I’ve known that some new series was germinating in me, across the long months of the winter when I was lying dormant, writing but not painting. I have felt it there, deep inside me, but I haven’t known what it was. I’ve now found out. I have been “working” on a new series of canyon paintings.
The canyon has become an increasingly important and magical part of my life here in Truchas (see previous posts The Second Adventure In My Backyard Canyon and A Walk In the Moonlight In Truchas, NM). Just steps from my back door, it provides solace and succor. When I take the time to go down there, I am not only deep in nature, but transported back to the very best of my childhood. It is profoundly meaningful to me that Spirit saw to it to give me this place so close to home. The other day when I was down there, the creek was running, songbirds flickered everywhere and the air was redolent with the early scent of summer—sun-warmed pine needles.
Now that I look back, I realize I’ve been “seeing” these canyon paintings for a long time. When I picked up my brushes and finally began to paint again, the first piece poured from me. I watched my hand and the marks it was making as though it was not my own. Even still, there were moments of real angst when I thought I was lost. Then I would be guided back and these paintings were born. I’ve spent a week working with them.
This was the deepest experience of painting I’ve had in a very long while. I can’t wait to see what the canyon has in store for me as this series continues.
Love to you all,
Jeane
I really find this series/work wonderful. Could you speak sometime about your current painting expression in monotones, and the colors and photos you take of spaces are so colorful?
Thanks Terri. My work has been moving in this direction for some time now, ever since I arrived in NM. It has its roots in my earlier genre paintings, though. I’ve always been drawn to strong contrast and was constantly finding it in my earlier figurative work. I would focus in on a table and chair for instance, in silhouette against a building, throwing shadows. These were the details that “made my teeth itch” as I like to say. The light in NM is so clear and bright that I’m seeing contrast everywhere. Little by little the color has disappeared from my work, leaving only light and shadow–contrast–the element that has always driven me. And I have photography to play with color. But who knows what the future holds for my paintings? There could be color there somewhere. I just follow the impulses and try not to edit them.
Jeanne,
These are absolutely fabulous paintings! I could see them hanging in a high-end Santa Fe gallery when you are ready for a one-person show.
Thank you Bruce. Soon I’ll have time to continue the series. Can’t wait.
Jeanne, such good strong paintings. I really appreciated seeing them here and “face to face”!!
Thank you Bill. That means a lot coming from you.
The character of rock is there. The firmness and bulk, plainly expressed. It is fitting. Rock is a very simple beauty.
Glad you can see it there in the work. Just started a new horse series today. Ah, the artist, ever shifting…
Horses are very difficult. capturing the life in them is big.
Bear in mind these are abstracted horses, but I like to think I do honor their energy.
So much harder with an abstraction. Where is that very line that can show the essence of that herd pounding across the meadow? Just the right flick of a line will make them fly.
Or standing in pasture… let’s hope I do them justice.
Grab for the ring. You can do it.
🙂