Like most children, I started drawing and painting at an early age. Pencils, crayons and paints were always available. About 5 I started lessons from Miriam Swets, the artist next door. She loved to paint, to draw and to teach. Loved Picasso, the Impressionists and the German Expressionists. Kids and adults together met in her studio learning about color and composition, drawing and painting shapes and objects in still life.
We soon outgrew her basement studio and moved to another in the business district of our Chicago neighborhood. A ballet studio occupied the adjacent room. Some of my fondest childhood memories are the smells of oil paint, linseed oil and turpentine accompanied by the sounds of Swan Lake.
Chicago’s Lane Tech High School offered classes in commercial art and The Art Institute of Chicago provided after school art programs. Next came a degree in Art from Albion College and an MFA in Printmaking from the University of Michigan.
As an Assistant Professor at Mankato State University, I taught lithography, block printing and drawing. 1977 marked a major shift in my career: the beginning of 40+ years as an interior designer and business owner. The medium, process and tools were different. The aesthetic and design principles the same. I left 2-D for 3-D, designing, constructing and furnishing three dimensional spaces in which people live and work.
Now I’ve come full circle. In 2015 I returned to my studio to paint abstract landscapes. One focus is my Flyover Series, looking down at the earth from a plane, tall building, bridge or ladder. Or, looking at what’s immediately beneath my feet.
Cross country trips and around town drives offer material for another series: Road Trips. Looking out the window the landscape disappears as we move forward, images blurring as the car speeds ahead. I’m confronted with colors, textures and shapes as I ride or walk in the city or hike in the country. A third view is Excavate: Looking inside, through, underneath the landscape forms. Carving, scratching, removing. Exposing a specimen on a slide; magnified or reduced.
I use Oil and Cold Wax. Simply stated, oil paint is mixed with refined bees wax combined with solvent. This changes the consistency of the paint, lessens the sheen and speeds drying time. It works best on a hard substrate as opposed to stretched canvass. Layers of color and texture are applied with a brayer, pallet knife, scrapers, spatula and almost never a brush. The paint can be removed and reworked, scratched and scraped. The surface is malleable. This medium is much like life: a process of experience, growth, thought, imagination and visualization: 2 steps forward and 1 step back. I’m often led in an unplanned direction to an unimagined destination. Layers can be opaque, or with the addition of more cold wax more transparent. Pouring or spraying solvent can expose early layers. Different implements make surprising marks.
To me this is a complex riddle, an endless puzzle, a mysterious chase down the rabbit hole. As an artist I’m challenged to use all of my training, experience and intuition with each color mixed and applied, every mark made, line, texture and shape.
I believe that my Flyover Series,Road Trips Series and Excavate will transport the viewer to a favorite spot, or to one they’ve never been. That they may see through a different lens at the next stop just up the road.