My Painting from 1974

I just received photos of an old painting from a friend.  I was living in New England in a communal house when I painted this scene. At the time I was painting on found objects.  This one is on a wood tray.

There were two children living with us.

Our cat Slickeroo made it into the painting!

It's not upside down.  This is the top right corner of the painting.

A witness in the corner.

The urge to make art

In my youth I thought of myself as an artist and a free spirit.  For twenty years I lived a basic lifestyle selling my creative services.  This is a picture of me in a kitchen that I designed and built in New Haven, Connecticut..  The photo is from the mid seventies.

With time I choose to assume responsibilities such as motherhood and marriage.  Other responsibilities were delivered to me by circumstances.  I never expected to be my sister's caregiver as she lost her fight with mental illness.  At the peak of my life as a responsible person I had a mortgage, a car payment, significant care giving responsibilities for family members both younger and older than me and a full time job.  How did I, the free spirit, end up with all that responsibility?  Through it all I kept making my art, although my medium changed with my resources of the moment.  That experience of continuing to make art when I was under serious time pressure is where I find my encouragement when I encounter short term obstacles to spending time in my studio today.  I've learned that the key to satisfying the urge to make art is to be flexible about the medium and to always keep making things.

Lillian St Studio - Posts and Beam

Its been cold lately so progress on the interior renovation has slowed.  But Beth Rogers and I have been working on making brackets to provide triangulation and strength to the post and beam system that is replacing the interior walls.  We decided to each do our own thing and have fun making the brackets. 

Beth chose to make an Asian inspired bird.  It looks great and it provides stability in two planes.  A tail for the bird is in the works. 

For my bracket I played with the Victorian impulse but threw out the rules.  It will have cut out shapes added onto the left side and be painted in several bright colors. 

This is a photo of me working on my bracket.  It was a fun day despite the chilly weather.  Beth Rogers took all of these photos.

An old drawing goes to auction

Several times lately I have encountered pieces of my art in the community.  Most recently, I became aware of a drawing that I did in the late 70s going to auction.  I hadn't seen this drawing for thirty years when I saw it on the internet. The instant I looked at it I remembered the experience of doing the drawing.  I don't know what happened in the auction, but I was able to get a jpeg of the drawing while it was up for bid.  I'm grateful for that.  This is a fun experience!

I did very little to document my work in the early years.  Some silk screen posters that I did in the mid 70s were auctioned at a benefit concert recently.  The experience of finding old work circulating in the community is validating.  I'm going to collect images of my old work whenever I have the opportunity.  I'll post images and stories when I have them.