Three Pieces I’m Excited To Share
“She Knew Just Where To Look For Shells,” detail
It’s almost show time!
As I write this, the Occasional Artists Show and Sale at Milwaukee’s historic North Point Lighthouse is only two days away. It’s my third time in the show. It’s such an honor to be there with fellow artists who have become friends, and to help support the lighthouse I walk past almost every day and love dearly.
I thought you might like a preview of three of the pieces I’m especially excited to share at the lighthouse:
“Yellow Bedroom Facing West,” acrylic and china paper on paper, 6”x6”
This little piece felt, and still feels, like a turning point. My past work has a lot of fields of color, composed of translucent layers, all with a soft feel. While I love those, I had also been looking for ways to incorporate smaller and more defined shapes in a way that was authentic to me. In this piece, I realized I could emphasize some of the shapes that were partly hidden by newer layers. I loved how the finished piece seemed to contain more information, more story, than I had achieved before. I’ve followed this path many times since.
The title of this one comes from the bedroom I had as a teenager. The west window looked over the woods behind our house, which glowed black-against-gold at sunset in winter. My parents let me choose the wall color, and at the paint store, I rejected several shades of yellow that seemed downright intense to my mom. Brighter, I kept saying. The finished walls looked a bit like this. I loved them.
“Carousel,” acrylic and dry media on wood panel, 12”x12”
Talk about small shapes. I hesitated as this one emerged because it looked so different from what I’d done so far. But I’m learning to trust the voice that says, “I don’t know why, I just like it.” It made me think of the county fair and carnivals, of figures that might or might not be forming from marks that weren’t meant to be figures. I’m looking at it right now and it’s making me smile.
“She Knew Just Where To Look For Shells,” acrylic and dry media on canvas, 20”x20”.
Wonderful people keep asking if I’m ever going to work bigger after so many 6”x6” and now 12”x12” pieces. After this piece, I sure hope so. Not everything comes together easily, but this was a steady path from the start, marks and marks to begin, then layering over, then finding what to keep. I love the color, the ambiguity, what it evokes. (I love it so much that as soon as it was done, I got in the car to go get more canvases!) So yes, I do hope to keep working bigger, and very soon.
See you at the show!
You can see these and much more, plus the work of five other terrific artists, at the annual fundraiser art show for North Point Lighthouse in Milwaukee, the Occasional Artists show and sale, on July 8, 2023, from 4:00 - 8:00 p.m. It’s just that one afternoon/evening, with a $10 entrance fee and a cash bar to support the lighthouse. It would be wonderful to see you there.
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