| |
|
Artist's Statement
Light, Form, Color. Color first, maybe - but either washed in the brilliant light of the Southwest or scattered by New England trees. My earliest paintings were abstract, though thousands of hours were spent in life drawing classes. During the summer in which I studied with Hans Hofmann, the figure itself became abstract. In the late 1960s I returned to the figure in a simpler and more realistic way. My 1970s etchings and drawings reflect experimentation with figures-as-landscapes, relating New England fields and hills to the human form.
In the decade of the 1990s I travelled to the Southwest every year, often living close to nature, painting and drawing or photographing its beauty. The "Great Spaces" paintings come from those times in New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, and Texas. Currently I am working on prints again.
PAINTINGS
  |
GREAT SPACES IV:
Grand Canyon Experiments in translation
Towards the end of a five day visit to the Grand Canyon, as I was sketching and my husband was gazing out into the colors and silence, I recall laughing out loud at the impossible task of setting down on a flat piece of paper (later, canvas) the experience of the space. In each of these ten translations a single idea is addressed, whether color, depth, time of day, or a cloud's relation to the land.
View the work ...
|
|
|
GREAT SPACES III: Texas
The first line in May Sarton's poem "Texas" captures the sense of space in that land. In my paintings I've added color, a hot blue sky that vibrates with light. And flowers, which are there if you look down. But the sky is the main story, and visiting Texas many times in the 1990s reminded me of the summers of my childhood spent running barefoot under them.
View the work...
|
|
 |
GREAT SPACES II:
Paintings of the American High Desert
Perhaps it is the distant mountains or the wild irregularity of the landscape in New Mexico and Arizona, but one feels the sky as a dome overhead. Willa Cather speaks of the "arc of the sky." I spent many hours underneath these arcs sketching with pen or watercolors, and fact-finding with my camera.
View the work ...
|
|
 |
GREAT SPACES
Camping out among these desert colors and prickly plants, ground level near wild enormous rock shapes, conversations with my friend were reduced to mechanics of living in a tent and making our supper. If weather turned suddenly (and it would) we laughed at the rain in our faces as we hurriedly broke camp before water stained our art.
View the work...
|
|
 |
SHADOWS FROM A SINGLE TREE
Sixteen snowstorms came to Amherst in the winter of 1993 / 94, and I spent hours indoors sketching and photographing shadows across the snow. I began to record the day and hour of these, recalling my youthful fascination with the shadows' changes across our backyard terrace in Austin.
First Prize in painting — Five Artist Invitational, Art Association of Harrisburg, PA.
Juror: Olga M. Viso, Curator, Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden
View the work...
|
|
|
PRINTS
Printmaking - whether intaglio, woodcut or lithography - has always been an exciting mode of expression for me, expanding the ways of exploring the landscape or an idea. Included here are examples of work from the past two decades.
|
|
|
 |
MONTANA SPRING - 2007 
These prints combine memories of having lived in Western Montana with a recent trip in June, 2006. Fourteen monotypes, some combined with polymer etching, were completed and are housed in two portfolio boxes 11 inches by 30.
View the work... |
|
|
 |
LITHOGRAPHS
The horizon is the theme in this group of landscapes that refer to the Southwestern plains. Even in the older work, "The Hosting of the Sidhe" illustrating W.B. Yeats' poem of that name, it is the horizon that defines the riders "twixt night and day."
View the work...
|
|
|
|
|
 |
COLOR ETCHINGS – FOUR PLATES
Ten color / landscape poems of Emily Dickinson inspired these Amherst landscapes. Four small copper plates for each image were created and printed, becoming the limited edition book "From Amherst to Cashmere."
View the work...
|
|
|
|
