Touchless

 

Touchless

16x12 oil on panel 

Physical distancing was mandated by governments around the world in order to protect people from both contracting and sharing the Covid-19 virus. This public health strategy was key in stemming the spread of the deadly disease. However, the isolation created by the stay at home orders took a toll mentally and emotionally on many. 

Elders proved to be at greater risk of getting very sick, requiring hospitalization and possibly losing their life to the virus. Consequently they were encouraged to be especially cautious. No group suffered more chronic loneliness. Many seniors living alone or in care facilities were confined to their rooms or apartments for approximately a year. 

Electronic methods of working, socializing and ordering goods, which became a lifeline for younger people, were closed to many of the elderly. Unfamiliar with or resistant to technology, seniors remained isolated from friends, neighbors and family. Social isolation frequently leads to depression and other mental health issues which are linked to worsening memory loss and higher mortality rates in older individuals.

The forms that love was expressed were wrenching to witness, but so sweet. Birthdays were celebrated by parades of cars with honking horns and banners, face-to-face visits were conducted through closed windows and hugs could only happen through sheets of plastic. We are social animals and connection is fundamental, which was proven by the countless innovative methods that loving friends and family devised to bridge the gap and express their love to one another.

Assault Rifles in the Capitol

                                                    Assault Rifles in the Capitol

In late April governor Gretchen Whitmer requested that Michigan’s lawmakers consider extending the stay at home orders. A crowd of protesters soon gathered at the state capitol brandishing swastikas, confederate flags, nooses and some came bearing arms. Automatic rifles to be exact.

It is legal to openly carry firearms in Michigan and they were allowed to enter the capitol building. When they were bared from entering the chamber where the debate was taking place, they transformed the elegant rotunda of the Senate visitors gallery into a snipers nest.

Furious about the governor’s proactive attempt to shelter the citizens of her state from the most fierce virus to move through humanity in a century, this group saw fit to threaten elected officials with assault rifles and hand guns. 

This painting was very hard to complete because the image upsets me so deeply.

Portrait of a Virus

 

Portrait of a Virus

8x10, oil on panel

coronavirus series

How often has everyone known what a specific virus looks like? 

Closed in our homes and staying abreast of the rapidly changing story of the pandemic, we became well acquainted with the model of the virus that was upending our lives. 

Keep Out

 

Keep Out

16x12 oil on panel

Parks were reopened with the realization that fresh air and exercise are fundamental to good physical and mental health, but playgrounds or “tot lots” have remained closed. Who needs sunshine, fresh air and movement more than our kids? Towns, cities and states have rightly agreed that kids under 6 don’t keep masks on and have no concept of social distancing.  Children touch their face often and surface transmission is a concern on playgrounds where it is difficult to clean and disinfect all surfaces. 

Playgrounds are often crowded with not only children, but their parents, grandparents and caretakers too. With schools and daycare facilities closed playgrounds could become more crowded than ever. But what do parents do parents do to fill all the hours, keep kids stimulated and burn off some of that youthful energy that simply needs to be released? 

The vision of closed play areas reminds me of all the limitations we currently face that lead to quiet losses. Through enjoying ourselves in the company of one another we feel whole, we grow, we feel joy. Without that experience what happens, especially to young children? Not only are they being kept from the simple pleasure of one another, they are not challenging themselves to climb higher, slide faster or learning how to get yourself as close to the sky as possible on a swing. 

What could be more sad that a fenced off playground?  

18 Wheeled Morgues

 

18 Wheeled Morgues

18x12 oil on Panel

The death rate in New York City overwhelmed its system for burying the dead. Someone in 

the city died every 2 minutes, four times the normal death rate. Hospital morgues, funeral homes and cemeteries overflowed and backed up. Hospitals ran out of body bags, military teams were called in to assist in mortuary work, and funeral homes were working around 

the clock. One funeral director said “the death rate is so high, there’s no way we can 

bury or cremate them fast enough.”

Refrigerated trucks were parked behind hospitals to serve as makeshift mobile morgues. Stacked on quickly built shelves, each truck could hold 36 bodies and store them until 

funeral homes could accommodate them. After dying without family or friends, the favorite aunt, the checker at the market, the teacher who had inspired kids year after year, 

the beloved spouse were stored in body bags in 18 wheelers.

Playing to an Empty House

Playing to an Empty House
16x12 oil on panel

From road house to grand auditorium the sharing of music stopped. The uniquely human experience of coming together to enjoy live music was prohibited. Fleets of musicians have no income, musical institutions can’t sustain their losses and there is a creeping realization of how long this dark period may last. Originally thought of as a mere intermission in an ancient tradition it now appears that gathering for a musical experience may change forever.

Arias sung from balconies, orchestral pieces delivered by zoom and performances in darkened concert halls are sweetly tragic. Musicians need to play and people want the emotional experience that only music can deliver, but performance is interactive, among the artists and between musicians and their audience. The communion we feel when sharing

live music simply doesn’t survive social distancing.

Sorry, We're Closed

Sorry, We're Closed

Coronavirus series

16x12 oil on panel

As the stay-at-home orders began to reshape our lives, our eyes moved from the large public spaces that were empty to the more intimate gathering places that had been ordered to close. Restaurants, where we go for conversation and community as much as for food were shuttered. First the idea that lunch with a friend or a casual cup of coffee was not possible was a shock, then the realization of the depth of our troubles crystallized seeing all the "Closed" signs. Dread of the economic fallout took hold. Not only were individual workers doing without needed income, but how many businesses could survive being shut down for a couple of weeks? As weeks turned into months we knew that a second disaster was taking place all around us. All those closed doors indicated another form of silent suffering that would take an enormous toll in a whole different way.

 

Silent City

Silent City

Coronavirus series

20x16 oil on panel

The speed with which cities shut down in quarantine was shocking. It went from a novel event that a few countries were going through to a sight seen around the world, creating scenes that were utterly unique and haunting.

This enormous intersection, built to organize a huge volume of traffic sits empty. Numerous lanes for cars, trucks and bikes are still and the two lone pedestrians seem to emphasize how tiny each individual is in the complex systems we've built. Looking at the scenes of shuttered businesses and empty streets it sinks in that it's going to take a while to build back from the overall silence the pandemic imposed on the world. 

Coronavirus Series, Masked

Hello again!

I haven't shared any of my work for over a year. I've been painting a lot, but the series was about an emotional earthquake in my life, and I considered my paintings to be more therapy than anything else. I focused on recording my feelings in a visual way which took me in a different direction with my painting. The pieces were raw and so was I, so I kept them to myself sharing only with a handful of  brave friends.

Who knew that I was training for recording the images of a world wide pandemic? I have in the past month begun a series of the startling and quickly changing images that the coronavirus has brought.

Masked

16x20, oil on panel

This is the first in my Coronavirus series. I saw this man in a busy urban setting and was rocked that someone in a city in our county felt the need to wear a mask. By the time I was half way through the piece the person that stood out on a street was the one NOT wearing a mask. My head spun. 

The images have been coming so fast that I can't keep up. I planned to do an elbow bump painting, but within a week we weren't getting within six feet of one another and we were pulling on gloves to pick up things that others had possibly touched. 

My files are full of ideas and I'm painting virtually all the time. There are currently 3 finished pieces and 3 under way. I will share once a week or so. 

Thanks for checking back in with me. Let's all be helpful, kind and careful with one another. It's hard to understand what others are going through, now more than ever.

Desert Baroque

Baroque
16x20 oil on panel

After focusing on smaller paintings while tinkering with my technique I was eager to take things larger. I'm not sure I'm done with this painting, but I promised myself that I'd set it aside and not touch it for a bit. I like it and want to leave it in a bit rougher a state than I traditionally have. I enjoy the blocks of color, the distinct shapes that become form. I want to resist my urge to refine this to near photographic reality. I believe the feeling has been captured and I want to leave it there.

I started with a drawing of the opulent blossoms on a succulent at our doorstep. I kept all lines straight 

A poor photo taken at my easel, with my own shadow cast across the image. I started the painting with my focal point, the cascading section of the blossoms that caught the light.

My next step was to move to the opposite end of the value scale and establish some of my darkest darks.

Now I begin to work on the all the areas in between - the parts of the luscious blossoms that were in shadow.

More

And more 

When I completed the image I felt that the dark of my background was too deep, so you can see here that I altered that and then spent some time looking at the details of the plant forms and strengthening the shapes created by light and tone.

The finished image is at the top of the post.

I've been painting, just not posting!

I've been altering my style slightly, which has required retooling my process, habits and the way I look at my subject. It's required a lot of focus, a lot of small paintings and a sense of humor. 

I returned to my favorite subject - the endless beautiful forms found in plant life - while I push myself toward abstracting the shapes they present. Some times it works better than others, and I have to remain fully concentrated or else I find myself blending value shapes as I have in the past. 

I'm deeply engaged with this, and like where I'm headed. Hope you do too!

Winged Seeds

Winged Seeds
24x36
oil in panel

This painting just left to take up residence at a sweet friend's beautiful home. I will miss it, and the studio feels a bit empty without it. It is one of the larger paintings I have done, which means that it commanded a lot of space, and it is by far the painting that I worked on longest... over a year! I started it in February of 2017 and only just finished it. I would work on it in fits and starts, with many other projects completed while it was percolating.

These uniquely beautiful pods and seeds in real life are no bigger than an inch high.

I decided to experiment with a new approach. I started using latex paint  (yes, house paint)  to execute the underpainting. I painted directly instead of using the method I have come to rely on - working from a middle tone, laying in my darks and wiping away the lights. 

Also, you might notice that the color is not my traditional Burnt Sienna. Far from it! I thought I'd use the complimentary color, or the one directly across the color wheel, from the green that I knew would dominate the painting.  

Once I had the shapes and the darks and lights mapped out the next step was laying in the color. 

I thought that if I had bits of the complimentary color peek through it would add sparkle to the piece

With the color laid in in a general way I stood back and realized that in my usual thorough way I had managed to paint right over most of those little flickering bits of complimentary color I had been excited to let show through. Old habits are hard to break! Oh well "I yam who I yam"!

As I built the painting I realized there were shapes that didn't work compositionally that I decided to remove. 

Liking the simplified composition, I focused on how the light caught each object

I worked on defining the forms and how they relate to one another, pushing the background deeper and pulling up the  light on the foreground.

Nearing completion, I continue to add details and and make sure that the stars of this show are in the spotlight. I double check that my focal points are working and that the eye travels around the painting in the way I would like.

In the final sessions I glaze (putting a thin coat of transparent color) on some objects to further push them back, and I warm other passages with a glaze. I reaffirm my high lights, and then do what what I find the hardest part of any painting - sign it and call it finished!

The finished piece is at the top of the post.

Salad Days

Fresh Picked #1
8x8 oil on panel

I've spent so much time in recent years looking closely at plant forms in both gardens and in the wild that the natural next step is to look at them in the kitchen, right? It occurred to me how beautiful the food we now routinely eat is, and I felt moved to record a few beautifully abundant salads. 

Fresh Picked #2
8x8 oil on panel

I grew up in the time of Tang and TV dinners. Fortunately my mother didn't believe in frozen dinners, but she sure did believe that the only trustworthy vegetables came out of a can. How lucky I am to have lived in California enjoying the produce of the Central Valley as cooks have made it a more central and satisfying part of our meals. Not only is our new cuisine delicious and nutritious, it stunningly beautiful!

Bee and Manzanita Blossoms

Bee and Manzanita Blossoms
Volcan Mountain
12x16 oil on panel

In late February I was entranced by the waxy white blossoms that covered all the manzanitas as I hiked up Volcan Mountain. It looked as if there were drifts of snow on either side of the trail. The hardy plants, with their famously hard wood and their thick, rigid leaves produced the most delicate blossoms in pristine white. With the lyrics of Edelweiss ringing through my brain, I took photo after photo of the delightful clusters. 

 I found one composition that I loved for a juxtaposition of bright white blossoms and a crazy cast shadow pattern on the leaves below. I was framing a number of compositions of it when one of the bees that were moving all over the mountain flew into my photo. Magic! 

My focus in this residency has been on the plant life on Volcan Mountain. As we all know, there would be no plant life without bees. The depth and breadth of the work done by these industrious creatures is nothing short of miraculous. 

 In a series of paintings about plants there must be a Bee!

The completed painting is at the top of the post.

Peeling Manzanita

Peeling Manzanita, Volcan Mountain
18x24 Oil on panel

One of the pure pleasures of hiking on Volcan mountain is walking through an extensive tunnel of manzanita at the base of the Five Oaks Trail. Never before I first ventured to Volcan Mountain had I found myself enclosed by a tangled forrest of 10 to 12 foot high manzanitas. Such a pleasure! As long as I can remember I have loved manzanita's satisfyingly smooth bark that seems to glow with an inner light. It's trunks and branches look almost animal, as if there are muscles rippling under the surface of the warm and lusterous surface.

The plants are interesting all year, producing delicate blossoms, berries of multiple colors, and then they do this! Starting around May the trunks and branches start shedding their old bark. As the plants grow, cracks develop and the old bark begins to roll up into tight curlicues. The newly exposed bark is a bright green but transitions within a matter of days into the gorgeous orange, red, purple colors the plants are known for.  The color combination lit my art heart on fire, and I felt like giggling when I focused on the curling shapes of the old bark.

Like a snake, the plant sheds the outer skin that has protected it for the year. Tannins make the bark bitter and even toxic to some invasive organisms, and they also give the plant it's distinctive coloring. By November the shedding process is complete, and all the old curled up bark has blackened and fallen away. The new bark has matured into it's luminous reds, oranges and purples and is silky once again. 

The finished painting is at the top of the post.

Last Leaves - Volcan Mountain

Last Leaves - Volcan Mountain
18x24

This painting is the second painting done for my residency with the Volcan Mountain Foundation (www.volcanmt.org). My mission this year is to capture the change of the seasons through the cycles of the plant life in the Volcan Mountain wilderness area.

This image was captured on a cold and rainy day in late October when clouds sat low on the mountain. As we hiked, trees we neared would emerge from the fog while others remained simple silhouettes.  There was a hush broken only by the drip from branches creating a rhythm that changed as mist gave way to passing bands of rain.

The grays were endless in number, and created a reflective mood. The browns of plants pulling in and down were wrapped in white as fog blew around and through branches, shrubs and golden grasses. In this quiet setting the very last of the fall leaves provided startling flashes of color. They drew the eye, creating a beautiful counterpoint to all the subdued, muted colors. 

The panel with my value drawing, in Burnt Siennna.
I use this to place the elements in the composition and make sure I can capture what I am after. 

Here, after several sessions of work, I have the basics of the background and the branches painted. I have yet to begin work on the leaves, so there you see the underpainting. It took several more days of work to complete the image to my (and my family's) satisfaction. The completed painting is at the top of this post.

Acorns - Volcan Mountain

Acorns - Volcan Mountain
12x16 oil on panel

What better subject for the new year than the acorn! Beginnings, possibilities, great things to come... All the rich potential for a majestic oak is contained it the beautiful nut that wears a cap! All the birds that will find homes in the oak's branches, the squirrels that will store it's nuts for winter,  all the deer, coyote and bobcat that will pause in it's shade in the hot summer, and all the oxygen the oak will release into the air is in that beautiful nut that fits so perfectly in the palm of your hand. Magic!

This is the first of the paintings I will be producing as the Resident Artist for the Volcan Mountain Foundation. I was approached by representatives of the Foundation while exhibiting at the Festival Of Arts in Laguna Beach last summer. They were looking for an artist to kick off their residency program. I love the wild lands of northern San Diego County and investigated the Volcan Mountain Foundation. I found that it was a group that had purchased, bit by bit untouched tracts of land on Volcan Mountain in order to prevent development and preserve open space. I admired their mission, and my work seemed a perfect fit for their desire to celebrate the wilderness preserve that now spans 2,900 acres rising behind the city of Julian, CA, and offering sweeping views of both the coast and the desert on a clear day. See www.volcanmountain.org

I wrote a proposal, submitted a portfolio of my work and was selected by the Volcan Mountain Foundation. I plan to produce around 10 paintings of the plant life on the mountain through the cycle of the seasons. At the end of the year the Foundation will hang a show of the collection of paintings at the time and place of their choice.

Being involved with this organization is deeply satisfying for me. I greatly admire their mission, and the success they have had in preserving land that is still so untouched and will remain so in perpetuity. I get to routinely hike the mountain and gather photos of all the plants there, and I have the pleasure of developing a series of paintings that will be used to draw attention to the preserve and the unique beauty of the California environment. Perhaps it will help inspire others to protect and defend our shrinking wild environments.

This is a photo of the underpainting. Done in Burnt Sienna, this is how I place my image on the panel, develop the pattern of values and make sure I like the composition.

Here I have begun to weave the background of leaves that the branch I am focusing on is nestled into.   

Here I have spent several sessions on the acorns and leaves in the foreground. Several more are required to finish the detail of the subject, and to balance it with the background.

The finished painting is found at the top of the post.