For You, It's Love!

20" x 16"

oil on panel

If I could distill my childhood into one image it might be this one. My grandmother's favorite flower was lily of the valley. We had them in the backyard and after she died my grandfather would pick them for me, as well as other flowers from the garden. Her name was Lillian and his Mundy, a nickname, as he was born at 11:59 on a Monday night and his twin at 12:01 on a Tuesday. My grandparents called each other "Pest" and I remember him being scolded for tasting tomato sauce on the stove from the cooking spoon. Even though I was six when my grandmother died, her warning to him regarding other women was etched in my brain, "You can look, but don't touch." She died on their anniversary at fifty-five and he missed her ever after.

It is his hand in the painting, a construction worker's hand, so much bigger than mine and so familiar. We lived together and when I was a little girl I held it whenever we went places together, which was often. The hand is painted in a way that shows human suffering; its mass is in contrast to the delicate flower. There were thirteen children in his Italian first-generation family. His younger sister was run over by a trolley in front of their home at the age of five, and his twin brother died of a burst appendix at fifteen. My grandfather always said that his brother was the smarter one and neater, describing the way Bobby parted his hair just so with his comb. A picture of the two of them when they were about five shows them with their arms around each other, my grandfather easy to spot with his tongue sticking out. After those deaths, my grandfather was the youngest. I think he always missed the noise of living in such a full house and maybe tried to make up for it by being so loud himself. As the only grandchild, I was the apple of his eye and I have never heard anyone introduced with more pride than when he introduced me as his "little granddaughter". I can't remember even one time when he wanted me to leave him alone. As a parent, it strikes me as rather remarkable. The painting squeezes all this narration into one image with feeling, part memory, part personal icon. Without the back story, it is an allegory that small acts of tenderness matter.

Rounded Blue

18" x 24"

oil on panel

This strange shape for sky and clouds looks almost like a giant eye and reminds me of the eye sockets of skulls held up to the sky by O'Keefe. Perhaps the white on the sides is also like white curtains being drawn back, theatrical. The shadow in the foreground adds depth as does the reflected light on the hills. The blue seems to press forward as well as to recede. It is one of my more harmonious paintings. The brief commentary this week matches the reduction in the painting.

I went to NYC this week and saw the Whitney Biennial. Painting was barely represented and it was difficult to take in the numerous pieces of art in various media. I wasn't so excited about the work overall, but I did like this piece by Carol Bove.

I especially enjoyed the Guston drawing show at the Morgan Library (I'm off to draw next, very motivating!). Another highlight was the show of Natalie Charkow reliefs and Ruth Miller paintings at the Lohin Geduld Gallery. The reproductions don't do justice to the caring marriage of hand and eye in both these artists' work. They are two women who have made art their lives and have persisted in their own visions regardless of trends.

Two Trees

18" x 24"
oil on panel

This week, a smattering:

My friend, Aaron Brooks, is having a solo show at the Bowery Gallery in New York City. It closes May 15th and the link is: http://www.bowerygallery.org/current.html His work often combines different styles in one painting and they have a metaphysical bent.

I am entering into the world of free-lancing and am available to do illustration and graphic design work, such as children's book illustrations, greeting cards, logos, website icons, etc. I am really enjoying using Adobe Illustrator. You can check out my profile with portfolio samples on Guru:

http://profile.guru.com/963970

One of my roommates from Mass. College of Art went with me and a group to do landscape painting in Tuscany for a month. She did a series of paintings and gave titles to them such as "It is What it is" or simply "What it is." The flippant, philosophical titles didn't match the traditional style of the landscapes, but they did convey the painter's problem with language. I am of the mindset this week to say the same about Two Trees: it is what it is.

Spring Sublimation

18" x 24"

oil on panel



"Measured objectively, what a man can wrest from Truth by passionate striving is utterly infinitesimal. But the striving frees us from the bonds of the self and makes us comrades of those who are the best and the greatest. " - Albert Einstein

I'm always looking for motivators. I mean, I am self-motivated, but even so it is good to get external reinforcement that I'm not wasting my time trying when it sometimes seems futile. It's kind of like looking for the cups of water and orange slices from people when running a marathon.

I painted over another painting to make this one. It is a put-the-past-behind kind of thing which accompanied my spring cleaning and multiple trips to the Volunteers of America. Roberta Smith wrote an article in The New York Times recently about how there seems to be a new trend in painting of working small, as opposed to the large works of the Abstract-Expressionists. She suggests it relates to the economy. It is a kind of simplification, reduction. The short but brilliantly succinct film, The Story of Stuff shows the current state of world affairs better than anything I've come across. My nine-year-old was able to grasp the problems that elude much of society because of its straightforward and appeal graphics. I didn't want to watch it at first, but was glad I did. I think it definitely relates to my art and why I'm making it the way I am.

As far as this particular work, there is a lot of texture visible in this photo of it, but in person the center square seems to hover and seems to be able to go in front as well as behind the green. I'm obsessed with green. Plants are supposed to relax people. The expansive green fields and luminous blue skies of Western New York helped to inspire this picture.