Portfolio of Works

I’ve always loved the sinuous line and sense of space in Asian painting.  As a child when I visited the Art Institute of Chicago, I stopped first at the Oriental collection, lingering among the screens, stylized landscapes and water fowl.  When I started teaching in Chicago, I'd return to my apartment feeling ineffectual and spent, so I relaxed by doodling at an easel with an Asian brush - long flowing lines that went nowhere happily.  Decades passed, and I became a student of Zen, which led to the Sumi-e studio of Long Island artist Sungsook Setton.  When my husband and I moved to Massachusetts, I enrolled in Chinese painting classes with Qingqong Ma at the Piano Ink Studio.  With its tradition of a simplified - yet not simple - view of nature and fluency of expression, the Asian brush suits me.  

Stone Blue Studio comes from the name of a Chinese water color, stone blue.  It's a mineral color, hence opaque, so used sparingly.  It reflects the sky and captures the color of the rocks around my home.  We live on a ledge in Harvard, Massachusetts, with outcroppings everywhere.  My husband has a keen eye for the bones of the land and laboriously, lovingly, uncovers the giant boulders to punctuate their beauty with ferns, flowers, and cacti, ever mindful of their integration in the landscape.  

Landscape painting is a step into the natural world and a way to bring it home.  I feel happiest when I'm painting outdoors, in the weather surrounded by birdsong.  is it despite or because of the plethora of decisions one makes, selecting the view, creating the composition, choosing the medium?   Oils are irresistible, with a silky viscosity and versatility on the canvas.  Acrylic is easy if you're quick, and acrylic gouache offers beautiful chroma and ease in mixing - yet again, you'd better be quick.  Water colors transport readily and be reconstituted after they've dried; again, they mix well, and the pan colors have a free pass in airport security.  Pastels feel good, with the sudden sweep of color and their ability to block in shapes with expressive strokes - but you need a stick for every variation of hue, so you carry the box (even if it's my wee box of stubs).   Of course one can always do a sketch, take a photo, bring it back to the studio; but you miss the birdsong, and you miss the epiphany that one can paint for hours in heat and humidity or the chill of rain in November and never feel discomfort.

In college I majored in English and minored in biology so was busy with requirements, but I did squeeze in a figure drawing class.  My first surprise was the model, who was a friend.  We locked eyes, shrugged shoulders, and she disrobed.  From that moment on I lost self-consciousness, locked into the line that was her contour and the beauty of the human form.  In later years I sought figure sessions wherever they were offered.  Once at Stony Brook University, we had a show, and I made a sheet cake to celebrate it.  I frosted it with an image of my favorite model, and as we leaned in to make the first cut, someone said, "Oh my god, I recognize the model."  Everyone murmured agreement - and then she was gone. 

A still life does not have to sit still.  It is an exploration, a journey, a close study of anything that arrests ones attention.  I've learned to collect objects that move me:  some are beautiful, some homely; they may be retro or contemporary; but each has a personality that makes me curious.

Prints and abstracts have found a home together in this website.  It makes sense to me:  most of my drawing and painting is perceptual, with the subject before me and my hand moving in response to what is observed.  The mind and senses are locked in concentration.  Printmaking is several steps removed from the subject.  If you're working on a monotype, you're thinking in mirror image.  Intaglio and relief printmaking involve designing a plate or block, carving, experimenting with inks and inking, then working it all out with a press or baron.  Many printmakers use collage, too, as part of the process, which adds to the abstraction.  My abstracts evolve intuitively or through experimentation with concepts and materials.  I let go of outcomes for a time.  Serendipity is an important player.  

Bookmaking is personal and satisfying:  leaving your mark on pages that follow an arc through time and space.  It is tactile and thoughtful, quiet, ancient.  The book itself may be narrative or observational, or simply an exploration of composition and medium.  A handmade book feels good in the palm and offers timeless comfort.