the market
A daily obsession with living healthy, what we eat, where our food comes from, and how it is grown and prepared has provided the focus for my current series, The Market. For the past three years I have been working on a collection that has grown to over 150 paintings, inspired by regular visits to farmers’ markets in Austin, Hawaii, Laguna Beach, and San Antonio. Initially I documented my impressions on small squares of heavy Fabriano cotton paper. The tiny 4 x 4” watercolors were used as studies for the larger paintings that followed. I looked to the market as a model for returning to the fresh fruits and vegetables my family cultivated in our small Detroit backyard garden. I also sought out with curiosity the mysterious varieties of watermelon radishes, maroon carrots, fennel, oyster mushrooms, and golden beets that were not familiar to our family crop – ever mindful of the seeds, the patterns, and the process that eventually bring these edible organic treasures to our table.
Many of the paintings are abstract but are influenced by the form, color and patterns I have observed, studied, and recorded. After my outings a market bag’s contents would be sliced, cut, chopped, diced, and sketched before the painting began. My objective is to capture not only what I observe but to isolate, simplify and glorify the produce, recording the essence of a fruit or vegetable with the evocative and sensuous forms always revealed in nature. My desire is that my artwork will allow the observer to see a familiar form with a unique perspective.
A big thank you to Wayne Allen Brenner of the Austin Chronicle on the review of this series.
To view the full painting or a slideshow, please click on a thumbnail from the gallery above.
iceflow
Let it snow. Arriving in Boston on January 18, 2015 from Austin, pristine silver flakes of snow dusting the streets two days later….Heaton, my five-year-old grandson, delights in his first snow. By mid March a new all time record, over 112” of snow, is reached. I am in Boston for my daughter’s surgery at Mass General, followed by seven weeks of treatment, helping our family. I make time for isolated moments to paint, a contemplative time for me. With the limited supplies I brought in my suitcase I am painting small 10 x 10 watercolors, on a narrow desk, in the basement of a rented house in Beacon Hill, with no natural light. I am capturing impressions of melting ice pools, transparent icicles dotting the rooflines, and pristine frozen structures, punctuated by the glimpse of an occasional cerulean blue sky. All seen from a specific viewpoint, reaching out for quiet, tranquility, and peace.
To view the full painting or a slideshow, please click on a thumbnail from the gallery above.
quiet
During the past two years I have been researching how color in our surrounding environments — particularly nature — influences our personal health and well being. After reading the book Healing Spaces by Esther Sternberg, that explores how our immediate environment affects our senses, emotions and immune systems I began to paint what brought me peace. With an emphasis on repetitive, quiet patterns of movement found in nature I focused on line, color, and form.
I understand that my paintings may draw different meanings, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. My intention is not to impose a specific message to the viewer. I often hesitate to title my paintings, for fear that they will be translated only according to my vision, and close a door to another interpretation. I hope my paintings will allow the viewer to observe a familiar object in a new way.
To view full painting or slideshow, click on a thumbnail from the gallery below.
