Week 22: Day - To - Day Painting Transitions
IN SPRING by e.e. cummings in Spring comes)no- one asks his name) a mender of things with eager fingers(with patient eyes)re -new- ing remaking what other -wise we should have thrown a- way)and whose brook -bright flower- soft bird -quick voice loves children and sunlight and mountains)in april(but if he should Smile)comes nobody’ll know
Here in the second half of April, I am walking every day and paying such close attention to every change that heralds spring's arrival. Writing this blog I am presenting paintings made last fall, early November to be exact. So I am writing in one transitional season about work made during another transitional season. In addition to the seasonal transition, all of us are pulled out of our daily routines, just now, not knowing when the "quarantine" will end, but confident that this is not a permanent state. We are in a transient state. This painting completed on November 1, 2019 reminds me of foliage and reflections of autumn colors in water. The color of autumn leaves are a rich metaphor for transition, the colors themselves signify death and renewal, leaves change color as they die and we know come spring new leaves will appear on healthy trees.
it is a serious thing // just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world. Mary Oliver, Red Bird
Transitional periods give us an opportunity to discover the nourishment available to us in the mundane. Because I start each of the daily pieces from a blank slate, I am never sure what will emerge as I work. This piece differs from the others in this selection because there is a horizon line. Here we have a depiction of a scene (although abstract) seen from one point of view, three dimensional space is indicated by hypothetical vanishing points. It is surprising for me to see this abstracted landscape with cloudy sky here. At first it seems to be a dark and threatening sky, but that bit of pink with the white beneath it looks rather like a clearing.
She enjoys rain for its wetness, winter for its cold, summer for its heat. She loves rainbows as much for fading as for their brilliance. It is easy for her, she opens her heart and accepts everything.” ― Morgan Llywelyn, Bard: The Odyssey of the Irish
,Seen in person, this is a lovely subtle piece. An amorphous soft, cloud-like sense permeates, a swirling condensation moving around a center point. This and the previous image remind me of how the light in autumn is often diffuse and grey. Winter's harsh light, produced by the angle of the sun relative to the earth, banishes the softness in autumn's atmosphere.
A season of loneliness and isolation is when the caterpillar gets its wings. Remember that next time you feel alone. Mandy Hale
I reintroduced blue into my palette for this piece; the darkening blues, violets , yellows and greens of autumn. The movement in this vertical piece moves upward despite being slowed in eddies in certain areas. The layered marks and strokes combine to create an image which reminds me of gardens and pulsing growth. While I was not conscious of it while I was working, as I look at the photo I think of Joan Mitchell’s work. Hmmm
When the seasons shift, even the subtle beginning, the scent of a promised change, I feel something stir inside me. Hopefulness? Gratitude? Openness? Whatever it is, it's welcome. Kristin Armstrong
An all over pattern derived by marks of varying sizes in mostly primary colors, and some drawing in this piece from 11/6/19.
(i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth day of life and love and wings and of the gay great happening illimitably earth) how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any-lifted from the no of all nothing-human merely being doubt unimaginable You? (now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened) e e cummings
The airiness of this painting contrasts with the density of the painting of 11/6/2019. Similar to others made this week, this piece reads vertically as does a Chinese landscape painting.
As in all transitions, we are changing as we move from one phase to another. We have discovered that we need much less than we had previously thought. This period has given us distance from our routine, normal activities, however harried and filled with multitasking they might be, to assess what the time in our lives is actually for.