Getting Serious, Sanity, and Back to Nature - 2022
01st January 2022
I am living with January Massachusetts weather - damp, cold, dark, pondering the grey, listening for birds.
A good time of year to work on new collages. So I go into farmer mode - the tilling, clearing, assessing, chopping.
An image may not be what it might be for months or years, and until exhibited, it likely isn't finished.
In Sept/Oct 2021 I returned to the Catwalk Institute in Catskill, NY to wander around the countryside.
I brought with me prints of work from my 2017 trip to Catwalk- I printed them just prior to my 2nd visit.
During this Catwalk residency, I shared the collages below with staff, board, and fellow residents. I managed to get a meeting with the Thomas Cole House.
I wanted to see how the collages looked together in real-time -- and get reactions.
For better viewing see link above - Gallery - Hudson River, NY.
The work looked… well, it looked monumental... hmm.. ..majestic maybe ?
Not words that have popped out before. I suppose brought on by the location of Catwalk - a confluence of Hudson River School energy. This place is within spitting distance of the Thomas Cole House and across the river from Olana - Frederick Church's extraordinary perch -- and Catwalk was the home of another Hudson River painter Charles Herbert Moore.
When seeing my waterfall images together, I realized that there was a power to this landscape that I had not really known viscerally.
I grew up in NYC, Westchester county, and upstate NY and had viewed the Hudson and its environs countless times. I had even given tours at the Hudson River Museum, a favorite spot for me. Hudson River paintings had been part of my environment, particularly in academic lectures, but I felt them somewhat inaccessible.
This landscape was beginning to pierce my skin, or there was some evidence now that it was.
So what could I possibly use as subject matter on this visit? I had intimidated myself.
My get-out-of-bed "theme" this trip was creeks and streams, and also the Hudson itself - the large creek.
Meandering byways, not mythic waterfalls.
This almost-finished image is Katterskill Creek, September 2021.
Anyone who has spent much time in upstate NY might recognize the pleasure of discovering a bucolic view.
On this day my head was turned up a notch by the cloud reflections and the clear weather.
A good time of year to work on new collages. So I go into farmer mode - the tilling, clearing, assessing, chopping.
An image may not be what it might be for months or years, and until exhibited, it likely isn't finished.
In Sept/Oct 2021 I returned to the Catwalk Institute in Catskill, NY to wander around the countryside.
I brought with me prints of work from my 2017 trip to Catwalk- I printed them just prior to my 2nd visit.
During this Catwalk residency, I shared the collages below with staff, board, and fellow residents. I managed to get a meeting with the Thomas Cole House.
I wanted to see how the collages looked together in real-time -- and get reactions.
For better viewing see link above - Gallery - Hudson River, NY.
The work looked… well, it looked monumental... hmm.. ..majestic maybe ?
Not words that have popped out before. I suppose brought on by the location of Catwalk - a confluence of Hudson River School energy. This place is within spitting distance of the Thomas Cole House and across the river from Olana - Frederick Church's extraordinary perch -- and Catwalk was the home of another Hudson River painter Charles Herbert Moore.
When seeing my waterfall images together, I realized that there was a power to this landscape that I had not really known viscerally.
I grew up in NYC, Westchester county, and upstate NY and had viewed the Hudson and its environs countless times. I had even given tours at the Hudson River Museum, a favorite spot for me. Hudson River paintings had been part of my environment, particularly in academic lectures, but I felt them somewhat inaccessible.
This landscape was beginning to pierce my skin, or there was some evidence now that it was.
So what could I possibly use as subject matter on this visit? I had intimidated myself.
My get-out-of-bed "theme" this trip was creeks and streams, and also the Hudson itself - the large creek.
Meandering byways, not mythic waterfalls.
This almost-finished image is Katterskill Creek, September 2021.
Anyone who has spent much time in upstate NY might recognize the pleasure of discovering a bucolic view.
On this day my head was turned up a notch by the cloud reflections and the clear weather.