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...