Exhibit Statements

Convergence: (of several people or things) come together from different directions so as eventually to meet.  

The title for this show came to be as I looked at this vastly varied body of my current work.  It is this space, these walls, where it meets.  “Convergence” seemed like it could be the gel that would hold it together.  I like to work in series.  The paintings and drawings you see here are of course finished.  The series are not.  There is still exploration to be done in each of them; they are alive.  

To help organize the presentation you will be looking at 3 series:

Gathering For Good          •        Still Life        •        Entangled  

What pervades each series is my ongoing search for beauty in everything.  Or… the alive essence that permeates everything.  THAT is what inspires me to create and causes me to continue. 

Gathering For Good

This series began in 2018 as a painting challenge assigned by my painting and drawing teacher, Chester Arnold.  He is known for his paintings of large crowds.  After demonstrating his own technique to his students, he challenged us to paint a crowd of our own.  The crowd I convey stands inclusive, united, diverse, and celebratory.  Just a bunch of dots?  In a way - yes.  However, every brush stroke is intentional in its size, value, spacing, transparency, and color, to create the look you see.  I love coming back to this series again and again.  There is still much to explore.  I return to it in between more intense pieces of work. 

Still Life

I call this series of paintings and drawings “Still Life”.  All of the objects here are at rest and there are two things that have captured my attention and caused me to paint them: 

1)  The play of light on their surface.  Whether it’s highly polished metal, eggshells, fabric, or weathered wood — I love to capture sheens and shadows.  

2)  Comfort.  

My favorite subjects include singing bowls, driftwood, beach walk finds and worn soft jeans. 

Entangled

This winter my daughter was inspired to make mushroom spore prints from the abundant variety growing in our yard.  She has assembled them into a collage for the exhibit.  It is these spore prints that were the inspiration for my drawings.  Because of their texture and detail, they lent themselves perfectly to the precision of colored pencil.  Using the spore prints as reference material I observed them closely as I drew.  I also took plenty of artistic liberty especially in the areas of line, color, and composition.  In other words, you would not find these drawing in a mycology textbook. 

The inspiration for this painting came from a 5-day meditation retreat led by my teacher Miranda Macpherson. Daily she guided us in a meditation called “the Vast Heart”. This practice was designed to open us to the depths of our own heart giving us immediate access to the qualities of the liberated heart— unlimited love, compassion, kindness and joy. Instruction included focus on our heart’s center along with sending our breath in these directions:

Vertically upward— past the galaxies and beyond the known.
Vertically downward— grounded, rooted, supported.
Horizontally— extending our hearts across the horizon and linking us to all of humanity. 

I knew then that one day this transformative experience would reveal itself as a painting. 

The concept began on a scrap piece of note paper (think cocktail napkin—where most concepts get their start) and evolved over many weeks to what you see here. It immediately took the shape of a traditional heart in the center of the composition. I chose to develop it in four separate pieces, or quadrants, with each one standing on its own as a finished painting. I worked on wood instead of canvas, allowing me the most freedom in textural treatment like sanding, scraping and wood burning. Each quadrant has a specific focus on the direction of its energy and movement. 

The four corners coming together into the center of the painting came last. What is in the center of the Vast Heart? Nothing. NO-THING. And yet here is the source of everything. How does one paint that? My solution was to sand this central area back down to the surface of the wood leaving it bare. I further defined it by burning in some fine lines. To finish it up, touches of 23 karat gold leaf (not to be confused with gold foil!) were gilded and burnished in. 

Trust and patience were put to the test as only the next step was ever revealed along the way. The overall look is very different from anything I’ve painted to date. The colors are bright and saturated. I used nothing in the way of reference material. There is playfulness here and the word “primitive” comes to mind. After all—the Vast Heart expands us beyond our intellect and skillset. 

The challenges were many during the painting process, but the approach was always with joy. It is my hope that joy is what you receive. 

From my Vast Heart to yours,
Patti