While my great uncle fought in World War II, he wrote letters
home. He had a letter in his pocket. He had photos and notes pinned
to the canvas of his tent. These letters and pieces of paper were
one of the only things that connected this very brave generation
to their home towns and families. These small pieces of fiber,
filled with words of love, words of optimism, words of hope and
fear, were a fagile but tangible lifeline to the familiar.
This series of paintings is my link to the familiar. I remember.
I cherish my loved ones and my familiar things on bits of canvas.
These are my love letters. As a progression of Visual Remedies-painting
with stories that heal and connect, these are not elegies, but
tokens of my affection. My offerings of love to scenes of my childhood
and old friends. They are love letters connecting the past with
the present.
Time and Memory--A mind full of words, heart full of paintings
Since these paintings are truly about our links and memories of
the past and our relationship to memory, the exhibition has a
temporal quality--the concept of time and its relation to memory.
I asked myself questions-How do we picture the past? How do we
remember our most cherished images-our children's christening
or grandparent's field. My answers became a path, a pilgrimage.
They are votives, a shrine to well-worn memories like old photographs
pushed into the side of a dresser mirror. Time passes as we look
at the images. Chronology, there is an order to the images. We
begin in the morning and are guided through the day with paintings--from
Morning Cafe to set with Fast Falls the Eventide.
The day passes by us. Can we feel the moments passing? Do we see
time or devotion in paint?
The note
Along with the idea of tangible scribbles of thought, I use the
idea of the note. A note can be a quick letter, a bit of color,
or a musical symbol and tone. I play on all three of these concepts
of note. A note as a short letter like a quick sketch, the main
ideas are there. It is left for the viewer/reader to fill in the
missing parts painted stories.
The idea of color notes moves through this series. The paintings
range from almost no color to arbitrary full blown color. From
the olive drab of war time to the spectrum of light filling Doxology,
the painting's theme dictates the notes of color.
These paintings have a lyric quality and a text.
Some of the paintings are titled with text from very old songs.
Songs I sang as a child; songs passed down in my family; songs
my mother sang; songs my grandmother sang. These are words and
images I catch for a moment with paint to pass on to my children.
The images have a meter or rythmn please hear distant marches,
ballads, old prairie songs, hymns, lulabies and the blues while
passing the paintings. There is a meter to the push of a paintbrush
and a rythmn to the stroke of the pen. In Love Letters:Somewhere
in Europe, two men write notes. One of those notes is offered
to the viewer, a letter hangs as a pendant to the image. The physical
text highlights the narratives of the images. Similarly, in Group
Pictures, women share a letter and photos, visual momentos
of the pastsolid, tacile memories. Before this moment passes,
I scribble my momentos. Before they slip away, I paint.
As my old Muses, muched beloved, are fading from my present world,
here are my love tokens.