Balancing Point 2020

This body of work has been created during my isolation due to Covid-19. Not that I’ve been sick with the virus; it’s just been the need to take only measured and considered risks when it comes to interactions. It has been a quiet and focused time. Close to home, my studio is just a short walk up the lane. During my morning stroll towards this destination, I would tune into the thoughts and feelings that became the starting point for my day’s work in the studio.

Each day I would begin work with the process of mark making on paper, a quick series of exercises that eventually turned into the nine panel painting “Salutation”. I usually have several paintings on the go simultaneously and my attention would then move to building layers of paint, mark making, medium and collage on the paintings currently taking form. One day rolled into the next giving rise to the mini-series of paintings titled “Another Day”. Simultaneously, the layered abstracts that changed from day to day, visually chronicled the passage of time. A few were completed quickly and others required more contemplation and daily visits before finding a conclusion. Still others morphed into more recognizable forms becoming the mixed media series, “Life is Still”. 

Twyla Tharp once said, “art is the only way to run away without leaving home”, a sentiment I understand well. However at this time, in this place I would have to say that my studio time since the beginning of this turbulent pandemic has been more about finding equanimity. In her book Real Changes, Sharon Salzburg, a teacher of Buddhist mindfulness meditation writes:

“Equanimity holds it all. Peace is not about moving away from or transcending all the pain in order to travel to an easeful, spacious realm of relief: we cradle both the immense sorrow and the wondrousness of life at the same time. Being able to be fully present with both is the gift equanimity gives us – spacious stillness, radiant calm.”