The dog days of summer…

August brought record-breaking heat across the nation. Even here in coastal New England, my studio was sweltering. It was like trying to work in a sauna. Everything occurred in slow motion. My hair stuck to my face and neck. I tried splashing cold water on my face and running my giant fan full-blast. It usually does a good job, despite deafening me in the process. But this year’s heat was too much.

Like musicians, painters need to work at their craft every day. Days without practice mean getting rusty and making mistakes. When life gets busy, I do little drawing exercises in a sketchbook journal to keep my hand in. Drawing is my first love, and I believe it is the foundation of all my 2D art. But this time, the idea of sketching held no appeal for me because of what I was working out in my head.

I was working out color and shape ideas. I wanted to see blocks of color, shapes of color, and soft blends of color contrasted with crisper lines. I was digging into an idea I’d begun with the Ecoscape series: exploring sensations of floating and the feel of distance and space without using horizon lines or classic western perspective. I wanted the colors and the type of mark making to carry the message. That was not something I could do with sketching.

My home studio is smaller, but it is quiet and has awesome central air-conditioning. So I went upstairs to that old familiar spot, with no idea what I would do. The woody attic smell mixed with the lingering scent of many paint projects felt welcoming and familiar—and cooler!

But all my large canvases and oil paints were all at Hatch Street Studios. What to do to continue the quest for these shapes and colors? I pulled out a pack of Bristol board. And then boom! I became totally engrossed in applying acrylic paints with sponges, rags, bits of cardboard, changing the designs with string, old pottery carving tools, pens, pencils, China markers. I even made a couple of monoprints. I painted layer after layer of colors—some opaque some transparent—and these new paintings emerged, almost on their own. Each day they seemed to call me to try something new.

By the time the heat broke, I’d found a whole new way of looking at what I could do with paint. It felt like I’d been away on a residency, with fresh perspectives and plenty of new energy and ideas. Plus, I had 24 brand new paintings.

Lemonade from lemons!