During Covid, my supply of stretched canvases was running low, so I ordered online, but my request for landscape format was replaced with 36" squares! Oh dear; I was pushed to work in a square format. . I was pushed to shift my familiar composition. Faced with this uneasy confinement and self-doubt, but unable to resist the challenge, I jumped in.
I moved to New Mexico seduced by her vast skies and rhythmic land. Each autumn, I grew to appreciate the especially beautiful season of richer hues, softer light, longer shadows. It is when I spend a lot of time walking in the Albuquerque bosque, inhaling the bouquet of dry leaves, recording to memory the songs of migratory birds, distant cranes overhead, scurrying little creatures under foot, the music of wind rustling through tall branches, the gentle rippling of the flowing river.
I study the gestures of the cottonwood trees, entranced by their individual poses. To me, they create an elegant ballet of dancers whose choreography express grace, yearning, faith, and connection to the river, the sky, and earth with their broad, shallow root systems and their marvelous twisting reaching canopy. I gather visual notes with pastels, camera, or sketchpad.
The overall quality of light, the temperature, the fragrance merge what I feel in my heart, and the alchemy of these produce an atmosphere which I hope to hold on to and communicate, so as to share the sense of being in the realm of the Divine....just the gifts of color, the movement, the peace, and joy of inspiration.
During Covid, my supply of stretched canvases was running low, so I ordered online, but my request for landscape format was replaced with 36" squares! Oh dear; I was pushed to work in a square format. . I was pushed to shift my familiar composition. Faced with this uneasy confinement and self-doubt, but unable to resist the challenge, I jumped in.
I moved to New Mexico seduced by her vast skies and rhythmic land. Each autumn, I grew to appreciate the especially beautiful season of richer hues, softer light, longer shadows. It is when I spend a lot of time walking in the Albuquerque bosque, inhaling the bouquet of dry leaves, recording to memory the songs of migratory birds, distant cranes overhead, scurrying little creatures under foot, the music of wind rustling through tall branches, the gentle rippling of the flowing river.
I study the gestures of the cottonwood trees, entranced by their individual poses. To me, they create an elegant ballet of dancers whose choreography express grace, yearning, faith, and connection to the river, the sky, and earth with their broad, shallow root systems and their marvelous twisting reaching canopy. I gather visual notes with pastels, camera, or sketchpad.
The overall quality of light, the temperature, the fragrance merge what I feel in my heart, and the alchemy of these produce an atmosphere which I hope to hold on to and communicate, so as to share the sense of being in the realm of the Divine....just the gifts of color, the movement, the peace, and joy of inspiration.