A Statement, of Sorts...

The Conversation of Art - 

I had my first conscious museum experience (at the MFA in Houston) relatively late in life, at about age 23.  As I walked through, delighting in the color, images and shifting time, I saw everything but heard nothing; it was a purely visual experience.  I can’t explain why, but something inside compelled me to repeat this exercise; to tramp through dozens of other museums during the years that followed.  In the silence, my eyes took it all in.

Gradually, I could recognize a few of the artists by just the look of their paintings.  “Oh, hello, I know you,” I would think to myself as I crossed the room, beaming as if recognizing an old friend.  “So this is what you were up to since we last met - I see what you were thinking about!”  

I was starting to hear some whispers. 

Visits to libraries and bookstores turned up the volume.  Combing through reference books, I found the stories.  I was shocked by Frida’s terrible accident, and understood Vincent’s lonely wandering.  I wept when I read about Henri’s defiance of his deformity, and was impressed by Andy’s calculated preemptive strike.

When my children arrived, I took them along, and engaged them with what I had learned.  “See that painting, with all of the blue in it?  Pablo was sad because his friend had just died when he made it,” I would say.

And the paintings began talking back.

“You’re damn right I was sad then,” I could have sworn I heard the work reply.  “But look, there - at that hint of rose - and the eyes, which look like masks; can you tell that I am starting to think differently, Catherine?” My chin would bob with understanding.

And while this conversation was going on, tiny drips of art started leaking out of me.  Painting a flat for a school play, doodling in the margins of my life, or making ridiculously complex Halloween costumes, my own creative juices began to flow.

Squeezing out some time, I took drawing, painting and design classes, and thought a lot about art, searching for a way, for permission really, to join in the conversation.  

Then, at 51, with only rudimentary art or computer skills, I made the decision to publicly commit myself to learn to paint, by making 52 paintings in a year and posting them on a blog.  Vincent van Gogh and I spent a year together, and he taught me to see and think like an artist.  He told me his story, and I told him mine (http://vincentprojectblog.com).  He told me to make art, even if no one believed in it or me.

Although I would have described myself as a very private “shame-driven” type of person, I dove in without any clue about how to do even simple tasks, like taking a screen shot.  (And, so you know, I have not changed or cleaned up a word of the Vincent Project blog since I initially published it.) I suffered the humiliation of my (now adult) tech-savvy kids rolling their eyes (in their own embarrassment) at how little I knew about using a computer.

Without much culling or careful curation of my images, I taught myself to blog, and published paintings in every stage of development, including ones that were truly awful.  I got almost no feedback (except halting “Oh, that’s interesting…” conversational dismissals) until I was well more than halfway through the project.  

Unexpectedly, I sold my house, had a major estate sale, remodeled a loft apartment and moved in the middle of that year; during that upheaval, I painted and (admittedly, later than I wanted to) published.  I continued to announce every new posting on social media and provided links, and I pursued every glimmer of interest with friends, strangers, stalkers and some who I believe must be in the Russian mob.  

I completed 52 paintings within 52 weeks, and wrote about them all.  Then I did the bravest thing of all.  I kept on painting, even though it would have been so easy to embrace the hobby and just paint on Sundays.  

There were more courses, this time in Art History. 

I was finding that he more I understood the language, the more cacophonous the museums became.  As I passed from gallery to gallery, I could hear the artists hailing one another, teasing one another, paying tribute to those who had come before. I started to catch on to the amusing inside jokes (that I felt) they had inserted for my enjoyment.  I saw images repeated and reinterpreted over and over - Millet to van Gogh, Goya to Manet, Kahlo to Morimura; I was beginning to understand a lot of what they were saying, and even some of what had been left unsaid.

In the studio space I had carved out for myself, I started hearing the soft cadence of my own voice tentatively joining the chorus.  Jackson guided my drips, until Lee told him to shut the hell up and let me do it.  Henri’s hands folded over my own in the scissors, until the confidence of my cuts allowed him to let me go. Through my own practice, I found myself simultaneously looking backward, forward and standing in place; I was leaving behind the mark of my  own life through the objects I had made.

I think about and make art each and every day simply because I am seeking greater fluency in the subject.  I want to practice speaking until I can conjugate the verbs, perfect the tenses, and converse like a native.

The art which has leaked out of me all of my life is now a steady flow, and I will never allow that faucet to be turned off, by anyone or anything.  I want to grow as an artist, both technically, and with a more refined communication of my thoughts, ideas and responses.  I want to expand the dialogue I am engaged in via actual, interactive conversation and collaboration with other artists.  I hope that my art will continue to be recognized and collected.

Ultimately, I want to continue in the ongoing and timeless conversation.  I want my art to whisper or shout as it tells my own story.  I want someone in the next century to joyfully cross a gallery just to say - “Oh, hello, I know you.”

Art cannot be appreciated on an empty stomach...

- The secret to getting a man through a 

museum is to (occasionally)

 let him get off of his feet -

Last week’s Museum waltz across Texas provided two opportunities for fine art lunches - at the Café Modern in Fort Worth, and at the newly opened Bistro Menil in the sticky, humid heart of Houston.  

Elegant yet expensively and purposefully austere, the Café Modern invites diners into a large, open room featuring a spectacular view of the museum’s Conjoined (Roxy Paine, 2007), two stainless steel trees locked in a permanent windblown dance.  A sinuous wall of floor to ceiling windows frames a cool, restful grotto which overlooks a shallow man made lake, enveloping the building in a shimmery embrace.  This reflective water beautifully cordons off the mainly monetary area of the museum, but still allows for tantalizing glimpses across the pond into the similarly windowed exhibit space beyond.  

Motifs of modernity are repeated uniformly throughout the space: gray clad Saarinen chairs gather around slick tables. Polished chrome gleams.  Featured on each tableau were all of the things that make some Texas diners more than a little nervous:  bread plates and un-patted butter, cryptic, featureless condiment shakers, and small clear vessels  which make precious strange, weed-like flowers.  Of course, the  silverware too impossibly modern to use with grace, so conversation in the room was often punctuated by the clatter of dropped cutlery, followed in turn by a softly muttered “dang!”

I am an omnivoric member of clean plate club, but my dining companions included an economic vegetarian and a gluten intolerant pescetarian.  After a full morning of travel, and with a planned afternoon at the Kimbell ahead of us, no one in our party was in the mood for a large heavy lunch.  The vegetarian went with the Kung Pao Cauliflower ($13.50), the fish lover selected a bowl of the Carrot, Coconut and Cardamom Soup ($7.50 - made without gluten), and I chose the Super Foods Salad ($13.75).  Our irritated server (we had been seated close to the end of the lunch shift) took our order with an annoyed sigh, and then abandoned us to empty our iced tea glasses without supervision.

Finally making a reappearance with our lunch, Ms. Café Modern veritably rolled her eyes in irritation with us that we dared to have only ice cubes left in our glasses.  Wiping her hand on a slightly crusty apron, she got the plates (with only a few more slightly controlled sighs) on the table.  Everything (salad, entree, soup) was presented at a completely uniform temperature - I guess I can say that the kitchen was consistent.  

The over cardomomed soup had the mouth feel of pureed baby food, but at least it wasn’t so hot that you had to be careful with each spoonful.  The always voracious economic vegetarian fared better with the Kung Pao Cauliflower - a minimal serving of tofu, cauliflower and sticky rice, his meal was swiftly devoured and pronounced “good enough.”  My Super Foods Salad, featuring Quinoa, Greens, Broccoli, Peas, Avocado and greek yogurt, started well, but then became weirdly too much of a melange of too many different flavors.  I received demerits from the clean plate club until my gluten free (and still starving after his baby food meal) companion finished the dish, sans the toasted pita bread garnish.  I am certain he liked it better than I did.  Not wanting to keep our server from whatever important thing it was that she was doing any longer, we declined dessert.

Because we were left alone (by our server) for so much of the time while we were at the Café Modern, we had plenty of chances to look around and observe the room.  Happily, this provided the opportunity to steal glances at another, far less ignored patron - an exquisitely dressed urban gentleman cowboy dining on his own.  Outfitted with his well conformed jeans tucked unironically into high shaft custom cowboy boots, and sporting a snappy vest with jacket and perfect, brassy wire rimmed glasses, our own Sam Shepard appeared to be using his smartphone, laptop and Texas charm to broker the sale of a herd of cattle, or perhaps, with oil now boring him, he was arranging to have more wind turbines installed on his ranch plateau near Marfa.

The Modern is a great place to go, just don’t show up late during a shift or very hungry.  The food is less Café than cafeteria, but all is forgiven (as is always the case in a great museum) when you see the views - both inside and out.

Just a week later, with the vegetarian back in Boston, the pescetarian and I stepped out of the Menil Collection (looking for another end of shift lunch) and walked across the street to the charming new Bistro Menil.  The exterior has been styled to blend with the other little grey houses lining the streets around the museum, and this newly built space featured large windows and a welcoming wooden porch, all nestled into a thoughtfully preserved and shaded lot.   

A telephone tied woman locked vision with us as soon as we walked through the door; she then silently mesmerized a passing waiter, demanding with flashes of her deep brown eyes that he drop what he was doing and show us to a table.   Although we never heard a whispered “I hear, and I obey…” it was very apparent who signed his weekly checks.  Our compliant waiter showed us quickly to his own section and a table with a lively view of the space in between the restaurant and the adjacent museum bookstore.  My partner enjoyed a plush bench seat from where he was perfectly positioned to observe the interior of the restaurant in all of its tasteful, well curated modern (but with warm wood, so it’s not so cold!) glory.

Unlike our recent shunning by server in Fort Worth, this fellow quickly waited as fast as he could, signaling busboys for drinks and reeling off specials with a shocking amount of…engagement.  He gave us a few moments to discuss, then swiftly returned to take our order for a Pizza with fresh Mozzarella and Tomato ($12.00) and a Menil Salad ($8.00) with salmon ($6.00) and vinaigrette.  A bread plate then appeared and we were left with a few moments to discuss our mutual confusion over our encounter with Cy Twombly.  

Before our lunch arrived, a lull in our own conversation led to an overheard snippet from the two men seated next to us - they were apparently both classical musicians and old chums meeting for a quick bite while in town for separate gigs.  We knew we were definitely in a museum restaurant when we heard words like “harpsichord,” “clavicle,” and “Stravinsky,” as they reveled in the pleasure (with no thought of calories or grams of anything) of lustily enjoying large and separate desserts.  The pescatarian, who is also a musician, was happy to indulge (albeit vicariously) in his own favorite fine art.  

Things only got better when the food arrived.  A light, yet crispy crust complimented a salty mozzarella on my partner’s pizza.  Although it was of a size that could have been shared, I barely got a whiff of the delicious steam off of his plate before only the crumbs remained.  My salad, like all of the salads eaten by ladies who lunch, was perfectly fine; tasty (enough) and good for me.  The cooked to order salmon was perfectly sized  and grilled to perfection.  The rustic table bread rounded the meal to a satisfactory conclusion.

Until our server brought the dessert menu to our attention.  

The Chocolate Pot de Creme and Warm Chocolate Mousse Cake our neighbors had enjoyed earlier typically offer no temptation to me, but I was easily snared and hung by my thumbs and begging for mercy when I read the words “Lemon Curd Tart ($10.00).”  The brief preview we had gotten (of our neighbors very nearly licked clean plates) allowed me to trust, and I was glad that I did.  

Almost as quickly as we were able to order, our still enthusiastic waiter delivered a small and very tart tart, with a flaky, croissant like crust.  Relaxing in the enjoyment of our lemony afterglow, finishing our perfectly foamy cappuccinos and seated comfortably in the cool drift of the air conditioning, we were able to forget, for at least another moment, about the shimmering heat beyond the window.

Here's what I've been working on....

Hi Everybody!

I wanted to catch you up on what I've been doing since I last blogged about art, art making and living a creative life.

So first, we go back to Christmas... for my friends up north, just look out your window at the ongoing snowmageddon; it won't be hard to think back to Christmas time.

Stocking for Amanda

In our family, the Christmas Stockings are kind of a big deal.  My son's girlfriend was visiting for Christmas, so I decided to make her a stocking.

I thought and thought about what I wanted to do, but was feeling very uninspired, until I remembered a painting that I had started (right) and then rejected because I had put in too many trees.

I thought it might make a perfect, wintery stocking, and the original painting was done at the same time and in a similar way to a painting I had done for Duncan [the boyfriend] (below).

Uncle Vanya, For Duncan

Stocking for Amanda detail

Hung and waiting for Santa

The footprints that you see tramping through the wood and spelling out her name - I imagined those were Duncan's...

It was a very merry Christmas!

After the Holidays, and inspired by the first polar vortex, I continued to explore the cool colors that seemed to be everywhere.  I decided to do a large silk painting using a very limited palette of grays, black, and deep blues.

The Sea of Tranquility 60 X 36 X 2

At left (and in the detail shots below) is "The Sea of Tranquility," an imposing painting rendered on silk ribbon.

I began with two action paintings on the silk, which were drip dyed then woven together in a stair step pattern.

Many of the paintings highlighted in this blog, including "The Sea of Tranquility" are currently available for sale; please contact me if you are interested.

The Sea of Tranquility in process

I wove and rewove this painting many times to get it just right.

That was a fun process, trying to figure out not only what kind of pattern I wanted to create with the ribbon, but also adjusting the layout to best take advantage of the individual "paintings" created by the weaving process.

Fortunately, silk always feels wonderful slipping through my fingers, so I honestly never mind reweaving my pieces.

The Sea of Tranquility (detail)

In spite of the constant forecast for wintry mix, I did use other colors (besides gray, blue and white) since my last posting.  Here are some examples:

www 22.5 X 14 X 3

www (at right) is made from formed copper wire covered with tubular action dyed silk, and embellished with copper disks and square glass beads.

 Before the Deluge (below) is silk with acrylic, exploring yet a different weaving pattern and the addition of tiny dots of acrylic to the surface before the weaving began.

Before the Deluge 40 X 25 X 2

The Red Eye 36 X 15 X 2

I wanted to keep on weaving, but I wanted to explore using a different kind of ribbon.  

I ordered some black velvet ribbon, and tried it with what I use on the silk.  It was awful.

Then, I experimented with my acrylic paints.  That was better, in a rather Elvis sort of way.  I liked the effects that I got with the iridescent paints, but they seemed too thick and sludgey to get the effect that I wanted.

After an hour or so at the art supply, I found something to try.  Thin, semi opaque iridescent inks.

Booyah!  But even after finishing the painting and weaving the ribbons, something was still missing.

So I looked around in my studio and found something that was wacky and strange and in that iridescent color family: a package of flat multicolor sequins.  With the addition of a bugle bead to anchor each sequin, I got the kind of space agey feeling I was going for.

The Red Eye (Detail)

From a distance, the painting, which shimmers as it catches the light, looks much like the view out of an airplane window as you whisk overhead; sitting, (as Louis CK puts it) "in a chair in a box in the sky..."

Unnamed Painting 32 X 14 X 1

I also have a few other works in progress.  

Unnamed #1 with ribbons

 In this one, I am playing with using additives to stiffen the ribbons so that they can be sculpted, molded and bent to my will.

I am still considering the background.

I very much like the effect of the interplay of colors of the ribbon in the detail below.

Unnamed Painting (detail)

In the next work in progress painting (below), I am playing with couching, and I am (again) trying to interject dimensionality to this conceptual piece.

White Velvet painting with Couched technique

The final image is of a mere detail of a large piece, which I am calling "Sequence."  Instead of focusing on curvilinear lines (as you see above), I wanted to keep this piece very straight.  My inspiration was my GPS "blue dot."  I was thinking about all of the intersecting lines on all of the virtual maps in any given city on any given day in any given moment.  Sometimes those people pass one another, sometimes they intersect, and sometimes their journeys are obtuse or parallel.   I am hoping this piece will provoke some thought about the road not taken, and the serendipitous twists of life that are no longer even explored.  

small detail of "Sequence" 40 X 40

And that sums up the end of December, January, and half of February.

Please let me know if you like this work, or hate this work, or even if you saw this work in the far reaches of the vast internet machine.

Thanks,  until next time.

Catherine

Catherine Hicks Artist's Statement

Catherine Hicks - Artist's Statement and Resume

I have done art all of my life.

Drawing, coloring, collaging, weaving, embroidery, needlepoint, knitting, quilting, blah blah blah...  I just never called it art, or called myself an artist, because I didn't paint, and if art history has taught me anything, it was that you had to paint to be a bona fide artist.  

Instead, I sewed, teaching myself the kinds of things that all creative people know:  I learned about proportion and color, texture and translucence.  I embraced my inner engineer, and learned to innovate my way out of the tight spots I had sewn myself into.  

But the fact remained: I couldn't call myself an artist because I didn't paint.  

At a crossroads when my kids entered college, I seized control of my own creative life and took up a serious self study of painting.  I researched many artists, then picked the one who entered into his career late in life, painted quickly and prolifically, and, with only a rudimentary formal art education, willed himself into being an artist.  For a year, I studied the life and work of Vincent Van Gogh, made 52 paintings based his works, and wrote a blog (http://vincentproject.blogspot.com/) about the experience.  I used the blog to make myself accountable to a deadline, and I used Vincent  to teach me how to paint, and how to think like an artist. I also examined the lives and work of many other artists, concluding that the kind of art that any person makes is entirely dependent upon the tools, materials and encouragement available to them at the time.  

Since finishing the Vincent Project in late July, I have been thinking a lot about how I can push everything I know into my art.  

It started with something that I didn't know.  In early August, I went to a workshop on how to stretch my own canvases, which I had never done before.  As I listened to the demonstration, it was all incredibly familiar, because I realized that I already done this dozens of times, covering and recovering my dining room chairs.

As I watched the stretching, stapling and cutting, what interested me was this important thought: what could I, with a needle, thread and scissors, add to the tradition of embellished (painted) fabric (canvas, linen) stretched over a frame and hung on a wall?

For me, this was both a radical and inevitable idea.

I made a number of very sculptural "sewn" linen paintings; some of which I liked, ("The White Hole") and some of which ended up on my "bone pile."  I learned that there is a lot of potentially usable space both in air in front of the surface of my painting, as well as in the area between the picture plane and the wall that the canvas hangs on.

This led me to spend a lot of time deconstructing linen, which then led me to think about how fabric is made, the raw materials, the warp and the weft, and the women (artists?  artisans?  humans?) who traditionally were the weavers. 

I also kept thinking a lot about fabric, and the supports like silk and velvet that had fallen out of fashion with artists.

So I purchased some silk fabric and ribbon to play with.  I experimented with with silk dyes on the fabric, but found that the "paintings" I was making looked like nothing more than stretched silk scarves.  I wanted something I had not seen before.  I cut the ribbon into lengths, and (using the same silk dye) I created an action painting rendered on neat rows of the ribbon laid out on my kitchen counter.  I then recombined and wove a fractured, ribbon painting ("Glide,") in which hundreds of shimmering miniature images danced side by side.  On later paintings using this same technique,  ("For Claude," and "Before the Deluge") I varied the weave and size of the ribbons, and added painted elements before building the paintings.  

There was a lot of experimentation, of course, particularly in the finishing of these woven paintings.  I added innovations like padded stretcher bars, and finished my pieces in a craftsmanlike way by hand stitching a long length of dyed ribbon to create a wrapped edge around the perimeter of my canvases. 

That ribbon project led me to experiment with gesso and acrylic on some grosgrain ribbon, which I then sculpted and sewed onto a canvas, held in place by silvery glass beads ("For WW, my own private Hisenberg" - placed in the 2013 Austin Artists at Work Show).

I continued in stretching the idea of "what is a fine art support, exactly?" by playing with velvets; first, with an acrylic painting in white and silver, ("Uncle Vanya, for Duncan") and then using iridescent opaque inks on black velvet ribbon ("The Redeye"), to create a fractured, woven action painting, embellished with beads and sequins.

In the meanwhile, I made a lot of other pieces; dimensional paintings with recessed boxes, sculptural, beaded "pincushions", a dimensional, sculpted "fish scales" painting, wired ribbon woven paintings, sewn dyed silk paintings ("Electric Glide," not submitted here - placed in 2013 Georgetown Art Hop) and  "WWW," in which I used hollow tubes of dyed silk, copper wire, copper sequins, and glass beads to "paint" on a black velvet ground.

My studio is currently filled with boxes of new ribbon, organdy, rattail, horsehair, millinery wire paint, dyes, gold and silver leaf, silk charms, beads and other materials to play with, and my head and sketchbooks are just as full of ideas for how to use them.  Since finishing the Vincent Project at the end of July 2013, I have completed well more than a dozen paintings, including four large scale works. 

I have never written an artist's statement; I hope that I have included in this one the kinds of things you would like to know as you make your evaluation.  My resume: I hold a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Houston (I did not take any art classes, as my parents would not allow such an "impractical" course of study), I have taken one drawing and two design courses from my local Community College, as well as two museum outreach courses in painting at Laguna Gloria in Austin. I have wandered in every fine art museum I could find anywhere that I have travelled, and I have read everything I could get my hands on about artists and the creation of art.  

I make art every day, and I hope that you will consider my work as you evaluate artists for your competition.  If you have any questions, or require any further information to consider my application, please feel free to contact me.  

Thank you for the opportunity.

Catherine Hicks

My manifesto; in fact, a womanifesto

Catherine Hicks

Fine Artist,

Blogger

Bio and Artist's Statement

Catherine Hicks has done art all of her life.

Drawing, coloring, collaging, weaving, embroidery, needlepoint, knitting, quilting, costuming, blah blah blah...

She just didn't call it art, or call herself an artist, because she didn't paint, and she wasn't a man.  And if art history had taught her anything, it was that you had to paint and be a man to be a bona fide artist.

Instead, Catherine sewed.

It's a pincushion, but is it art?

With her presser foot eating up miles and miles on her sewing machine every week, Catherine taught herself the kinds of things that all creative people know.   She learned about proportion, and color.  She embraced her inner engineer, and learned to create her way out of the tight spots she had sewn herself into.  She contemplated texture and translucence.  She pondered both beauty and ugliness, and she read everything she could about the history and creative process of the fabricators who went before.

But the fact remained: she wasn't an artist because she didn't paint.  Don't act surprised - you've heard this bias before.

So Catherine took up painting.  For a year, she researched beloved painter Vincent Van Gogh's life, then painted and wrote a weekly blog about the experience.  Some of the paintings were huge, and some were quite tiny, but all were at least loosely based on the work and life of Vincent.

VVG

After 52 paintings, and 52 weeks of intensive art history research, Catherine came to a conclusion:

There is more to art than paintings.

Artists can't help but make art.  It leaks out of them like milk from a nursing mother.  

But not everybody can be a painter.  Financial considerations, or social status, or (most likely of all) gender decided who (historically) were the artists and who were the artisans.  

After studying Vincent and many other creative types, Catherine concluded that the kind of art that anybody makes is entirely dependent upon the tools, materials and encouragement available to them at the time.  Picasso painted, Rodin sculpted, and Catherine sewed; in the end it was all just making art.  It was all nothing more than a collective creative leak.

With the Vincent paintings done, Catherine looked around for something new to do, and decided to inform her two dimensional creations with painting and sewing. 

gessoed, painted, and sewn.

For Catherine, it was both a radical and inevitable idea.

Yes, she broke an art rule.  Punish her if you must.  But the rule is not the point.  When it comes to making art, rules never are.

The point is to make art.

That's it. 

Catherine makes art.  

Let her know if you like it, or even if you don't.  It won't matter either way, because, as Catherine learned from her buddy Vincent, you just can't stop an artist.  You can't stop art.

Detail of one of Catherine's fractured action paintings

Catherine Hicks Paintings - Late summer, early autumn 2013

Here, in no particular order, are the paintings I have been working on.  I am interested in achieving a new and heretofore undiscovered dimensionality in my work, as well as pushing myself to challenge my own notion of what, exactly, is a "canvas?"  I am also interested in honoring the women who have come before me - never the artists, but always the artisans...  

Here is a small woven painting:

(group show selection)

An acrylic painting on "scaled" linen - like a carpet, it has a nap, which shows differently depending upon which way the scales are smoothed... not exactly a painting, nor a sculpture, it is an object which falls somewhere in between...

Here is a much larger woven painting:

 These woven paintings are initiated as Pollock painted, with his ground-breaking action paintings.  I take it a step further, though, by then fracturing the painting and weaving it back together, creating a picture plane filled with hundreds of frenetic, dynamic little paintings.

And now some paintings with "holes"

 Some of the holes are "innies,"  like this one on on linen, which is later shown painted....

 And some of the holes are "outies..." (also on linen)

 Above and at right is a different kind of woven painting... (also selected for a group show.)

Like writhing snakes, every surface is gessoed, painted, and comes slithering away from the canvas. It is both agitating and soothing, like an hour with Pandora.

And here is my painted hole.  Where does it go?

 Here is another piece that was selected for a group show - vibrant color which slides, dripping off the canvas.

And a cooler, larger fractured painting....

 Painted not after Monet, but rather inspired by what you get on google image when you search his "Water Lillies..."

 And here is a straight on silk painting; experimenting with brush work and dams to hold the color...

 There is nothing like the translucence of silk...





A colorful doodle.

Thanks for looking.

If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave some trace behind.

My brushes are busy, so there will be more to come.

Catherine