Art
After taking that final deep breath in my morning exercise routine
I open my eyes to these peonies.
For me, they are a visual meditation on life,
reminding me that no matter the stage of life,
or the constraints of the frame in which I find myself,
I can choose to dance in the breeze.
Peony Breeze was selected by juror Dr. Kimberli Gant, the McKinnon Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art at the Chrysler Museum, to be in the Newport Art Museum Biennial.
If only they could talk, I am sure that the twelve framed botanical prints I removed from their storage boxes would be thanking me. They are back in the light, happily visiting with their kindred spirits in a “plant studio” filled with greenery and dried botanical ephemera.
Star Garden Studio in New Bedford’s Kilburn Mill Artisan Center is a new venture by gifted horticultural designer Crystal Brinson. In this unique “plant studio” Brinson will be offering garden design services, plants, botanical themed art, seasonal wreaths and hands on classroom experiences centered on gardening and the world of plants.
While many wonderful galleries and museum walls have hosted my art, this body of work has never been displayed in such a sympatico environment. The synergy is absolutely wonderful. It makes me think about storybooks in which toys come to life at night when all the people are asleep. As I closed the studio door after hanging the show, I could almost hear the conversations my images will be having with their counterparts.
Star Garden Studio will be open
Saturday, September 19th, 9-5
and September 26th, 9-5
127 Rodney French Blvd., New Bedford.
Look for the Star Garden Studio sign near door #4.
The Conversation of Kindred Spirits
Milkweed & Ivy
Mock Orange in the Greenery
During this Pandemic-induced pause, I am rebuilding the scaffolding of my creative life. An important part of that new structure will be the Synergy Project, a collaborative venture between the Art League of Rhode Island (ALRI) and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) This two-year project pairs scientists with artists to find a common ‘language’ to communicate oceanographic life and activity through artistic expression. It will culminate in an art exhibit and other events.
Read MoreWhen you sign up for a class you expect to come away with new information and skills. It is a profound gift when you get a group of colleagues who share your passion and support your creative journey. In 2016, I joined six other New England artists to form an on-going photography group dubbed the "Imogenes." Like Imogene Cunningham we all aspire to make art well into our nineties.
During our 2018 Winter Retreat we embarked on a series of creative exercises that became a yearlong project. We did not set out to create a collaborative body of work, but that is what happened...another unexpected gift.
Each of these seven images is from a different artist who created a visual response to the image to the left. To learn more about who we are and how we created this work click here
Five years ago, I climbed up a ladder in the Art Room of the New Bedford Public Library so I could peer down at the restoration in progress of Alfred Bierstadt’s Mount Sir Donald. It was impressive to see, but what stole my heart that day was a small painting on the far wall by another New Bedford painter, Charles Henry Gifford. Sunlight from a large side window made Coastal Scene with a Gundalow glow with an ethereal quality that captivated and inspired me. Could I ever create landscape imagery that would be suffused with a light like that?
It took a walk along the Fairhaven bike path to make me think it might be possible. As the mist coming off the salt marsh diffused the morning light, I wondered if Bierstadt or Gifford, who spent their early years in this community, had ever watched the sunrise from this same vantage point. I began to envision a series of local landscapes in a Hudson River School style.
Close to Home: Marsh Dawn Archival pigment print on vellum with white gold
While these painters used glazing, varnishing and secret recipes to create the luminous lighting in their work, I use modern digital printing on translucent vellum with hand-applied precious metal leaf. The gilding creates a unique sense of luminosity and an atmosphere of mystery. The image subtly shifts as light moves across the surface or the viewer changes position. These are prints that need to be experienced in person.
In Close to Home I have tried to honor the tradition of American Luminist painters with Southcoast scenes that feel timeless - images of the present and the imagined past. Part of the series will be on display at Norton Gallery Exhibit: Quiet Spaces during the month of February. There will be a Gallery Night Reception on Friday, February 15th from 5-7 pm. I hope to see you there.
Close to Home: River Dawn Archival pigment print on vellum with white gold
As 2018 came to a close, so did the installation of the final pieces of Saint Catherine’s collection at Saint Anne’s Hospital in Fall River, MA. Twenty of my images are now permanently housed on the walls of this medical/surgical ward.
At a reception to celebrate the installation it was gratifying hear from the nursing and support staff about how this art makes them feel, and what they observe as they walk past it day after day. Conversations with visitors in a gallery setting usually center on technique and artistic considerations. With the hospital staff the discussion was about the spirit and power of water, the calming power of imagery and the respect and beauty to be found in all stages of life.
When patients come onto the Saint Catherine’s ward, their welcome packet now includes a brochure about the artwork in the hallways. For patients and their families these images are places to rest their eyes, to focus on something non-medical, and to be a destination for the challenging post surgical walking that is key to recovery.
I feel privileged and honored to be part of this program.
The other day I walked into the grocery store and saw a bouquet of flowers that took over my life... It was one of the most unusual I had ever seen. The young man at the counter told me it was a very long lasting plant know as "Bishop's Balls."
Read MoreWhen asked to describe a garden landscape element that is not a bush, tree or flower, most people will suggest things like: bird feeders, ponds, fountains, or maybe a gazebo. Not many will suggest a photograph that is 9 feet x 3 feet. But I am happy to report that 18 months after River View was installed in a landlocked Providence backyard, the new ecosystem is thriving in all seasons. Just the other day oat grass and lilies were casting shadows and reflections that add depth and delight to the scene.
Adrift and Stillness will be featured at the Marion Art Center show, Impressions, which opens Friday, October 13 and runs until November 18th.
Look for my booth at the Art Providence Holiday Show at the Providence Convention Center, on December 9th & 10th. Make a note in your calendar and click here to get a sneak peek at the wonderful group of artists who will be there.
In 2016 I shot a dramatic series of peony images in my favorite stream. The current was running faster than usual and as I secured the delicate flowers in the rushing water, I became absorbed by the intense sense of movement and shifting light patterns. However, once home and looking at the images, I realized the photographs did not work. While I was immersed in capturing the movement, I failed to note the emotional tenor of what I had created. It is best described as “sad, drowning Ophelia”.
Composition, value, balance, color and storytelling all have to work in concert for an image to “make the cut”. Usually, I can give up on an image that doesn’t work for me or my esthetic…it is all part of the “10,000 hours” of practice Malcolm McDowell says are required to get really good at something. But damn, that feeling of sensuous and sinuous movement was hard to part with in these images.
Then it occurred to me that perhaps the digital trashcan was not the only alternative. …Maybe I could extract those visual elements of color and movement that I loved and give them a new home in a digitally created composition. I started thinking that rather than the default rectangle shape created by my camera, these fluid lines and shimmering colors needed a long free flowing format like the stream they were created in…and with that realization I had my answer - silk scarves. Wearable art. Not only a cool idea, but also an intriguing new challenge!
It was the beginning of new learning curve. For the first time, my color adjustments and choices were influenced by skin tones and fashion considerations. When creating a fine art print I pay close attention to how a viewer’s eye will move around the image. But, that image is on a flat surface. With a scarf the composition needs to work with the endless ways the scarf can be tied, draped or wrapped. (“Beware the boob blob,” said one of my fashion design colleagues…not a term or way of thinking one encounters in the fine art photography world!) While I have become proficient with the color management issues of printing on paper and aluminum, printing on silk is another world. Neutral tones are “challenging” on silk charmeuse my textile printer told me, but with persistence and diligence we found a solution.
After a long spring filled with trial and error, I am thrilled to share my first three scarf designs with you. They will be available for purchase during the Art Drive and online beginning August 12th. Please stop by, I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback.
Persian Rose Silk Scarf
7"x72" on 12mm silk charmeuse
I have new work that I am excited to share with you. New work however, means writing an image specific Artist Statement. It is challenging to concisely describe, in an engaging way, the why and how of one’s creative process. With help from several of my peers, I refined and edited my statement and considered the job well done. However, today, I realized that two other important influences in the making of these images had not been mentioned in the statement. So, here goes!
First, I want to acknowledge the role of my new Nikon D500. I am not a “gearhead.” I am not one of those photographers who is into every technical detail, who reads every review and has bags full of gear I want to own, but wouldn’t use. Six years ago I purchased a basic 12 megapixel DSLR and it has taken me further than I could have imagined. But I was getting frustrated with not being able to quite capture what I seeing. I starting losing interest and wondered if it was because I was “done” with this project. It didn’t occur to me that I had outgrown my camera. When I heard someone describe the D500 as the perfect camera for sports and wildlife photographers I realized that they were describing exactly what I needed! There is nothing wild or athletic about my botanical still life tableaux dancing in moving water, but they are fast moving compositions in rapidly changing light conditions. With its fast focus system and high ISO, the D500 allows me to capture a new level of fleeting abstract images … images that I could not see or imagine when I began this journey.
The other game changer was studying with Harold Ross. From the minute I saw his work in Lenswork magazine I knew that Ross was someone I wanted to learn from. He creates stunning still life images that look like old world paintings. I was intrigued not only by the illustration-like and “Dutch Master” quality of his images, but also the minimal amount of studio equipment involved. Ross, who developed his technique during his career in commercial photography, is a gifted teacher. I learned more about lighting in one workshop with him than I could have imagined.
Creative inspiration comes in many forms. Finding the right tools and teachers are an important part of the journey.
Dates and details of upcoming shows can be found here.
Adrift and In Stillness
When my parents celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary their friends put some money together to buy them a Heritage Waterford Crystal bowl. For the next twenty years that bowl took center stage in my mother’s dining room, where she hosted frequent elegant gatherings. After her death it was consigned to a life of darkness and quiet solitude in my dining room cupboard.
We lived very different lives, my mother and I. Nannette was beautiful and stylish, formal and proper, cool and crisp, sharp edges and bold colors. My style has always run toward faded blue jeans and hiking boots. Dinner party tableware in my house goes in the dishwasher or the recycle bin.
But the other day I took that bowl out of the cupboard, not for dinner party elegance, but as a frame for the botanical world takes center stage for my art. I wondered how side- and under-lighting through the cut crystal edges would affect a still life in that bowl. As I worked, carefully arranging graceful organic forms in this crystal anniversary gift, it occurred to me that another milestone is just around the corner. Soon it will be 25 years, a quarter of a century, since Nannette was here on Mother’s Day. Yet her presence remains heartfelt as my ephemeral botanicals and her enduring crystal, together, become something new.
When I am out photographing in nature, often at the edge of water, or thanks to my Bog boots actually standing in the water...I am thinking about things like: can I get close enough to capture that abstract arrangement in the next nanosecond before the wind changes it? is my shutter speed fast enough? don't drop the camera! remember to listen for the dogs who want to mark my camera bag.... My artful intention is there, but internalized on a deeper level.
So it always take me aback when other people write about my images as if they could peer into my head and see that intention. Recently, my image Copper Pinnate was selected by the Westport Concerts on the Point to be used in their posters and program. In the program notes, Jane Loos writes: "We chose this image because, like baroque music from Telemann, Handel and Geminiani on today's program, it is ordered, ornate and strongly emotive. Like baroque architecture, it is characterized by explorations of form, light and shadow, and dramatic intensity."
Art is about transformation and I am glad that in my case the process is largely out of sight. If Jane had seen the precarious jerry-rigging of this fern in fast moving water and the tipsy tripod that nearly followed it into the stream words like ordered and ornate would not have come to mind.
Enjoy the music! It should be wonderful.
There was a time when my job with a camera was to document events. Now, free from editorial constraints, I have been learning how use my camera to make art. As I had hoped, this creative journey has been wonderfully satisfying, both artistically and intellectually. But I never anticipated the deeply touching stories that my images evoke in others.
Evening Sky
A large print of Evening Sky now hangs in a busy South Shore office. I created this image as the sun was leaving its last kiss on a quiet ocean cove. The colors and patterns were so striking I abandoned the dinner table and ran outside with my camera until the last light was gone. While I responded to the visual elements, this buyer saw and felt something much more. When I delivered Evening Sky she told me, "I don't think I explained why I chose this photograph. I have been diagnosed with Parkinson's and when I look at these ripples, the beauty in that movement helps me to make peace with my tremor.”
For more information about Evening Sky click here.
This winter, wandering through an Artisan's Fair, I found a piece of blue bookbinding paper that stopped me in my tracks. While other people probably saw journal covers, I saw fish. I bought the small piece of paper with no idea where it would lead, but soon I was hunting down other lovely handmade papers. My husband, used to my eccentric ways, didn't bat an eye when I started stringing clothesline along the skylight so I could study how light streaming through multiple layers of handmade papers would affect their colors and textures. These are some snippets of what ultimately became my digital collage, the Blue Papers. It will be on display at:
For more information on the other 35 fish in this year's Art Drive school of BlueFish click here
Blue Fish Digital DNA
Swimming in front of the studio.
