LXV

What goes around comes around: 2001-2011

2011-12-04T21:29:00.001-05:00

Diana Thater 2001, Knots and Surfaces (photo: Dia Art Foundation)
http://www.diaart.org/press_releases/main/116

Katharina Grosse, 2011, One Floor Up More Highly at Mass MOCA (photo: Agnes de Bethune)
http://www.massmoca.org/event_details.php?id=545

atharina Grosse, 2011, One Floor Up More Highly at Mass MOCA (photo: Agnes de Bethune)

Diana Thater 2001, Knots and Surfaces (photo: Dia Art Foundation)

Katharina Grosse, 2011, One Floor Up More Highly at Mass MOCA (photo: Mass MOCA)

Diana Thater 2001, Knots and Surfaces (photo: Dia Art Foundation)

Katharina Grosse, 2011, One Floor Up More Highly at Mass MOCA (photo: Agnes de Bethune)

Another Bird

2011-11-07T18:03:00.001-05:00

Due to popular demand*, I am doing another (unidentified) African Bird. Got off to a good start last night and continued a bit this afternoon, but now I am looking at several days of day job so this guy will just have to wait.

Unidentified African Bird #2, (Work in Progress),

mixed media on paper, approx 36" x 27"

*In other words, my brother liked the first one and asked if I could do another; which is what I was planning anyway. I already had this image ready to go, but it's nice to get acknowledgment and suppport.

Unknown African Bird

2011-11-04T22:35:00.000-04:00

Unknown African Bird,2011 by Agnes de Bethune,

mixed media on paper 36" x 33" approx.

Unknown African Bird, (detail)
©2011 Agnes de Bethune.
All Rights Reserved

The bird is finished, at long last. It could have been done days ago but for my obsession with the feathers. The more I worked with them, the more I wanted to. But it would have become a whole other drawing if I had kept going. The original idea for this series (on paper, mind you) was to develop imagery I might like to paint in oil on canvas. These are taking on a life of their own and have gone from quick and casual (the zebra) to this. Not necessarily a bad thing.

The Big Baboon

2011-10-31T11:46:00.002-04:00

Finished!

Baboon,2011 by Agnes de Bethune,

mixed media on paper 36" x 33" approx.

Now for something completely different:

More later...stay tuned.

Next Up...

2011-10-24T17:36:00.001-04:00

The buffalo is finished for now:

Buffalo,2011 by Agnes de Bethune,

mixed media on paper 36" x 33" approx.

Next up is the big baboon. Progress shots follow. It's not done yet, but the progession is interesting and I hope this record will help if I decide to paint it in oils.

More to come...

More Dead Animals

2011-10-19T20:14:00.003-04:00

The hyena is pretty much done for now. And the buffalo is well underway.

Hyena, 2011 by Agnes de Bethune,

mixed media on paper 36" x 27" approx.

Hyena (detail), 2011 by Agnes de Bethune,

mixed media on paper 36" x 27" approx.

I figure I've got another day on the buffalo, but here are the progress shots:

Buffalo, (in progress) by Agnes de Bethune,

mixed media on paper 36" x 33" approx.

Back to Work

2011-10-12T12:03:00.000-04:00

It's been eight months since my last post and I am pleased to report that my health has improved enough that I am working again. Still get very, very tired with the result that I can't sustain concentration for the marathon bouts of yore, but it's good to be starting up a new series. These are studies on paper for some imagery I would like eventually to work with in oils. They are based on a visit I made to the African museum in Tervuren, near Brussels, just about one year ago. It's all taxidermy, but that's nothing new. I did a whole bunch of taxidermy back around the turn of the century, and the forms have always fascinated me.

I just started these yesterday and the zebra is pretty much done for now. The hyena is still in progress, but I like where it's all going. More to come. Stay tuned.

Zebra, by Agnes de Bethune, 2011

mixed media on paper, approx 36" x 24"

Hyena, by Agnes de Bethune, in progress

mixed media on paper, approx 36" x 27"

Out of Warranty

2011-01-13T16:20:00.005-05:00

It's about time I got back here and posted something. My life has been consumed lately with mundane & grinding details having to do with physical disability. I'll never look at a limping person struggling along the sidewalk or up the subway stairs in quite the same way as before. I don't feel old enough for this, but my left hip has given out and I'd rather not go into the particulars about pain and immobility, but it's been a rather serious comeuppance. So much for yoga and my beloved walks. Looking back, I think this has been years in the making and I have to admit the last few slogs into Chelsea to see the galleries were miserable—and that was last May. Denial only goes so far. All summer I kept hoping it was some injury I could exercise my way out of. But now I've seen the evidence. No second opinion. There is not one shred of cartilage remaining in the joint. Surgery is scheduled for the end of January and life is a limbo in the interim. Mrs. Natural goes Bionic.

You can follow my progress on facebook:

Mrs. Natural Goes Bionic

New Paintings

2010-09-25T18:17:00.001-04:00

At Long Last! I have finally got the website updated with this year's work, in spite of a horrendous week of downtime due to internet provider problems. The site is as yet incomplete; I had intended some verbiage to explain what they're about (a radical departure from what's gone before) but that will have to wait for the nonce. And considering the disparaging words about artist's statements over on Carol Diehl's Artvent (with most of which I wholeheartedly agree, by the way) I find myself rethinking the effort. I also intend to finesse the navigation a little bit, when I get the time. For now though, this is it.

Au revoir

2010-06-04T12:38:00.001-04:00

Well, this is it for the season. As of this time tomorrow, I will be up in Rhode Island working on a new series which has nothing to do with flowers. If you need to get hold of me, it's either snailmail, cellphone, or drop in for a visit, as I will be completely off-line.

I will probably make a trip of two back to the city between now and the fall, but other than that it's going to be just me, and the cats, and the garden, and the work.

Hasta la vista!

Lolita & the fishpond

Loli wakes up from a nap

Bebe

Bebe stuck inside during a rainstorm

Garden Gate

The Blue Garden

Plum Tree

what it looks like in the fall

More from the Backyard

2010-05-30T09:41:00.000-04:00

These were made the year the starlings invaded our backyard and snapped the heads off all the tulips before they even bloomed. Not sure when that was, but the cats have since solved the problem.

Backyard

2010-05-29T18:06:00.003-04:00

These are from the backyard, in varying degrees of abstraction. The middle one has to do with my plum tree (which I have drawn countless times and am now inspired to hunt down amongst all the scribbling). The tree is quite beautiful and in nearly twenty years has given me exactly one plum.

Flower Pictures

2010-05-26T08:09:00.001-04:00

Not my usual flower pictures, but just some scribbly forms from the backyard. Which reminds me, I have weeding to do this morning.

Tuesday morning

2010-05-25T08:04:00.002-04:00

Summer is a-cumen in...

2010-05-24T08:57:00.000-04:00

Counting the days now before I close up shop here in the city for another summer's work. This year feels different to me. It feels like an end of something. I'm going back to my usual place; the cats will come with me and T. will stay down here to hold the fort (so to speak). What feels different is that the paintings I'm making are for no one but myself. It's a change from the past several years when I knew there was a gallery interested in what I was doing, whether they were able to sell them or not. But, I'm on my own this time and the heady feeling of exploration is often countered by abject fear. Recent perusals of the artworld, both on-line and on foot have me convinced that the jig is up. There is most definitely a resurgence of painting, but what kind of painting? Mostly bad. I am resisting the temptation to name names here because it feels mean-spirited, but suffice it to say that I think maybe painting has died yet again. We'll see what I can manage to bring back in the fall before leveling criticism at any of my own tribe. But I'm worried.

Four more from the sketchbook

2010-05-24T08:28:00.001-04:00

Contrast & Compare

2010-05-22T18:15:00.002-04:00

A sketchbook page from late '90s, not even sure it was supposed to be a head, but it reminded me of this by Alexei Jawlensky:

as well as this by Constantin Brancusi:

At Random

2010-05-22T06:09:00.000-04:00

Back to Normal—But not for Long

2010-05-20T08:24:00.000-04:00

Various dusts have settled, and I've been in the studio working on a new series. This time, it's NOT flowers! A whole new direction which has been simmering for several years. But I'm not posting sneak previews, this time, because I'm not sure yet where (or how) it's going. In two weeks, I'll be outta here and off to my summer studio with no internet, email, TV. Just me and my garden and the work (and a cellphone). Meanwhile, I'm still combing through old sketchbooks for signs of life. These were done in the summer of 1969 when I was a highschool dropout living in a garage in northern Vermont, having escaped the asphyxiating chaos of my family home. Ancient history. More later.

NEWS FLASH—Upcoming Exhibition

2010-04-21T22:32:00.003-04:00

I will be exhibiting one of my flower paintings in a group show at the Mills Pond House Gallery, Smithtown Township Arts Council on Long Island this May. The show is entitled: Of A Botanical Nature and, as you may surmise, it comprises work relating to plant life. There will be an opening reception on Saturday, May 1 from 2-4 pm. The show runs until May 28th.

Mills Pond House Gallery is located in the town of St. James on the North Shore (Suffolk County)--the perfect destination for an afternoon drive in this nice Spring weather. If you'd like to go out and see the show, directions can be found on the google map at the bottom of this page: http://www.stacarts.org/.

Another Family Portrait

2010-04-21T12:05:00.001-04:00

The snapshot was taken on the event of my parents' 50th wedding anniversary, in June of 1999. They are both still living, as are all the rest of us, a major miracle—I sometimes think—given the odds. We, the children, are arranged from youngest on the left to the oldest. Yours truly is second from the top:

And here is the sketchbook version (from memory):

And another, more characteristic grouping of the same gang:

I believe the overwhelming pressures of growing up in this chaos has made a profound impact on the art I make. It often feels as though I am perpetually untangling a big mess. It's not always clear what generates the imagery, although sometimes I am caught up short by the obviousness of a particular piece.

One Word: Plastics

2010-04-12T13:08:00.006-04:00

Well, I have hardly anything to say on this subject. I spent most of Saturday on my hands and knees picking bits of Styrofoam® out of the grasses at the edge of the harbor during the twice-a-year Salt Marsh Cleanup sponsored by the Friends of Liberty State Park. This garbage breaks down rapidly under exposure to UVs and the bits get smaller and smaller, so much so that they become impossible to remove from the environment and end up in the stomachs of birds and fish.

Not one of the items pictured above existed when I was growing up. Somehow we managed without them. There has got to be a better way!

click on pix to enlarge

Cubes & Spheres

2010-04-05T06:59:00.005-04:00

click on pix to enlarge and see the cubes better

Holy Saturday, we went for a bike ride around the Kill van Kull & Newark Bay. The ship traffic was very heavy that morning. If you've ever wondered exactly how all that stuff gets from China and into your house, take a look at these container vessels. And if you want to know where exactly those vessels go after they pass under the Verrazano and disappear out to sea, you should check out this fascinating website. It is a live feed so you can actually identify and follow a boat you have seen. My mariner brother tells me:

Post 911 all ship of class size have to have a transponder on it, Big Brother u know. That includes large pleasure yachts.The system actually works real well cause theyre profile show's up on the radar screen while underway and tells u the ship, it's direction, size and flag of origin. This is very helpful when navigating in close quarters and need to hail some one on the radio, you at least know who your talking too.Unfortunately this system only work's when dealing with civilized countrys, It also help in the recovery of hijacked ships. It's kinda like LOJACK for the water.

Just think back to the days when Bon Papa [our grandfather] was carring a huge box camera in a balloon or plane to take plate photo's for the Belgian armymaps during the 1st war. Well sattellite has got looking into your back yard down to a science to the point where they could tell you what flowers you have growing in it.

This ship the Ludovica (below), had just made the turn from her berth into Newark Bay and was heading south toward the Kill van Kull.

We got on our bikes and rode down to the park at the bottom of Bayonne in time to see her passing under the Bayonne Bridge and into the Kill. A guy there told me that this ship is too big to go through Panama, that she can carry 6,000 containers and she plies the China trade via Suez. We managed to keep her in sight all the way out of the Harbor. There was still fog obscuring the towers of the Verrazzano as she headed into open water.

Here's a screen shot of the Ludovica's passage. She's the green boat at the very bottom.

And now for something completely different: benzene tanks.

HAPPY EASTER!

More Pets

2010-03-30T22:19:00.000-04:00

While I don't usually draw from life, occasionally the cats get into my sketchbook. I just ran across this one. Probably the same cat as before.

Now (that the Armory Show is over) We Return to our Usually Scheduled Program

2010-03-26T16:59:00.005-04:00

That is, more sketchbook stuff: this dating back to the time when the children I had prepared for my entire life up 'til then, refused to be born. These little watercolors seem sort of comic and light-hearted to me now, but that was the darkest decade of my life and I still wonder that I managed to survive the craziness, rage and depression. My body had betrayed me completely and I subjected myself to as much "science project" as my meager health plan would provide, which, clearly, wasn't enough. Me and how many thousands of other women? It was and still is more than I can comprehend and shook my world order more severely than any of the cataclysmic global change stuff that currently rocks the daily news. For a long time, I considered doing a serious piece about the whole drama, but 20 years later, I still can't touch it. So for now, this is all I can muster. I vaguely remember a sense of ironic detachment when I did these. It was a desperate attempt to "get a grip" whilst treading the quicksand of despair. I even wrote poetry during that period.

Actually, the middle one reminds me of a painting I did when I was still young, optimistic and blithely unaware of the impending tragedy. They say that whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Hah! they also say (or at least my therapist did) that "Time heals all wounds." In my opinion, time only makes you old. You learn to live with the wounds.

Armory Show 20120, part III

2010-03-19T09:18:00.003-04:00

The last installment. I warn you, an embarrassment of riches, of every stripe.

another Alfred Leslie (I think)

Betty Parsons

Unknown artist (to me, that is)

Sol LeWitt

Fairfield Porter

Rick Horton

This artist was completely unknown to me. He died young, but how gratifying that his work survives to be seen.

Rick Horton (again)

Leonore Tawney

Jacques Villègle

more Jacques Villègle

Chakaia Booker

Etienne Bossut

And now for a taste of Spring. By this time, I was walking by too fast, and was too tired to get every artist's name, but the picture made an impression because of its lovely greens. For more Spring Green, check out Joanne Mattera today! Gorgeous.

more Spring!

...and even more

Eemyun Kang

Marc Quinn

artist unknown (detail)

artist unknown

Florian Süssmayr

the irrepressible Sister Corita (Corita Kent)

more Corita

Ian Tweedy (ensemble)

Ian Tweedy (individual piece from ensemble)

Ian Tweedy (another individual piece from ensemble)

Ian Tweedy (another individual piece from ensemble)

Ian Tweedy (another individual piece from ensemble)

assemblage, artist unknown

details from assemblage, above

a beautiful drawing in red, but I'm not sure who made it

Joan Mitchell

unknown painter

Dineo Seshee Bopape
I almost missed this piece; it was just stuck on a wall in a hall at about eye level, but with all the chaos and clutter, easy to walk right past. A nice restful moment.

Magnolia pods & Shark's teeth (artist unknown)
Of course I had to get a picture of this, since I 'm obsessed with magnolia pods.

Conrad Marca-Relli

another Conrad Marca-Relli

George Herms (I think)

unknown sculptor

wrapped fetish, (sculptor unknown)

:::

And then it was time to go home, but the art didn't stop at the door of Pier 94:

unknown street artist

The Elephant Again: Armory Show 2010, part II

2010-03-18T18:23:00.007-04:00

Again, I just let my camera do the thinking for me. No analysis, no critique, not even any hierarchy or organization. And I don't even know if I like all of these. They just jumped into the camera, for what it's worth. Oh, and by the way, my studio partner was with me and some of these are his. Enjoy!

John Marin

Charles Burchfield

more Burchfield

I am a bit of a nut, because I live in NJ and I grew up in New England. It's got the steamy, swampy atmosphere of both places.

Burchfield Wallpaper Pattern (Yeah, really)

more Burchfield Wallpaper (this is a segue, look out)

Marc Dennis

"Georgia, Georgia..."

James Rosenquist (detail)

I took this because I paint "realistically" some (well, most) of the time and I just wanted to see how he did it. Definitely frisket work with the overlaid image. I admire this guy so much, you can't imagine. I guess it's the irrepressible big spirit. Of course, he started out painting the sides of building out in the Midwest, so big that, as he remarked: by the time you got all the way around, it was time to start painting all over again. (or words to that effect).

Jacques Villègle

Alfonso Ossorio

I'm a fan partly because I feel he is part of my family.

My aunt worked with him on a church in the Phillipines in 1949-51.

It was a big project and that's all they talked about when I was little. Also, I found a little drawing by him when we were cleaning out our old house. So I guess that makes me a "collector".

(OK, my bad, I didn't get the info for this visual extravaganza.)

Mark Innerst

Wayne Thiebaud

Elmer Bischoff

(another Bay Area guy, from an earlier time)

Betty Parsons

(who knew? This palette looks remarkably like some Helen Frankenthaler I've seen, only punchier, less watery. Now I gotta look it up. Also, I'm getting a definite Matisse vibe.)

Elaine deKooning

Well, enough for now. We are still so low-tech around here, that we share a computer and it's an old one at that. So I'll post some more later.

My Sense of the Elephant: Armory Show 2010-Part I

2010-03-17T15:27:00.006-04:00

:::

I hardly know where to begin. First of all, this post is a response to the wonderfully generous and intelligent offerings of Joanne Mattera, who unfailingly presents exhaustive coverage of art fairs here and in Miami. As she has pointed out, everyone's experience of these overwhelming events is unique:

" I always use the blind-men-and-the-elephant analogy with regard to the fairs. One feels a trunk, the other a leg, the other the tusks, the other a tail, and each describes a different beast. I'm not sure anyone really sees the whole fair.

What did you see that you liked? What was your sense of the elephant?"

The Armory Show (both piers) is a big thing to walk through, and the art is all crowded higgeldy-piggeldy (or is that higgledy-piggledy?) without much ceremony. But it is an efficient way to see a lots'o'art all at once. By the end of the day, I generally can't process anymore and can form no opinion at all. But, I let my camera do the thinking. It is my spontaneous, stream-of-consciousness filter, just snapping away at anything that grabs me. Here are the results:

Gerhardt Richter

Edvard Munch

Romare Bearden

Charmion von Wiegand

Alfred Leslie

Alfred Leslie, again

Richard Nonas

Richard Nonas (ensemble)

David Bates

David Bates and passerby

John Chamberlain

more John Chamberlain

Joan Mitchell

not sure the name of this artist

David Smith

Franz Kline

Ralston Crawford

Ruth Asawa

Grace Hartigan

:::

In retrospect, using the snapshots, I can start to make connections, see patterns and concentrations. For instance, I thought there was much too much photography on the walls and as I still don't know what to do about photography in my aesthetic judgement (to me it doesn't do anything, my prejudice, I know) so I tend to ignore it, rather than carp about it's being there.

I also get a little tired of secondary market mid-century "masters" (and, I suppose "mistresses") like David Smith and Joan Mitchell. Except for the fact that I am so attracted to them, they end up in my camera. Especially the more casual pieces, works on paper, collages.

Stay tuned for MORE

Going to the Ball

2010-03-10T17:19:00.003-05:00

The following is a very raw scan of some of the text of my grandmother's memoirs. I am posting it only because of the interest over on Caray Caray! in period costumes (and customs). She wrote all this down for us (her grandchildren) some time in the 1960s and was fortunate to have had her brother Charles Terlinden (the eminent Belgian historian and biographer of Charles V) still living to help edit and correct the historical information. My niece Maeve has very obligingly scanned all the pages of the typescript, but unfortunately no one has yet had the time to edit them and fix all the bad line breaks, typos etc. So I beg your forbearance until such time as I can present this material in a more finished form. My grandmother was born in 1881. The period she refers to here would have been mid 1890s until her marriage, at the extremely elderly age of 25, in 1906. Unfortunately all the photographs are in the hands of others. I will try to locate some and post them later when I can polish this up.

"My dear mother having only one daughter took great pleasure in

in giving me the most elegant outfits.

since the age of 13

I had been squeezed into stiff corsets to give me the fashionable

"wasp's waist" and it had been a success.

I had managed to

have a 17 inch waist line.

I hated fittings and drove the "couturiere" to despair,

saying: "When I select my own clothes,r shall have the same

models reporduced over and over again: a black dress for

day time, a white one for evening wear.

No more fittings:"

The couturiere selected the paris models appropriate to my

age and size, buying larger models for a Mrs. Jacqumart, who

lived in the small town of Louvain, and never wore her elegant

finery, but collected it in closets.

Our day time clothes had 'very' ,high.: necks held up with

pieces of whalebone, or even with metal slats.

When we were

to wear evening clothes later on, we had to let down our

neck covering in good time so as not to have red marks

showing.

The formal dresses of the period were very elaborate.

You will see the styles in my photographs of the early 1900.

You will be amazed to know that the price of the most elab

orate gown barely topped 100 francs, at the time $20.

needed a great many frocks, for the skirts were sweeping

the floor and often got torn, esp~cially when dancing with

officers who wore spurs with their uniforms.

The social season was short, starting at New Year's and

ending with Ash Wednesday.

There would be four or five

parties a week.

The nicer ones took place in private homes,

and were restricted to groups of one's own friends.

The Club, called the "Concert Noble", gave four large balls

each year.

Families who had no residence in Brussels,

rented the Club's large ball rooms for their parties.

We had a few very successful parties in our own large

family home, which offered plenty of room for entertainment.

At all times when we went out, we were strictly

chaperoned by our own mothers, or, in exceptional cases, by

some other trusted woman friend.

We danced only with young

men who had been properly introduced.

At large parties, when

the figures of tbe cotillon happened to pair a young girl

with an unknown cavalier, his first duty was to find a chap

erone who knew both families, and was able to perfmrm the

ceremony.

Each young lady was given a program, called a

"Carnet de Bal" with the number of dances.

The cavaliers

listed their names in advance for each dance.

Popular girls

had not enough lines on;~their list, while the wall flowers

waibed anxiously to fill theirs up.

The favorite engagement was for the buffet, or supper.

At some parties, this was served at tables seating two or

three couples, at others, the cavaliers brought plates from

the buffet to their partners.

The popular dances at the time were the waltz, then

called the "Boston", the polka, ,.and the mazurka.

At very

large parties, such as the Court Balls, quadrilles were

organized. They were even rehearsed in advance by some specially

selected group.

These quadrilles resembled the dances you

are now familiar with through television, as performed in

the 17th and 18th centuries.

There were generally two court balls each year.

In 1901,

there were no court balls due to the death of Queen Victoria.

The Court went into mourning for a few weeks, and although

we were permitted to attend other parties, we had to wear

black evening dresses.

Court balls were interesting experiences.

Many Civil

servants were invited, also the different groups of society

in Brussels.

The members of the Concert Noble would be

there, and those of the Grande Harmonie, who were mostly

business people.

The Civil servants, and the Garde Civique

were invited without their consorts.

The Garde Civique were

reputed to have metal linings fixed into their pockets so

they could take home truffles, and other delicacies.

This

tale amused us.

It is certain the Garde Civique took the

buffet by storm:

However large the palace rooms Were, they were very

crowded, and whatever friends you had, were lost among

strangers.

Woe to you if you got s~uck with a boring

cavalier:

There was little chance of being rescued.

Each year the boys and girls, making their debut,

were lined up to be officially presented to the King.

was said that King Leopold II was not always gracious to

the young people.

Only to the children of very important

or useful citizens did he utter a word of welcome.

The

Diplomatic Corps would be present, covered with ribbons and

decorations.

The attraction for us was the Chinese

Diplomats.

Everybody wanted to see them.

They still wore

their queues, richly embroidered silk robes, and a head gear

with coral or jade buttons.

Some "fast" young women made it

a sport to flirt with the Chinese.

These spoke French or

perfectly good English.

They were reputed to have said they

found the European women gracious and elegant but resented

their "smell".

I never was near enough to have occasion to

test their own.

The instant the royal party had retired, there was a general

rush to get home from the court ball.

The horse carriages

were lined up.

If you were not in front of the door and ready

to step in when the equipage drew up, the horses must move on

and your carriages had to take their place at the end of the

file, to come around again.

You sometimes had to wait a

very long time before your own carriage reappeared.

We slept late the morning after a party; went to 11

o'clock mass at the Church of Ste Gudule, and in the

afternoon, welcomed a long drive in an open carriage, called

a "Victoria",.

Horses had to be exercised.

Every afternoon, my

mother and I went for a long ride.

If the weather was clear,

r we rode in an open carriage, called a '"Victoria".

A large

bear skin rug protected us from the cold, and we had, under

foot, a heater filled up with red coal. "

Untitled

2010-03-03T15:03:00.000-05:00

Chicken/Egg

2010-02-27T23:16:00.005-05:00

Growing up in a large family leaves indelible psychic traces which emerge spontaneously from time to time. In my case, it often makes for claustrophobic imagery that took me a long time to figure out. The blockprint was made in 1994 when I still had a little Vandercook in my studio, and making prints was as easy as drawing. A couple of summers ago, I was going through family pictures and found a group shot from 1985. For some reason my mother is not present, but it does show my father with all ten of us plus three spouses and two babies. I had no (conscious) memory of the snapshot when I did the print.

:::

Landscapes | Seascapes

2010-02-24T07:20:00.002-05:00

click on images to enlarge

Ash Wednesday

2010-02-17T15:19:00.000-05:00

click on images to enlarge

Fat Tuesday

2010-02-16T22:21:00.000-05:00

click images to enlarge

This ink sketch on acetate was used to make a small silkscreen which was later colored with pencil and watercolor. I did a fairly large edition of variations, but threw out all but this one.

I never got around to using the drawing below for anything further. They were both part of a series of garden images which I originally intended to develop into paintings on canvas. Other projects got in the way. Maybe someday...I doubt it, though.

Poppies

2010-02-15T07:47:00.000-05:00

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Two sketches of poppies: on the left, a California poppy, on the right, an ordinary red field poppy.

Fanny and Alexander

2010-02-14T20:45:00.008-05:00

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John Tallman's' Blog ColorChunks is a rare treat. Today, he featured a still taken from Bergman's movie about his childhood in Sweden. I loved that film because it reminded me of all the stories I heard growing up of my father's childhood in Europe before the wars. Bergman also filmed a version of The Magic Flute, which was pure magic; it had a sweet dense color, slightly hazy. But the picture above seems to be a kind of dream view of a proscenium from the first balcony, reminiscent of a Mozart opera in period costume. Perhaps I was thinking of that Magic Flute, but it actually feels more like this production of Così fan Tutte starring a young Susan Graham and the magnificent English soprano Susan Chilcott who, tragically, died only a few years after it was made. Così, as a story, doesn't make a lick of sense but it is all about human frailty and there is no greater ensemble singing anywhere, ever. This is Mozart at his most sublime:

Valentine's Day

2010-02-14T19:54:00.004-05:00

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The blue drawing of my left hand was done when I was fifteen. I drew what I saw back then and used myself as a model. What I didn't realize is that I had been doing it since I could pick up a crayon. The other drawing, recently unearthed, was made when I was four years old and its odd perspective makes me think of how foreshortening looks, but I know for certain that I was unable to understand, let alone execute, concepts like that until at least the third grade.

This being Valentine's Day, I should have saved the hearts from last week to post today, but alas. All you get is hands. Hands and Hearts.

Saturday Morning

2010-02-13T09:55:00.002-05:00

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This last one is clearly a landscape of an imaginary place (village, town?).

Untitled

2010-02-12T20:53:00.000-05:00

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Some Heads

2010-02-11T08:24:00.005-05:00

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I'm not sure this last one is figurative at all; it does seem to share the same palette as the one above. Again, no telling when any of these was made.

Snow Day

2010-02-10T06:04:00.001-05:00

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Figure Study

2010-02-09T22:35:00.003-05:00

Probably from around the mid-90s through 1997-ish. Most of my diaries are not dated and because of the water media, I often keep several going concurrently as they sit around waiting to dry before I can turn the page. So, there might be work several years apart on successive pages. Even a dated page is no real clue, as I may have abandoned that book for a long time and picked up another. I also work from both ends of the book. Themes and methods recur. I use these sketchbooks to stay as loose and non-judgmental as I can. My "serious" work is usually filled with meticulous, complicated detail. Some would say "overwrought", but actually, the medium is the message and whatever the ostensible subject, they are usually about the complicated encumbrances of life.

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Tuesday Morning

2010-02-09T08:27:00.001-05:00

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Monday morning

2010-02-08T09:44:00.002-05:00

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El Corazon

2010-02-07T19:55:00.007-05:00

One of the exciting things about combing through decades-old sketchbooks and drawing diaries is finding common themes and ideas. I'm not sure when any of these was made, but they are clearly related.

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Saturday Night

2010-02-06T22:19:00.001-05:00

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Pets

2010-02-06T12:53:00.006-05:00

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Molly, our cat, was sick then. She died at 13 after a couple of years with diabetes. She was often miserable and angry. But we loved her dearly.

More Fake Writing

2010-02-05T08:59:00.002-05:00

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Fake Writing

2010-02-05T08:52:00.002-05:00

Apropos of my earlier post.

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So Much for Resolutions

2010-02-04T20:11:00.007-05:00

Well, I just looked at the calendar and noticed it has been 23 days since I posted last. Which means I owe a ton o'pix. As my partner has been uncooperative in this venture, I will proceed without him. These are all from a sketchbook dating somewhere in the late '90s (I think); 9" x 12"-ish:

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#11

2010-01-12T09:55:00.002-05:00

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#10

2010-01-11T08:08:00.005-05:00

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#9

2010-01-10T16:24:00.008-05:00

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Website Update

2010-01-09T07:50:00.000-05:00

I've finally completed processing most of the 2009 work and it is posted to my website. It comprises a mix of large & small, mostly works on paper—some could be described as sketches or studies. Click HERE

#8

2010-01-09T07:10:00.008-05:00

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#7

2010-01-08T08:28:00.004-05:00

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#6

2010-01-07T16:50:00.004-05:00

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We interrupt this program...

2010-01-06T08:35:00.011-05:00

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or, HOW I LEARNED TO DRAW

Leafing through a recently-unearthed folder of childhood drawings, I found these, which illustrate early influences on my artistic career. They were made when I was four years old, and I have distinct memories of drawing on the back sides of the paper my father brought home from work. In the early fifties—in fact, not until computers and the "paperless" workplace—a single sheet of plain paper, unmarked on either side, was a special luxury for most children. There just wasn't that much stuff around, and we practiced adaptive reuse as a matter of course.

My father worked as a scientist for the Atomic Energy Commission and its logo (if one can so dignify that pedestrian mark) featured strongly in my early memories. I drew pictures constantly and AEC was always up there in the corner of the page. There were lots of pages with formulas & charts which included hand-written symbols because the typewriters of that era had no such special keys. The typist left spaces blank and the author filled in the symbols by hand. So, I copied the forms of these symbols. I actually remember doing this and also remember making pages and pages of "fake" writing in my pre-literate years. It was a heady time, writing like a grownup, without the constraint of having to make any sense out of it. Pure expression. Sort of like the "fake language" in Frank O'Hara & Alfred Leslie's movie The Last Clean Shirt.

And I remember becoming bleakly depressed when I actually learned to read and discovered how slow and stupid it all was when it had to make sense. It's for this reason that I do not support aggressive early-literacy campaigns. Given an adequately literate environment, I think most children will read and write when they are ready. To push them into literacy too early deprives them of important time to develop their personal imagination and compounds the depression which naturally accompanies maturational milestones. Well, this gets me into a rant about television, "groupthink", and Sesame Street in particular, which is not where I wanted to go this morning. It will have to wait for a more thought-out post. Stay tuned

#5

2010-01-05T09:38:00.004-05:00

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#4

2010-01-04T09:37:00.004-05:00

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#3

2010-01-03T08:24:00.009-05:00

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#2

2010-01-02T12:48:00.005-05:00

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Happy New Year, 2010!

2010-01-01T11:37:00.006-05:00

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New Year's Resolution

2009-12-31T19:21:00.004-05:00

OK, here’s the deal. For 2010, two pictures a day. That’s it. No bitching & moaning. No opinions, no theory, no criticism (not really my strong suit anyway).

Since I got a nifty little scanner from an Office Depot that was going out of business, I have started to explore an entire personal history I didn’t realize I had in the mountain of sketchbooks that litter my studio. It’s like reading old diaries; each page suggests a direction I never took and it’s exhilarating to feel all the possibilites. A bit of navel-gazing, yes, but I think I’m old enough to do this now and it is very revealing how much I missed as I whizzed through my 20s, 30s, 40s and now nearly my 50s. So, in addition to the "real work" which is mostly oil on canvas & watercolor, I've got a slew of sketches, scribbles, collages, drawings and miscellany which has heretofore never seen the light of day.

My New Year’s resolution is to pare down the writing and just show the pix. I’m also dragging my studio partner of 30-plus years into this (he’s even older than me and is a stubborn cuss about not promoting his work). So I plan to show one of his & one of mine side-by-side. Every day? well, we’ll see.

Here goes:

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On the Beach

2009-12-30T14:48:00.014-05:00

The Third Day of Christmas

I went for a long walk the other day with Tom, my studio partner and husband. We were still in that surfeited, post-holiday disorientation engendered by the nemontemi and as the weather was unseasonably California-esque, it seemed like quite the thing to do. [Today, however, we are suffering through “feels like” minus 19°F. with hard winds and threat of snow.]

The place we walked is accessible to anybody (now) and I highly recommend it. There is a beachy area (practically our backyard) just south of Liberty State Park at the edge of NY Harbor, which has recently been opened to the public.

Which isn’t to say that we didn’t used to bushwhack our way in in the old days when the only other living creatures were horseshoe crabs, shorebirds and a bum or two living in some abandoned concrete bunkers. I always thought of it as our own private reserve, but have since learned that lots of intrepid nature-lovers have also claimed it as their own virgin territory.

In any event, the day was mild and fine. Under the low, flat glare of the solstice, we wandered past the brand-new, ritzy golfcourse along a newly-built causeway and discovered that pathways to the interior are open to the public until March (when birds are expected to return for nesting). Liberty State Park is an important stopover on the Atlantic Coast flyby for migrating birds.

I had not been to this beach in over 15 years, when I used to come often to paint stuff I found there.

The most startling change I noticed was the absence of junk and garbage at the shoreline. Whereas we used to collect all kinds of interesting plastic, metal & wooden objects for Tom’s assemblage work, now there is nothing much besides oyster shells, some of them quite huge. I suppose this is an improvement.

The beach was beautiful and behind it were tidal flats crisscrossed with meandering streams, channels & rivulets: a real-time geology lesson and visual spectacle. I remember reading somewhere that the end-stage of a meander is an oxbow. The meanders we saw were deep channels in the harbor floor which at low tide were exposed as little rivers.

We arrived sometime before noon and noticed that the tide was still going out. After a couple of hours exploring some of our old favorite haunts and the scene of several of my paintings from the ‘90s, when we headed back, our pockets full of beach flotsam, the tide had definitely turned.

In the course of our small adventure, we saw, perhaps four people. Of course, when we got to the the parking lot where we had left the truck, the rest of the park was full as befits a holiday of good weather.

Way back in the ‘80s & ‘90s I painted a lot of imagery from this area and was glad to learn that the economic forces which have disfigured so much of the shoreline around the Hudson with high-rise luxury condos have not claimed this centrally-located paradise. Many of the “views” are essentially the same with one notable exception.

Christmas Eve 2009

2009-12-24T21:58:00.009-05:00

Seasons' Greetings to all!
January will start off with a renewed effort to stay on top of this blog. Stay tuned!
You can visit my partner's and my websites at:
Thomas O'Flynn and Agnes de Bethune

click picture to enlarge

Exquisite Corpse

2009-11-12T12:27:00.009-05:00

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Agnes deBETHUNE, Alaine BECKER, Leah K. TOMAINO, Untitled/Untitled/ Rooted, Graphite, collage, watercolor, chalk, pastel crayon, fiber, acrylic paint on paper, 2009, 30” x 22”
Courtesy of the artists and the Paul Robeson Galleries, Rutgers University.

The Exquisite Corpse: Paul Robeson Galleries 30th Anniversary Exhibition
Exhibition on Display November 19, 2009 – April 8, 2010

In 2009 the Paul Robeson Galleries will celebrate three decades of activity. The Main Gallery was founded in 1979 to provide a forum for the work of professional artists, visual arts faculty, and student artists. Throughout its history, the Paul Robeson Galleries have mounted an interesting range of challenging and provocative exhibitions. To mark and celebrate our anniversary we invited artists of the region to play the surrealist drawing game – the Exquisite Corpse. This was a favorite surrealist game from the early 1900s, and continues to be played by artists around the world. Each collaborator adds to a drawing without knowing what has already been contributed. After all participants have finished the drawing is unfolded and revealed. The Paul Robeson Galleries will play the Exquisite Corpse with 92 artists to produce 30 drawings.

Artists Reception for The Exquisite Corpse: Paul Robeson Galleries 30th Anniversary Exhibition
Thursday November 19, 5pm – 7pm

For directions, CLICK HERE

Snapshots from the artists' reception:

A Place to Paint

2009-11-05T15:18:00.014-05:00

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Autumn always gives me a case of the bends when I leave my summer studio and return to the city. The studio turns cold and forbidding in the winter months. By November, the water is shut off, the light is low and my fingers turn waxy & blue as the temperature drops. About the most productive thing that gets done is shivering to stay warm. I am reminded of Anne Truitt's account of gathering up her basket of paints from her unheated studio in DC and I feel embarrassed to be complaining at all. Her Daybook[s], were a guiding light when I was a younger artist—a model of toughness & steadfastness—but now, all I feel is old and cold. As my parents live nearby and it has fallen to my sisters and me to get them situated in a nursing home, I have become quite sensitive to the day-to-day insults we suffer with age. Suffice it to say, we've not had an easy time of it, but are close to a good solution for them.

I'll have to go back one more time before it freezes hard to put some anti-freeze in the toilet and turn the water barrels upside-down. The goldfish however, just hunker down at the bottom of the pond and wait for spring.

And because the roof on the north end of the building leaks mightily, we may be back up there with bales of shingles next summer. Last time I did that, I ended up with vicious tendinitis in both elbows simultaneously.

What I can never get over is the extreme contrast between winter and summer here in the Northeast (where I grew up, by the way). From June until October, which is my time to paint, it is a complete paradise. The building was originally a laundry built in 1928, which serviced the Navy as well as the big mansions on the other side of town. Strictly utilitarian, it has an odd architectural charm of its own. Over time, it was added to just like "the house that Jack built" and with each addition, gained a new section of the above-mentioned roof. By the time we got it, it was on the verge of disintegration.

I have fantasies of winterizing a portion of this vast space, but then, I also dream of moving to California. As it is, there's no money for either and with the current economy it will most likely stay that way for the foreseeable future.

We, that is my husband and I, discovered it back in the early 90s when we were rather desperately seeking to escape our crackhead-infested ghetto down in the city. So we've actually had the building for thirteen years and are still working our way around opening the boarded-up windows. These old steel-framed factory windows require a couple of months of restoration each. I admire (jealously, I admit) the windows out at DiaBeacon which were obviously removed, sand-blasted, lusciously powder-coated in pale gray and re-glazed off-site, using some sexy silicone-like material out of a tube, before being reinstalled. I imagine teams of professionals were involved. As we do not have a luxurious construction budget, our work involves removing the glass, grinding out the hardened old putty, chipping away rust & what remains of the original paint, priming & painting before setting in the new lights. Glazing in place can be tough; it would be easier to do it on a flat surface; and I still do it the old way with putty & a knife. The beds in these windows are deep—7/8"—so it takes a lot of DAP and a steady hand. Tedious work, although strangely soothing. But, nothing beats the drama of pulling down 45-year old plywood and letting in the light.

:::

The other fabulous find was the pond in the back. Our first year there, we realized that the level of the yard along the eastern side of the building was a little over a foot higher than the floor inside. There were moisture problems and my 90-year old aunt came visiting one day and declared: "You're going to have to lower the grade here." And so we did. With shovels. We dug up about 80' x 22' of crappy brick-laden dump. In so doing, we unearthed the foundation of what was once an enormous yellow brick smokestack and a rectangular pit filled with rubble and cinder. The pit turned out to have been a sump for the boiler and once we got it all cleaned out, it seemed only natural to fill it with water and fish and lilies.

The interior is completely unfinished still, but makes a good workspace. And nobody seems to notice the dirt constantly raining down from the undersides of the roof (because there is no ceiling).

We've tacked up just enough sheetrock to make a couple of painting walls and put in a small electric water heater.

Summertime, and the livin' is easy. But winter, not so much.

As I have run out of steam (and time), in the interest of keeping up with the blog, I'll post this now and write some more later. If you're interested, you can see some more pictures at flickr.

New Paintings 2009

2009-10-07T15:35:00.010-04:00

Click Image to Enlarge

I've just finished a successful Open Studio (not so much in terms of sales, but rather in positive energy and some possibly important opportunities) and so now I'm taking a few free minutes to post the images. Well, it's actually more than a few—way more. First, there's the photography; then the mind-numbing image editing; then formatting everything for its ultimate destination; then writing new code for the webpage (darn picky, I need an assistant); then the upload (go have a martini or something while you wait); and now, I feel it is my responsibility to write cogent text about the whole experience of making these images, but the words won't come. All I can say is there are many Pink flowers and that I learned a whole lot about how to handle pink paint.

I have updated my website (which is long overdue for a redesign, but that's on next year's To-Do List) and I just finished uploading to flickr, so rather than clog the blog, I invite you to visit them. Flickr handles the images in various sizes very well, so I recommend a little excursion over there. My website contains other information about me and my work.

I currently maintain a presence on a small handful of other artist websites, all of which require tedious contortions and much agita to update, so I am reconsidering my involvement and their relative merit against the time and trouble they take. However, one of the worst-looking, and pokey of these is the old Irving Sandler Artists' File Online, and despite its uninviting interface, I will never give it up because it has garnered me more recognition than anything else over the years. I think I first sent my slides there in the early 80s when I was a young hopeful on the streets of New York, trying to get my foot in the door. Admittedly there were fewer artists then, but there were also way fewer doors. And they do not discriminate: my work is not exactly up their alley in terms of exhibition, but people have been finding me there for a long time, even when they had to punch through a carousel to do it.

Summer 2009

2009-06-22T22:47:00.006-04:00

As of tomorrow, I will be officially away-for-the-summer working on a bunch of new paintings. The watercolors are nearly all done, but I couldn't get them photographed in time to post today. I will be totally "out-of-the-loop", "off-the-grid", "under-a-rock", "outside-the-box", "over-the-rainbow", "somewhere", but without a computer, TV, intenet or email. So, for anyone who actually reads this: "Hasta luego", "See you in September".

Chicago in the rain

2009-06-15T16:15:00.018-04:00

Just back from Chicago where I installed another trade show at the Merchandise Mart for Neocon 2009 which opens today. The Mart, once the largest building in the world for floor space (before the Pentagon was built) is a paean to the giants of good old-fashioned American retail.

Click pix for closeup; they are big pictures with lots of detail

:::

Thank goodness this little chunk of dayjob appeared in time to float me into my summer's work (I have 7 oil paintings and about 10 watercolors in the works). I feared I would be surviving on the fumes of last year's almost non-existent income—not exactly conducive to doing good work—although, collecting the money will probably take til fall. I enjoy these occasional junkets to Chicago and also the fact that my food and lodgings are on someone else's dime. But other than walking everywhere and taking a few moments on the Oak Street beach in the early morning, it's usually a stressful push, as exhibits tend to be.

My hotel room looked out onto Mies van der Rohe Way at the massive and magnificent Hancock Building. The garage sort of looks like the "Guggenheim of Parking"

It rained steadily the whole time I was there and I witnessed that phenomenon so typical of Chicago skyscrapers that I rarely see in New York: the clouds come down and hug the tops of the buildings. I wonder what it's like to be inside up there.

The sidewalks were full of flowers.

Chicago is a great walking city and there are lots of underpasses & overpasses to get pedestrians safely across some daunting traffic situations, like Lake Shore Drive at rush hour. The beach is very public and heavily used; it appears they put a lot into maintenance & upkeep.

Someone had the brilliant idea of planting palm trees on the shores of Lake Michigan. "Surf's Up!"

And then, there is architecture...everywhere!

I can't quite figure out the difference between New York and Chicago: is it the scale, density, design??? Never mind that New York has only one Louis Sullivan building. Chicago is very grand, but it is s-o-o-o midwestern. I feel like a foreign tourist there.

Each block on North Michigan Avenue had a difference scheme/theme of plantings. Some were a bit overwrought, but all demonstrated civic pride and attention to detail. The crazy-Lego-looking water tower, one of the few buildings to survive the Great Chicago Fire, is a wierd delight.

The Chicago River is a defining artery. I walked east on Kinzie from the Mart towards the Wrigley building and managed to catch this drawbridge going up to the tune of loud metallic screeching and clanking.

Looking south on State Street: (as if I could forget where I was) the famous Chicago Theater sign; and, of course, shop windows on North Michigan Avenue

I got finished early on the last day and so went to the Museum of Contemporary Art. I confess, I found it lacking. The Buckminster Fuller show was worth the price of admission ($12) but the museum doesn't appear to have much of a collection: one Franz Kline and a handful of emerging/unknown-to-me artists. The Calder show was a pitiful assortment of small pieces all jammed together in what appeared a dead end hallway. And the featured Olafur Eliasson was a relentless barrage of annoyingly gimcrack "experiences" having to do with reflections, changing colors, prismatic effects, moss growing out of a wall, some hokey geometry projects and I don't know what all. Kind of like a theme-park for the not-hoi-polloi. I got nothing from it except for the installation entitled Beauty, 1993, a shower of mist in a dark room with some strategically-positioned spotlights [kind of echoed was was going on outside with the weather and it was pretty].

As photography was forbidden, this was the only piece I snapped, only because I could get away with it. We were treated to Eliasson earlier last year at the MoMA, and some of it worked better there. For instance, the swinging fan was pretty exciting in New York; it had a vertiginous, slightly dangerous-cut-your-head-off quality that was entirely missing in the Chicago space. For one thing they had it in a tiny room where it looked absolutely ridiculous. But, I tend to get my back up when an artist suggests that I need assistance to use my sensory apparatus to feel the real world. I don't find it entertaining or intellectually stimulating to be prodded and hectored by artistic moralizing. If I want a mind-altering experience, which I don't, I would choose the Cyclone Racer or the Hall of Mirrors at a bona fide amusement park.

Once outside, I realized I'd better hightail it to the hotel if I didn't want to get soaked and have to freeze to death on a soggy flight back. But, there in the park across from the main door was this Deborah Butterfield and I was entranced. I have long been a fan of this sculptor.

So, I hung around long enough to snap some shots between the raindrops. Of course, getting out of O'Hare was the usual nightmare and it was a bumpy ride home in the rainstorm. If this client likes the work enough, maybe I'll get the gig again next year. Then maybe I'll be able to afford the Art Institute where I can go back to visit my old favorites. Or maybe I'll go here instead; these folks seem to have the right idea:

Life imitates art (or something like that)

2009-06-07T16:12:00.005-04:00

Click for closeup

Here's a snapshot of a couple of buds from my favorite rose. Since I don't know its name, I call it Carla's Rose after my neighbor across the street who has an enormous rosebush of it occupying most of her front stoop. One day when she was energetically pruning it back, I asked for a branch to try as a cutting. I stuck it in the ground with a sawed-off soda bottle for a cover and two years later, I had my very own Carla's Rose. It's the one I painted in 2007 which you can see on my website. And yes, it is fragrant.

Degrees of Separation

2009-06-05T06:10:00.009-04:00

These two pictures crossed my screen during the past week and I was struck by the similarities: the red drapery, the small moment of gray near the elbow, the contrapposto and the anguish.

On the left, Susanna and the Elders, by Artemisia Gentileschi (oil on canvas at the Schloss Weissenstein, Pommersfelden) came by way of Carol Diehl's Art Vent.

On the right, a newspaper photo from an LA Times story by Diane Haithman: "...world premiere production that also represents the first original production to be created by the UCLA Live series: a new interpretation of the Euripides classic "Medea," starring Annette Bening and directed by Croatia's Lenka Udovicki."

Upcoming Events: Summer '09

2009-05-31T14:06:00.010-04:00

I'm trying so hard to stay off the computer right now because I have a full week of grinding day job ahead of me and today is a painting day! But my focus is all over the place and I left my palette sitting there 2 weeks ago when this work came along (I couldn't afford not to take the project) and now I'm a bit lost trying to get back on track. I promise to post the images as soon as I can get them finished. For a sneak preview of works in progress see below.

So I stepped out into the backyard to soak up some of this gorgeous last day of May and found these, almost ready to pick:

And, in the vegetable garden, from the looks of it, there will be lots of jars of pickles this summer.

OK, so I just had to share. Time to get back in the studio and see if any of it makes sense.

Click on the pix to see the strawberry and the baby cuke up close.

Le Temps des Lilas

2009-05-18T22:41:00.002-04:00

Spring has sprung, but it's still cold outside

I am tempted to compose a theme and variations on the Mr. Softee song that has been circulating around the neighborhood for the past few weeks. I played by the rules and waited to put in my tomato plants, but the weather has not been cooperating. Unseasonably cool, so I brought several branches of Miss Kim into the bedroom. The fragrance is almost too much.

Studio Sneak Preview: Works in Progress

2009-05-07T12:56:00.012-04:00

Some of the watercolors I've been working on this Spring

Normally, I post new work to my website once a year, when I'm in between painting sessions. But now that I have this blog, I can't resist putting up some snapshots of work that's underway. As I have gotten older, I find, because of the fumes, that I can't paint in oils during the winter months when the heating system is on and the doors and windows are shut. So I began to explore watercolor as an alternative. (I can't just "not paint".) This is my second year and I feel increasingly comfortable with the medium. You have to have nerves of steel to do watercolor and it wears me out much faster than oil painting, but I'm starting to get used to its demands.

All these are 22 x 30". Some are near completion, others not so. I always work in clusters and each piece informs the rest, so I won't consider any one of them done until they all are.