Tomatoes

Tomatoes   oil/canvas   11 x 14 x .5

This work painted itself before I began...knew what I wanted.  No table. No bowl....and no pretty tablecloth.  Very minimal with warmish white background.

Back in the day, I shot my work on an old school camera then loaded the images onto my computer.  These days, my I Phone does the job.  A great job...almost too good.

This is not what my painting looks like.  Trust me.  My phone camera has the ability, it seems, to see through layers of paint.  And brushstrokes are almost super-humanly visible.  The white background is invisible because former layers are poking through.  Oh, yes, I fiddled with the controls and color adjustors until my attention to the task had evaporated.  My entire day is focused on finding the hours I need to paint.  And I resent clerical hours, although they are necessary.

So..........................what you are seeing is not the true picture.  Just imagine a wispy white background.  Wabi Sabi. 

Unattached - and less is more

Unattached watercolor 9.5 x 13.5 Like so many people I have read about, I have been enormously taken with the notion of minimalism during the pandemic. Oh....I was already there, but to a lesser degree. At our house, we have been gradually reducing the collections of a lifetime: too many clothing items, too many dishes and casseroles (but I might need it sometime), too many garden pots and way too many tchotchkes. My work has aligned itself with the evolution of my belongings. I need less. For most of my artistic career, I have struggled with the notion of too many objects in the picture plane....chairs painted in, then painted out: still life paintings first painted as I see them, then gradually reduced to a couple of important relationships; shadows, interesting as they may be, were almost always eliminated. I am noticing the minimalism, more than ever, in my work. For me, the objects in the work become an interplay of subject (the tomatoes) and the ground (background). I am thrilled when these two notions interact in a series of rhythms. For the first time ever, I saw the reduction of my personal aesthetic needs reflected in this work. I was earlier satisfied. Done is done. But never say never....I have included a shadow in this one. Do I enjoy it? Not particularly.

Bounty

Tomato Tango   oil/canvas   8 x 8 x 1

My life is inextricably bound up with the seasons. Time of year determines what I will be painting, what I will be wearing, how I will be feeling and what I will be doing. There is a constant hum in our kitchen right now....the oven dehydrator is working full-tilt to preserve all of the tomatoes that ripened within a week's time. Funny how that is..............we wait and wait and wait..........and then the ripe goodness inundates our menus and our lives all at once. I always look forward to autumn and its quiet. More quality time in the studio. Less to do in the yard, After the tomatoes will come paprika peppers, then parsley, then thyme, then chives. I love following the rhythms of the seasons. Goodness emerges from each. Georgia O'Keefe once said that visiting the East inundated her senses with green.....and she got bored with so much green. Time to put away the greens. Time to squeeze out tubes of earth tones....raw sienna, raw umber, the burnt counterparts of each; yellow ochre and perhaps some violet. I am ready.

Transplanted

Degrees of Ripeness   oil/canvas   30 x 10 x .5

We had a beautiful holiday weekend that included visits with siblings and nieces and nephews that we rarely see....our family has been scattered across the country....in California, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Virginia. I don't that is so unusual these days. We share history with these relatives, so it is always wonderful to touch base and find out where life has been taking them. "Degrees of Ripeness" will be going home with my wonderful sister-in-law Ann Hutchinson Jenkins. She recently lost a pet of many years and I think that she was able to relate to the chaos I felt as I painted this work in a mid-July heat wave in my garden last year. I was definitely trying to make some sense of things. And.....as I also found out this weekend.....tomatoes don't grow well in Louisiana, her home, as they crave the cool nights and warm days of other climates. I am happy that my painting will find a home in her kitchen and will be a bit of a connection between us. Paintings are like children....we are always relieved when they find great homes.

Painting by Seasons

Red Gold   oil/canvas   6 x 6 x 1.5

I live and love in the Midwest.....our lives are marked by seasons......just about an even fourth of the year for each. I dress, cook and paint seasonally, and my feelings change as the temperatures and landscapes change. I always look forward to the next, but not without bittersweet feelings for the waning. Our garden has provided so much enjoyment this summer, color-wise, taste-wise and entertainment-wise. (watching the chipmunks eating cherry tomatoes right on the vine). The season for tomatoes is nearly complete....they are no longer coming in faster than we can use them and they have now taken on more preciousness. They are now like red gold.