2015-2017 Works

Earthworm

Earthworm
25" x 25"
acrylic paint and pastel on birch board, framed
2017
Currently hanging and for sale at HOME in Acton, MA

Artist Notes:

Earthworm represented a complete departure – and, fortunately, a pleasant vacation – from other techniques I’d used faithfully throughout the years since first picking up a brush in 2004. In this piece, I used a foam brush to create the circular shapes seen within, mingling mainly blue, green, and yellow paint (as well as rare spots of red and some occasional blue and grey pastel) on a square birch board. I chose grounded, earthy colors to create the squiggly circles, which immediately after creation reflected earthworm burrows beneath the ground. In addition to feeling refreshed by the vastly different subject matter in Earthworm (I’d never before created a painting with the earth/ground as my subject), I also appreciated the delicate balance of figures and negative space within the piece. (At this time, by the way, I also realized that this balance was a factor of which I’d always been instinctively aware despite taking only a handful of art classes throughout my life.)

The abstract painting process has always been thrilling to me for this reason, among others; often I pick up a canvas with the intention to explore one idea within a piece, and then the media I use (be it acrylic ink, watercolor, or collage, for example) abruptly takes me in an entirely different direction. At the times when I enter my studio with an attitude of curiosity and expectation but without any overbearing self-pressure, I’m able to view the creation of art as a stimulating adventure, an activity during which I never know exactly the direction I will take but always want to find out.