A New Song

A New Song
watercolor with gold leaf
18” x 24”

This painting will be part of the 2022 SPARK Invitational Exhibit in the West Gallery of Public Works Arts Center in Summerville, South Carolina September 23 - November 5, 2022.

It is a visual and personal reflection; representing all 2020 until this moment has held for me.

I want to describe all the minutia. The cracks and the solid ground. Grief and joy juxtaposed.

My observation of an approaching crescendo began on March 13, 2020. The word of the day in my German classroom was Hamsterkauf, describing the global hoarding of toilet paper which was underway.

By Monday, schools closed and virtual teaching began: as did an onslaught of polarizing opinions, politics, loss, fear, hot tempers, and uncharted waters to navigate through. And I learned, humanity is a fragile thing in a time of sound and fury. Tender in a forest of clanging and discordant words.

How long to sing this song?

from Start to Finish: 2021

2021 was a year of much work; yet it felt there was little to show. As the year wanes, I celebrate hidden processes. Quietly seeing things move from start to finish. Sometimes taking longer than expected but moving forward nonetheless.

This portrait is of local artist Robert Garey. This version is painted on Arches cold pressed watercolor paper. A second unfinished and hidden version, painted on Arches hot pressed watercolor paper, sits in my studio. I chose this subject matter to compare the watercolor surfaces in regards to ability to capture details. The lettering, glasses and ring particularly.

When I look at a finished painting, I see all my personal musings of a time as I worked. These paintings consist of more than pigment to me. For me this one, holds a portion of the fatigue and slowness, I felt moving through 2021. I painted slower, searched for the little details and read more. Some years are for hidden work, others are for the visible.

Selfie of the Artist
watercolor on paper

The quote below I read in September and “tend to your own knitting” was my quiet anchor as I navigated through the waves of 2021. Wishing you all a 2022 that ministers to you. Be your knitting hidden or seen.

“So tend to your knitting. You’ve got your hands full just taking care of your own life before God. Forget about deciding what’s right for each other. Here’s what you need to be concerned about: that you don’t get in the way of someone else, making life more difficult than it already is. ”

— Paul to the people of Rome as found in The Message translation by Eugene Peterson

Living Next Door to Alice

I need to talk about Alice.

The above book was gifted to me. I completed it last week. It chronicles the biography of a female watercolorist who lived independently and earned her keep through watercolor during a time when this wasn’t the norm. She elevated watercolor and, using it, shared with others stories of the time and place in which she lived. Her life story reached into others and left its mark through her mentorship and generosity.

“A shadow is not dull gray. It has reflections of the colours all around and it has light within the shade. Open your eyes to the life in a shadow.”

— Alice Ravenel Huger Smith in a letter to Talulah McInvaill

Following reading the book, I listened to a conversation about it Walter Edgar held with South Carolina artist Jonathon Green. And I want to say, Mr. Green described the creative process and watercolor in a way that I so appreciate. Few know and understand the medium. “It can be unforgiving,” Green states. That is so true and a watercolorist knows the sinking feel when you know you’ve passed the point of no return. Watercolor painting is a delicate timed dance between the paper, the water, and paint. Alice was skilled in this. She painted “what she knew”. A confidence in the artist emerges when they are true to themselves and in my opinion Alice did that.

Her work explores the natural and historical environment in which she grew up. Coincidentally as I was reading this book, I learned more about the Charleston Rice Plantations through Episode 2 of Netflix’s High on the Hog. Smith chronicled the experiences of the enslaved in the Charleston area working these plantations. Some say these paintings are romanticized, others say they hold empathy and dignity. I believe the impression is left to the viewer.

As an artist, she documented her world as she saw and experienced it. In a world of Insta-artists, I am inspired by those who sought to learn mastery in painting as opposed to marketing. While she had her fair share of early work in promoting her paintings. her steadfast commitment to “water-colour” (as she penned it) itself leaves me feeling that there is not enough time to learn all I wish.

An exhibition featuring the work of Alice Smith at the Florence County Museum is on view through December 5, 2021.

I thank Alice for her artistic honesty and generosity.

P.S. Blog Title is a nod to a little song by Smokie that some may recognize from any German fest ever attended. So since I didn’t visit any this summer I though we’d enjoy a little Ohrwurm today. You’re welcome ;-).

Weltschmerz

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As the pandemic weeks have continued on, I intentionally chose a background in which I could lose myself in, silence the rhetoric and find a quiet space.

The grief I have felt is laced into this one. It is easier to paint than to find the words to describe the paralysis and deep sadness I have felt. Almost, as if stuck on a dilapidated fence observing a destructive political garden party.

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Study of Christina

watercolor with gold leaf
10” x 8” on paper

Charity currently wears a scarf or a mask, considering the well being of others. It works in isolation yet extends kindness as it hopes to protect.

This is an image of my sister, taken April of 2020. It is a study in monochromatic underpainting of watercolor within portraiture. I plan to create a larger scale version of it. It feels incredibly iconic to me and has a zeitgeist feel.

Christina lives in New York City. I live in South Carolina and my other sister in North Carolina. We are experiencing opposite ends of a pandemic’s spectrum. The differences are vast yet still linked.

UPDATE August 10, 2020
Below is the final painting completed from the study described in this blog post.

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Zeitgeist
watercolor with gold leaf
22” x 15”

When God is Silent

There is an often overlooked and very quiet Saturday which occurs between Good Friday and Easter. It is where the Silence of God is encountered. To me one of the most purposeful of the Holy Week Days and this year to me the most poignant.

It is where we grieve and we remember that hope is a thing with feathers.

“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul – and sings the tunes without the words – and never stops at all.”

— Emily Dickinson

She Was a Drive By Story

I’m working on an architectural painting. Not my usual rodeo. But she’s a story I drove by. The building itself is a bit of an architectural treasure to me. Possibly the only remaining Charleston Single Home original to the time still standing in Florence I’d pass her while traveling between schools last year.

I imagine at one point in time, someone else traveled a similar route to earn means through which to build this structure. Or was it handed to them, a result of another’s labor? Yet, now it simply sits, empty and unused falling into disrepair.

Watching the physical work of past generations fall to the wayside gives me pause. To me buildings in disrepair are scattered across the rural southern landscape in abundance. Like crops that were left to die. And I always wonder whose home was this? Why did they live here? Why are they gone? Was theirs a life of joy or sorrow? Who will tell their story?

Edit: April 6

fImages of competed piece..

Stay Golden

CONFESSION: Sparkly things have been distracting me. I’m feeling as if the Golden Girls have met Château de Versailles . . . but on paper.

I’m even buying frames in gold?!?! I used to loathe gold and now, I’m finding the more sparkle the better.

Today is my birthday and I’m 44. I’m wondering if I’m attracted to the glitter shimmer to make up for the “diminishing” that middle age brings in. I now need reading glasses- especially in the mornings and evenings, back pain is a new companion of mine and well, those younger people are just so plugged in. How do they even have all the opinions they do about the planet? The world, coffee, sustainable clothing and politics??? I can’t keep up. But I want to and I’m glad they are here. They care deeply about meaningful things and know how to have a good conversation.

I guess i’m thinking about these things because this year I noticed that I am too old for certain art calls. And I had four consecutive weeks where I really could do very little due to pain. So the fact is, I’m in a new season. What am I going to do with it?

Try to embrace and stay golden, I suppose. Oh, and the yoga for the back.