I hope viewing this painting doesn’t give anyone whiplash. Going from my minimalist black and white and found wood pieces to full on color oil landscapes can be quite the switch. But in my studio between those and this, have been many colorful collages and other oil landscapes that I just haven’t shared online or on Instagram. So for me, the change isn’t quite as shocking.
Last year and into this spring has been a really busy year of shows and producing work. The majority of the work made were my earthy, mixed media encaustic paintings. And those are me. One hundres percent. But there’s another side of me that is in love with colorful landscapes of places I see on our roadtrips where the land is alive and feels like a quilt of shapes and colors and textures. And so I will pull out my oils and throw myself into that.
Painting landscapes verses creating my mixed media pieces requires a switch in my brain. And I turn to that switch when I need a break from thinking and overthinking. It is so difficult for me to explain. I am just painting what I am seeing and falling into color and color mixing, not contantly thinking about composition, placing of this, that or the other, rifling through all my materials searching fo the one thing that feels right….I love that process too, but it is good for me to switch gears at time.
This photo was taken maybe a year or two ago when my daughter and I joined her friend and her mom, who is my friend too, for an adventure up north from us, close to the Pennsylvania border, to go pick blueberries. I was a passenger in the car and while we were talking it up, I pulled out my phone and took just one picture because the road, the sky, the land around us was so incredibly beautiful and full of life. That day in the blueberry fields resulted in blueberry pie, blueberry muffins, blueberries on toast spread with almond butter, blueberry coffeecake, and now two years later, this landscape painting.
After all that is said and done, I just like to make things. Period. Collage, mixed media, food, clothes, landscape paintings, outdoor installations in the woods, funky garden art, handbound books, pottery, etc. etc. There’s only so much time though and focus is important. Or is it? Honestly, meh. At least for me. The world is nuts, make what you want- has been my mantra lately.
This painting is currently in my Online Shop.