Fall III and Fall IV

oil on canvas, 36" x 32"
oil on panel, 20" x 16"

A friend of mine came into my studio as I was selecting work for my show, Images of Optimism, which opens October 28th at the Bowery Gallery. She was excited about what she saw after telling my husband a few years before to watch the landscape where we live work its way into my paintings. I didn't believe it then. Even though I loved trees and sky, I thought it didn't reconcile the political issues I wanted to address. Maybe the thing is that I see it all and want to respond. In any case, the next thing she exclaimed really made the connection for me clear, "The paintings seem to say, 'The world has gone to hell in a hand basket, but look out your window because there is more to life than that!'" So it is not so much with an escapist's searching that I turn to the view, but with an interest in seeing, experiencing, and affirming that there is life outside politics. I still gaze with the knowledge that politics effects everything, however. It is impossible to look at nature and not think of climate change, for example, just as the BBC podcast, "The Best of Natural History" investigates the changing migration patterns of eels most likely due to global warming's effect on the Gulf Stream.

Bonnard painted scenes of domesticity and landscape during wartime; a search produced a painting unfamiliar to me. In 1916 he was assigned to make paintings of the First World War; the painting, Un village en ruines près du Ham (A Village in Ruins near Ham), depicts French troops near ruins. To me it is obvious that his heart wasn't in it, although his mark-making is unmistakable and the isolated contrasting colors of blue and orange hint at the colorist within, handcuffed in the task at hand.
So I wonder sometimes why I'm painting something pedestrian like a landscape, why to paint at all when there are so many artists taking on ENORMOUS (in every sense of the word) projects in new media. I don't feel like such an old fashioned girl. I do believe in those small, quiet acts of looking, seeing, and being that can be transposed onto canvas through a person. There is no substitute. I can't fix the world. I'm a small ripple: mailing Obama postcards to swing states, helping to register a few new voters at a rally, casting my single vote, sticking a bumper sticker to my car (someone stole it!), recycling & buying Fair Trade, taking care of my family, and painting. The paintings reflect my unique way of seeing. I don't want to back away from experiencing the world through paint. This is what I do.