The Lyric of Place

2008-10-25T13:22:00.000-07:00

There used to be this wonderful arched gate nestled into a walled courtyard I would pass in Georgetown that boasted a marvelous coif of trumpet vine. I think that is what was in my minds eye when I planted the vine and installed the blue gate. It was one of those lyrics of place that I never painted and wished I had. Perhaps I lacked the wisdom then to appreciate what I saw on a daily walk. I was far to busy trekking up the banks of the Potomac river seeking out the unusual and adventuresome. This little painting is my homage to the lost lyric.

2008-10-11T14:15:00.000-07:00

Gardening is such an act of faith. You cast your seed and blend your elements. Then you wait for sun, rain and wind to work there magic and stand back in awe of what has been revealed. It's a lot like painting. You choose your subject and blend your elements, allow the accidents of the day play into your work and if you are lucky everything falls into it's rightful place. This painting was pretty much like that.

2008-10-06T18:56:00.000-07:00

What I found engaging in this piece is the back lighting of the woods. It set a challenge for me to see if I could understand how to express the feeling it evoked in me. It seemed to intensify the play of light and dark and the use of color in the foreground. I almost feel intoxicated or heady by the play of light across the canvas. this was painted late June/ early July.

2008-10-03T16:21:00.000-07:00

This is a small pond that greets visitors as they meander to our front door. It's just a delightful interlude to encounter as we go forth for the day. Japanese ferns, iris and lilies create a wonderful neighborhood for the resident frogs and occasional snake. What caught my attention is how the dappled light set off the elements and allows the eye to travel along the path to yet another surprise. It's so easy to walk by our daily epiphanies without noticing. I find there are times when I am not focused visually I can easily ignore mind snapping beauty. But when I'm attuned and exquisitely tapped into the visual stimulus it can literally overwhelm my capacity to assimilate the beauty that surrounds me moment by moment

2008-09-28T17:09:00.000-07:00

Wow where has the summer gone? The series is progressing slower than I had hoped for actual paintings. But I have a good photographic portfolio to draw on as we approach winter. This piece is from late May with the honeysuckle in bloom. Funny, I noticed today that there are new honeysuckle blossoms. We have had a very rainy and extremely warm season. The garden has been flooded on several occasions, at times under two to three feet. So I have lost all my mulch and there has been a good bit of soil erosion. After last year's drought I dare not complain but the perennials have not had an easy time of it! I have a few older paintings of the garden that I will be posting as well. I hope you enjoy them. Please contact me via the website if you are interested in purchasing a piece.

2008-06-07T09:59:00.000-07:00

This month I've begun a new series called "The Blue Garden". For now it's evolving as a sequence of small intimate paintings as the garden unfolds across the weeks. All are executed en plein air to achieve the most immediacy. What I find interesting is that even though I have designed and planted the garden myself , painting it affords a "knowing " unlike any other method I can think of. I often spend an evening sitting by the pond watching the fish, snapping turtle,frogs and dragonflies do their dance. It is a marvelous place to unwind and recharge. But the intensity of focus necessary to paint it and respond to it on that level is quite different. It requires resonating to it's lovely vibration and translating that vibration to canvas by color and brushstroke. My expectation is that these small snap shots will evolve into larger studio pieces through the winter when I need to languish in today's warmth which they forecast to be a 100 degrees! Plein air in this weather is not for the feint of heart!

The Lyric of Spring

2008-02-17T14:25:00.000-08:00

The relentless march to spring is underway in North Carolina. Despite the mid-twenties in early morning. The daphne is gracing my garden with its lovely fragrance. Tulips split the soil with their fragile leaf tips, tender buds expecting to become luscious figs appear on seemingly dead bark and the apricot has almost completed its bloom cycle despite the frost. You can almost feel the earth leaning into the sun for just a bit more warmth as the days lengthen. A robin sang the other morning in the crisp air and appeared with three friends for a weekend sunbath. It's such a wonderful time of year. It's as ifI can feel my sap rise and everyday brings a host of new painting ideas.

The original Lyric of Place

2008-01-04T18:03:00.000-08:00

The phrase Lyric of Place was used as an exhibit title for which this painting "Coastal Poppies" was the centerpiece. I like to paint for a show so that each individual painting stands on it's own but also is an intergral part of the whole. This particular show had a number of medium sized canvases painted in pleine air as well as a series of 11 x 14" works. The challenge I set for myself in this painting was to take everything that pleine air painting teaches me and transfer it to a studio piece that literally stretched my reach since it is 72 x 48". And what a delight it was! The sheer size required that I dance with the canvas in order to paint it. This was actually one of those landscapes that I was driving through on the way home from a beach vacation. Lucky I had the digital camera at the ready this time. The dramatic size and bold colors though presented it's own challenge when it came to finding it a home. We did several horizontal works using a similar theme as commissions - I'm actually painting another presently. But I received a call from Bill Hester Fine Art in Chapel Hill,NC that it has just been placed. Thank you Bill!

Sometimes a place loses its lyric

2007-12-30T16:29:00.000-08:00

Here in North Carolina we are in what is called an exceptional drought. When I was at Falls Lake over the holiday I stood on the spot where I painted "Flight of the Gulls" (shown in my previous post) two Decembers ago. The lake is literally evaporating before our eyes! And it reminded me how transitory the lyric of place can be. It has happened to me more often than I would like to admit where I have walked into a landscape where the painting is there before me fully composed only to return with my equipment to find that the tide has come in or the light has changed. I carry unfinished paintings around in my head because I lived all year with the memory of how the sun played off the marsh in early June only to return the following June ready to capture an incredible moment and find that a late summer hurricane has altered the landscape entirely. It reminds me that what I do is more than just take notes from nature, I need to score the entire symphony. And sometimes the majesty is so overwhelming it's impossible to absorb all the element before they move on. On a trip this fall to the Outer Banks I remember we had just set up camp as evening began to fall. As I reached the top of the dune of this magnificent beach the sky and sea were the most unusual hue of lavender that I have ever seen. I was so mesmerized and awed that all I could do was immerse myself in the moment and it's beauty. Try as I might I cannot capture the memory on canvas with the veracity that I require. A lyric by its very nature is dynamic and fleeting. How does one translate its essence to two dimensions?

The Lyric of Place

2007-12-09T18:05:00.000-08:00

The Lyric of Place

Painting en plein air (in the open air) is when an artist sets up her easel in a garden to capture the immediacy of the moment. It is the pursuit of the unexpected intimacy of the beauty infusing that landscape that offers both the artist and the viewer satisfaction.

The challenge of painting plein air is like a dance with the elements. Light continually changes, buds march relentlessly to blossoms and skies are always in flux. The rhythm of the tides, the timbre of the wind and the spin of the earth become my partners. I have been a plein air painter for thirty years, perched in precarious places observing as just another variation of nature.

The graced eye can glimpse beauty anywhere. “The wonder of the Beautiful is its ability to surprise us. With swift, sheer grace, it is like a divine breath that blows the heart open…” says the Irish poet /philosopher John O’Donohue in his book Beauty. This beauty constantly surrounds us but we hurry through life in such a rush all we see is the blur. We miss the lyric of place. This swift, sheer grace can appear at any moment and the plein air painter must stand in her presence with utmost reverence for her truth. This veracity is in the tradition of the great plein painters Constable, Courbet, Monet and Van Gogh.

To dwell with nature so intensely is privilege indeed. Recently while paddling my gear to a secluded cove on Falls Lake, a family of six young herons took flight in a winged ballet. The sky was a clear blue, the sun deliciously warm and the waters mirror still. And I the sole witness, caught in a moment of pure bliss.

In the spring it’s a race as buds open so quickly in the space of an afternoon. They stretch their petals as they unfold in the embrace of a young sun. But the brittle, raw breath of winter on the upper reaches of the Potomac River reveals yet another face of beauty.

Immersion in nature is essential in order to become fluent in her language. She sings to us of our elegance, balance and our selves. The task of the plein air painter is to act as interpreter. My purpose is not to simply replicate the scene. It is to preserve the envelope of the moment so that when you, the viewer, turn your attention to the painting it is like uncorking a fine bottle of wine. You understand the lyric of place. You are overwhelmed by its essence. A good painting should open itself to reveal to you a sense of place in which you can taste the light, dwell in the shadows and exhale beyond the edges of the canvas.

In order to achieve this the painter must stand aside and allow nature to find her own voice, tell her specific story at that precise moment in order to touch you, the viewer. It’s a tango. Every time you revisit the work of art it has new meaning, fresh nuance, caught in that certain light that resonates with your emotions at that particular point in time, perhaps never to be repeated again. When you dwell with such a painting, as you grow, change, deepen, the painting offers new secrets. It’s a dynamic relationship - a private conversation between two souls. That is what a good painting should do.

It’s all in the approach .So the next time you stroll through a gallery to purchase a work of art, don’t just buy a pretty picture. Take the time to listen to what the piece has to say. Find something that speaks to you and feeds your soul.