My little house is filled to bursting with hundreds of watercolor paintings and small pastels, charcoal drawings (mostly from life-drawing groups– faces and bodies), and sketchbook drawings (landscapes, trees, dancers, musicians).
Many of you know that I’ve been having a difficult time with my painting for a few years now. I have started so many paintings. Beginnings are joyful. But, again and again, as a painting starts to come alive for me, something happens. I find it more and more difficult to stay with that painting. I paint ever more slowly; it’s like swimming in quicksand… until finally, in order to remember the joy of painting, I start another painting. And the pattern repeats.
Another way to look at it is that I’m trying to do something that I don’t know how to do…yet. I’m trying to get at something, and I don’t know how to get there…yet.
Either way, the upshot is: hundreds of beginnings, some carried farther than others, some really only scraps of ideas, some so close to what I envision.
For so long I have thought I must see each of these paintings and drawings through to the point that I could say, “Yes! All done, it is itself.” But I’ve decided I need to find a different way forward. I’ve decided to accept these beginnings as studies, explorations, experiments– in which many good things have happened, from which I’ve learned plenty– and to let go of them.
I want to find homes for as many of these paintings and drawings as I can. For me, they are just beginnings, but maybe you’ll find something you like just as it is. You’ll be helping me a lot; I’ll be grateful. And they’ll be so much happier on your wall than in my closet!
Please see the page on this site for a selection of these artworks seeking homes: “Studio Sale.”