Tag Archives: landscape

Unsettled

IMG_4234Spring has arrived. I feel like a weary soldier who made it out of the fray but still not sure when I’ll get home, or even where that might be. We’ll still get several inches of snow this weekend but the light is very welcome.

I’m in transition on the art front. I’ve gone to my studio several times this week and have not been able to work much, or very well, because the impending move back to working out of my apartment feels very unsettled and not quite right. It is what it is. I’m trying not to see it as a setback, although six months ago I thought things would be much more expansive instead of this new contraction.

So I’ve just been doing the most straightforward and immediate thing, which is to keep making abstract landscapes that are about materials and action and the connection of eye, hand, paint, paper and horizon line. These, below, are each about 9.5″ x 12.5″.

The Painting Trail

My small but serviceable studio is about 4.5 miles from where I live, and there’s a lovely trail that goes most of the way; on nice days, if I don’t have a lot to carry, I walk. There’s a large flock of Canadian geese that gathers on a pond along the trail. I’m very fond of them.

IMG_4105 IMG_4107

In the studio I worked on a painting that’s been sitting dormant for a while. I guess I can’t deny that it’s a decorative painting, but I don’t really mind that at all. I love the iconic graphic lotus patterns that have been around for centuries in Indian textiles and they’re very fun to paint. It still needs a day or two of work but here’s the current state of it:

IMG_1017

I was at a good stopping point but had too much paint on the palette to throw away, so I pulled out a sheet of watercolor paper and made this, which I like very much: IMG_1018

And here’s one more “imaginary landscape” that echoes that wintery pond where my geese like to do their networking.

IMG_1010