there still was a glare; I find this difficult to avoid when photographing thickly painted, dark images. The vigorous texture is visible, though.

Description: a small, pink, central circle is inside a black square, inside a dark brown/plum square. The black is vacuous, but the warmth of the pink and plum relate, creating a spatial tension between depth and surface.

There is something ocular about these circles I am doing. They seem monocular, like the view through a telescope, also planetary despite their apparent flatness. I am fascinated, as are many, with the luminous spheres that hang in space, particularly the moon. It is full of dichotomies, near and far, familiar and mysterious, deceptively simple.

White Circle, Blue

oil on panel, 24" x 24"



I'm considering posting images in Art Weekly without my accompanying comments. I was told in art school to leave the writing to the critics and historians. It wasn't that I was bad at writing; it came up in a different context. It was about the way visual art usually originates pre-verbally, and many artists aren't very articulate except in terms of their medium. Often there is a lot more to the art than what artists say, and sometimes the comments can be tangential. During school and after I found writing to be a way to get to know the artwork that I made. The teacher in me enjoys offering a way in, but to artists, what I do is very legible. It is all academic, not avant guarde. Those unused to minimalism might feel a wall crashing down at so few elements, the "anyone can do that" attitude, or else that there must be more but they aren't "getting it".


The above painting is academic in that its form of color and simple shapes was once new and now is not. I don't think anything new in terms of form in a big conceptual way can happen anymore in painting. That is why a lot of people say it is dead and move on to performance, installation, video, computer art, etc. I still find meaning in it and need to have it be a part of my life on a regular basis, no substitutions. I think of it like the orchestra. Many composers have abandoned the classical orchestra or have experimented with it to push its limits. It does have a particular sound even though the range is incredible. But that is the thing. The orchestra, like painting, can be a vehicle for communicating very specific things in wondrous, pleasurable, thought-provoking, beautiful ways. They are both very plastic (stretchable, malleable). They both also have a history, particular elements that make them what they are, and other certain "givens".


White Circle, Blue is a peaceful, meditative image. The central circle and the balanced square provide a feeling of equilibrium. The way the paint is applied, the gestures of the strokes, makes the image the opposite of something mechanically done. It has soul, evidence of the touch we all need. The thickness of the paint gives the painting substance, body, and skin. It is filled with light.

White Circle

collage on Arches paper, 5" x 3"


There must be more, right?

As there are subtleties to quiet, so there are to this kind of art.

I never quite thought of myself as a Minimalist, although I have done some geometric abstraction in the past. Minimalists are sometimes described as working without metaphor and personal expression, focusing instead on visual impact. I am all about all those things and think that the most basic of forms can inspire metaphor.

I've decided to not be afraid of simplicity, since the impetus to make work in this vein is strong. I'm not abandoning anything, just widening my scope. It is summer and it is like learning how to relax. Productivity, filling time up with activities can be distractions from reflection, as many people seeking spiritual direction will testify. Art objects are made to contemplate. Many people go to museums as if to church.

This work has silence in it.

Butterfly Hand (v.1)

oil on panel, 36" x 24"

The body (of the butterfly) is a chasm in the hand, a spasm of fluttering, suffering from which beauty comes. It is the center of a flower, a nail in the palm, a stem, the crucifixion.

The butterfly is for people who have gone and who also stay.

The butterfly-hand is my changing self, breaking and re-forming, simultaneously fractured and whole.

Note: the butterfly is based on the Blue Metalmark, Lasai Sula (U.S.).

Butterfly, Open Box I and II

charcoal on paper, 17" x 11"

The hermit crab is coming out of its shell; the butterfly out of its box is similar, I suppose. It is funny that it isn't a cocoon. Naturally it would be a cocoon, so a box might be a constraint imposed by a human(s), also different from the traditional butterfly net. The butterflies don't seem like stunning, tranquil wonders, but are full of fractured motion. There is a sense of struggle to keep the wings beating rather than a graceful flutter. The release was hard-won.

Square Prints

Print #1

Print #2

Print #3
Print #4

Print #5

drypoint, chine colle

In these prints, the square is a form and a void in space. It is organic, like the irregular weave of something handwoven, a plane not usually parallel to the picture plane. It has varying degrees of density from image to image. In the first print, the butterfly is entering or exiting the dark square while in the second butterfly print, the butterfly inhabits it. Which world is unknowable, the dark or the light?

Colored prints number three and four are landscapes, atmospheric, and created out of color. Number three is constructed out of slabs of paper giving the sense of monumental scale of Stonehenge and just as bucolic. The fourth print is all about sky and reflections; a white square fades in and out of focus. Its subtle and peaceful qualities are in the vein of Agnes Martin, revered for her simplicity and achievement of sensations of tranquility. She is one painter who knew that less is sometimes more.

Print number five is like Daffodils, Loss, but without the flowers. It is stark but soft, full of contradictions. When I was a teenager, I painted a mural in my bedroom of a split face, one side in color and the other in black/white/grays with the word "paradox" painted above it. It was pretty much the theater comedy and tragedy masks rolled into one. Something of the theme remains in my work despite having left adolescence behind long ago, LONG ago. I would never have been able to make these prints as a teenager. It is not a technical issue but a conceptual one. My work hinges on the idea in combination with materials, process, touch, and perception. There is change, but there is also a strong, yet flexible philosophical undercurrent buoying it all along.

Washington Art Association

16" x 16", oil on canvas, 2006


Butterfly Pelvis/Wild Indigo Dusty Wing


I am having a show at the Washington Art Association in Washington Depot, CT, from June 23-July 22, 2007. The opening reception is Saturday, June 23rd from 4-6pm. The gallery's website is http://www.washingtonart.org/ I expect to hang between fifteen and twenty paintings as well as a few prints. The art association has three galleries and there will be one artist for each space. The other two artists I am showing with are the painter, Kathy Black, and the sculptor, Bob Rivera. The image above will be included in the show and is featured on the announcement. It is rather like Georgia O'Keefe both in symbolism, scale, and paint handling. The pelvis is symbolic of birth as well as death (bone) and the butterfly of life cycles and renewal. The forms fit together in a dynamic way and it was important to me that one did not dominate over the other.
The tension between the green and purple echos the sharp contrast of black and white in the picture.

Ring, Green

oil on panel, 24" x 24"

I am enjoying taking a break from narrative, although the narrative isn't totally gone, just distilled. A gold ring in the center square is like those used in some of my other paintings (see Mass Grave, and Lunar Moth Self-Portrait). I like the contrast between the formal rigidity of the square and the loose, atmospheric brushwork. The inside square is not truly "square", however. It coexists with the surrounding space, push-pull dynamic like a house being weathered by nature while simultaneously using resources to maintain itself. The golden ring is not a perfect ellipse, looking as though it has had a few hard knocks. It retains its structural integrity and is not eclipsed by the shadows of the void it inhabits. The black square and ring make a painting within a painting.

I am in the process of pursuing this idea of the square, the void, and filling it. I think of Jasper Johns' Target with Four Faces from 1955 and his lithograph, Target from 1960. I am also obsessed with packing my son's lunch in the bento box style lunchbox used by the lady at the Vegan Lunch Box blog: http://veganlunchbox.blogspot.com/ ! I am sure no serious artist would ever admit this; besides, how many serious artists are moms who would actually take pleasure in the mundane drudgery of packing lunch? This activity of filling squares with precious things also reminds me of the rituals of saving locks from the first haircut, placing photographs in albums, organizing collectibles like stamps, as well as jewelry in boxes. The paintings also remind me of washing window panes (stroking the surface of the window while seeing the yard through it), as well as the more recent and less pastoral association of the computer screen and Windows programs.

With all the activity of film, video, digital media, something still like a painting can be refreshing. It can also be perplexing, as the viewer is being led in a different way than other media. While I am hopeful that viewers can get something out of my work, it bothers me less that my audience is small. We don't always catch every sunrise, glimpse every bird, or marvel at each other. Spiritual experiences can't be forced in nature or art. Being constantly engaged would be exhausting as well as impossible, ask anyone who has ever made the mistake of trying to see an entire art museum in a day. My work is available to be experienced, but it will most often go unseen, perhaps even by people who are looking directly at it.

Swordtails and Boxes

line etching, 4" x 3" image size

In addition to squares, I have been thinking about boxes. The squares in my work are rarely completely two-dimensional, since they have spatial references.

This image comes from a painting in an earlier post, Butterfly Box. With the figure removed, the subject is the relationship of the butterfly, something wild and free, and the box, a container. I turned the etching plate up-side-down and printed it a second time, inverted, further amplifying this duality through the mirroring asymmetry. It didn't look right printed in one pass. The overlaying forms are transparent enough to maintain their separate identities but to also fuse into one form, suggestive of fluttering. The butterfly has a geometric structure like the box even though its movement is unpredictable compared with the box's stasis. Turning the box on its head makes it airborne like the butterfly and further complicates this relationship.

To me, the image is metaphoric of the balance between responsibility and freedom in politics, ecology, and personal daily life.

Swordtail Butterflies



This one is for the Butterfly Book.

A response regarding Rob Moore

A painting by Rob Moore:
Untitled, 9.75" x 17", oil on masonite, 1984

Nicole,


Thanks for your writing about Rob Moore. I was a student of his at Mass Art from 1974 - 1978. he was the most influential instructor of my life. Being from New England and not used to southern accents, i will alway remember him in front of the class that first day when he was discussing \"Form in Spice\".


Other than a reference to \"The Package Deal\" poster (from his work with the Graphic Workshop) being in the collection at the Smithsonian American Art museum (http://americanart.si.edu/search/search_artworks1.cfm?StartRow=1&ConID=7337&format=short) - a poster that I do have a copy of and helped print - and the website you mentioned there is little on him. I\'d love to see a website with images of his work.


Thanks! Rick

Lilies of the Valley, Crow's Feather

24" x 18", oil on panel

My friend, Brenda, often brings me flowers from her garden in generous, bug bunches. This time she brought these lilies of the valley and put a crow's feather in the middle that she found on her run. It struck me as just the right metaphor. It is very much like the daffodils with the black square in the upper center. Color and form are especially important in this painting. I really like the form of the leaves with the vertical of the feather, its split, curling top and wavy edges. The flowers were tricky to paint, as it is easy to get too fussy with frilly details. I decided not to include a table and to increase the amount of reflection in the glass so as to make the image more airy and give emphasis to the flowers and feather. It has been awhile since I have done a straight forward still life and I'm not sure how it stands next to the latest minimalist things I have done.

Some flower painters I like:

John La Farge (known for his stained glass work, but he painted as well)

Van Gogh, Irises nice close-up (of a different Iris painting)

I found a neat BBC site about a program they had, "Painting Flowers" with many examples of specific kinds like lilies, sunflowers, tulips, and roses. Check out the Sargent I adore, Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose.

Hope, Loss

36" x 24", oil on panel
4" x 3", dry point, chine colle

This is the most minimal work I have done to date. The general theme is evoked by color, green for hope and black for loss. Emotions and color have in common that they are complex beyond words with many subtleties for which there are no names.

The green in the print looks flat compared with the juicy oil painting, but in real life it is sensous, reminding one of dewy grass.

Artists working as color field painters:

Joseph Albers

Mark Rothko

As I looked on-line for a link to put with color field painter Robert Moore, I became increasingly disheartened. I was a junior at Massachusetts College of Art, looking forward to taking his color theory class because of the high regard students had for him, when he became ill and shortly after died. This painting I am doing now reminds me of him. Artists always have other artists as role models, but my favorites are those who are amazing, caring people in addition to being great artists. Rob Moore was that kind, reputed to paint an unbelievable number of hours on top of his teaching schedule. There must be lots of paintings out there by him, but there are so few links on the web. He died in 1993, before being on the Internet became almost necessary as proof of existence. It shouldn't be so shocking, I suppose, that artists leave behind their art and become anonymous; archaeology provides countless examples. It just seems so soon for that to happen and rather unjust when there is so much art that is promoted unworthily. If I had money to collect art, I would seek out his. I saw some in person once at a Boston gallery and they were like small miracles. One would expect paintings so small and with so few elements to be arbitrary, like how students often feel at their first glance at a Morandi. Instead, they are vibrant, joyous, meaningful visual poems. I remember one that was the color of a raw cracked egg: glistening yellows, whites, made of a substance that seemed to go beyond paint. One of the things I found through Google was a short bit of writing about Rob by a former student, which was very moving and seemed to describe the qualities of the man that he also squeezed into his paintings.

I guess I am looking back so much because I need to be refreshed and re inspired as I continue to put paint on a surface. There are so many other practical things to do with time, many of which are a lot easier! I am dust if I make paintings and dust if I don't, and the paintings are dust, too. It is a meaningful process for me like no other, so I make them.

Daffodils, Loss

36" x 24"

oil on panel, PRIVATE COLLECTION

Now I just know that someone somewhere will see this and say, "I love those daffodils; I just wish she didn't stick that black square in there, otherwise I would buy it!" I like to do this in a falsetto voice to amuse friends. C'est la vie.

It's spring and there is plenty to be jubilant about, but sometimes there is loss, even in spring. The black square is that gaping hole, the void, the pit of one's stomach. The vertical picture relates to the body, a torso, if you will, and the square is like one's gut. But, you know, it also looks like a square of dirt, which could make one think of a grave with flowers around it, or of ordering nature. Let's go with gardening. It could be that bald spot in your lawn that you need to patch or a new flower bed to be planted. The negative is not always negative but unused potential waiting for seeds.

Butterfly-Hands (One Strong Butterfly)

24" x 24", oil on panel

This form makes me think of the way you can use your hands to make a bird flying.

As always, words aren't going to cut it, but I'll say a few. The form is very sculptural, central in the picture, situated in space, while the forearms are like a pillar that can also be read as space. In that way, they do not compete with the form of the butterfly, which would serve to ground it. This butterfly is flying with vigor, all muscle, even though the black lines are so solid (like the lead around stained glass). I revisited the medieval stained glass at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC this weekend and there's something about them that seems as hard as nails. Image, form, and belief are inseparable. I would say there's also some of the raw toughness of Soutine's sides of beef in my picture.

Woman, Bird, Skeleton

Woman, Bird, Butterfly, etching, watercolor, 2006-2007

Woman and Bird (Spring), etching, watercolor, 2006-2007

If these seem strange, then you probably haven't come to terms with Joseph Beuys. I have long admired his work and, being a painter, find his drawings and watercolors particularly fascinating. They are succinct, draw on pre-verbal conceptions, and are the result of a search for meaning rather than people-pleasing. In comparison, mine are much more digestible, and I'm not sure that that is a good thing. While I will continue to try to dig deeper, I seem to go towards a certain amount of description in my work. It's something for me to consider and the type of problem an artist has to wrestle with.

These aren't going in The Butterfly Book, unless I decide to make new plates based on the images, because they are larger plates that I printed at another time for another edition. Painting on leftover prints (proofs - prints that aren't uniform enough to be included in the edition) is wonderful. It is a theme and variations game where the artist can experiment in taking the same basic idea in different directions. Drawing on a tablet computer is amazing for the same reason. Makes me want to go make some work...

Letting the Butterflies Go, painting

oil on panel

20" x 16"

One word to describe much of my work, especially this one, is "visceral". The palette and brushwork contribute to the feeling as well as the imagery of the butterflies making their way out of the gut. The emerging pale blue-violet butterfly contrasts with all the heat, giving the picture a bite like strong blue cheese. The picture is about the process of letting go, which is sometimes painful. The other versions of this image (done as a digital image and as an etching) are more about letting worries go, whereas this painting is about letting go of people, things, or ideas that have enough personal meaning that they feel a part of you. The butterflies in the background are like ghosts.

Loaves and Fishes (version 4)

digital image

My pastor asked if my image of the Loaves and Fishes could be used for the cover of our church bulletin this Sunday as it matched the gospel reading. I couldn't find a jpeg handy, so did this digital version anew on my tablet. I have two versions of the image done in oil and one in woodcut that was used for a church fundraiser. The digital will reproduce easily.

The painted versions of The Loaves and Fishes show more clearly that the two hands of Jesus rising from the ocean are of different races. Also the round, golden pita loaves double as halos. I like the simplified iconography, "x" composition, and strong forms emerging out of agitated, rhythmic water. Artists often return to the same subject and hands are one of my favorites.