Aerial

8" x 10", oil on panel

Circle, Square, Rectangle

White, Gray, Blue

White, Gray, Blue, 9" x 12"

The Brown Room

9" x 12" oil on panel

Sky Scape

9" x 12", oil on panel

I recently read the F. Scott Fitzgerald book, Tender is the Night. He writes, "You will feel your own reflection sliding along the eyes of those who look at you. You are no longer insulated; but I suppose you must touch life in order to spring from it." A lot of people base their self-image on being noticed and admired by others. To some degree we all need to feel appreciated. I like this quote because it so astutely puts this mirroring into words. Looking at landscape, at light, at paintings is different. Sky Scape looks a bit like the open skies of the Midwest but also like land after the snow melts heading towards the mud in April. Luminous and peaceful, it is grounded by the purple/brown/black bottom. When I look, I start with where I'm at, myself, look out, take in, and feel lighter. It's a re-energizing process - touching 'life in order to spring from it.' It is a way to feel centered, the opposite of chasing other people's ideas of perfection.

Peggy Orenstein in her new book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture, says that culturally it isn't enough for a woman to be smart or a good person. We're supposed to be "hot" too. It's exhausting. I think I'm ready for more wrinkles, for when time takes it out of my hands. Until then I'll try to keep perspective and focus on my own gaze.

Fall #7, October Sunrise

oil on panel

18x24

This is done the same day from the memory of looking out the window at approximately seven a.m. at the sunrise. A golden light came across the treetops, the grass was pale and cool, and the sky light pale blue-violet to violet. The color moment seemed so short compared to the rest of the day. I knew how I wanted to do it.

Dots are like the cherry on top of an ice cream sundae, of supreme importance, bright, celebratory, and excitement inducing. They are tempting but the rest of the picture also has something to offer.

In graduate school I painted a portrait of a fictional person. The painter Jake Berthot saw it and told me that I needed to paint the whole thing with the attention I paid to the woman's earring, a roundish piece of green. It was not to say that the whole painting needed to be made of that shape but that that piece of paint conveyed more in its delivery that the rest. Painters need to make sure that paint passages aren't just filled in areas like a coloring book but are functioning parts of the picture. This doesn't mean that all parts need to have the same thickness or level of description or saturation of color; it is a bit tricky. It is kind of like paying attention to someone else as an active listener and not zoning on parts of the conversation. I think I have learned how to do it and this painting is an example. Another example is this drawing of trees by Matisse. Even though it is made of simple lines, the negative spaces are considered. The space between the trees, for instance is hour glass shaped, echoing the curvy trees and complimenting their duality with the upper and lower parts of this shape, two for two.

If you look at this fabulous jpeg of Shoes by Van Gogh, 1888, you will see what I mean. Check out the floor. This reproduction is big enough to get into the paint passages. I can't get enough of it. You can see his thinking as he defines planes, observes variation in color, and physically describes the turns of the leather, it's facets made by the form of a shoe and the history of the individual wearer. It makes them a kind of portrait, intimate, through the appreciation of this everyday object and the life it represents. It is done with the care and tenderness one regards the clothing of loved ones who have passed and we have the sometimes difficult decision of keeping or donating them. People are passionate about Van Gogh because he understands this. He paints what he can't hold onto. The subject is shoes, the content is life.