paintingperceptions.com

After taking a really rigorous painting class sophomore year, I realized that all I wanted to do in college was paint. Raising children is not all sunshine and I try to capture all aspects of being a mother in my work: love, boredom, sadness, distraction, mess, work. I paint pregnant bellies for the same reason I paint peony buds. I paint smooth baby heads for the same reason I paint eggs–

To me, it’s a question of authenticity, and that is all about authenticity to one’s own observation and impulses, it’s nothing to with the notion of ‘realism’ or ‘painting what you see’, as if that were even possible. It’s a language that one has to teach themselves, how to digest and condense what’s in front of you in a way that remains authentic to the experience of looking or the intent. it’s a tough place to be an artist, for a number of reasons, but it’s also a place where artists like to live. I think it’s part of why friendships with other painters is so important: only we know how to support one another in all the difficult places that a life dedicated to painting takes you.

In the 90’s you worked a lot from life making painterly, gestural landscapes, figures and still life what where some of the reasons you changed and how was your transition from working perceptually to more studio-based abstraction? CD:        At the Studio School I felt guilty about this until I saw Held’s late work some years ago and these works inspired me  to search for my own synthesis between the picture plane and deep space. Many first generation abstract artists believed in the potential of painting to reveal meanings of a metaphysical, symbolic nature and that abstract art has the potential express great human tragedy and perhaps hope. Do you think art can or should address the troubles of our times, like Trump, climate change and the like? CD:        I like this subject because we are now faced with a climate of intense political upheaval, the troubles of our times as you say; many artists have shown their activism, taking on great causes while hoping to express their own voice in art.

After returning to the US after living in Europe for eight years, I went through a period of painting figure compositions from photos while under the spell of Balthus but after a period realized that my true love, is having the forms I’m interested in painting in front of me. The painting also begins to take on it’s own life and then things get really interesting, it then becomes about making decisions based on what the painting is asking for as well as responding to the motif. His book from the 50’s, the Carlson’s Guide to Landscape Painting was an important resource for me when I was first trying to learn how to paint landscapes Possibly because more painters are interested in painting realistically and discover that it’s such a fantastic way to learn about color and painting space and light.