Homecoming #2, triptych

Another triptych where I'm trying to contrast being home with where I've been.

Don't

A cautionary tale...
Sometimes I need long deliberations with all the rationalizations. Sometimes I just need to know I can't cross that line.

Solo Journey

Some journeys have to be done alone.

So Good to Be Home

A painting of contrasts, inside/outside, orange/gray, love/loneliness.

A quick update--this was snatched up the day it was posted, to a lovely woman who is eagerly anticipating her husband's release from prison after waiting for him for 27 years. It's hard to let artwork go, but it is so deepened when it goes out in the world.

Jennifer Perlmutter Gallery in Lafayette

I don't find working a room at openings easy, and art talks can almost push me over the edge, but last Saturday's at the Jennifer Perlmutter Gallery was very fine. Thanks to everyone who came and listened; and thanks to Laura and Jennifer for their kindness and insight.

Shelter #2

Another painting about loving and leaving. Never easy, but, oh, so important.

Art Talk Tonight

I'm giving an art talk tonight at the Jennifer Perlmutter Gallery in Lafayette. Even though I was a teacher for 7 years, I always get a little nervous before these things. Painting is so personal and private, but there's this public component where art becomes a connection point, where I discover I have so much in common with complete strangers. We're all on that journey.

Family Huddle

Family Huddle
16"x16"

I have a new show with Laura VanDuren in a new space--"Belonging" at the Jennifer Perlmutter Gallery, 3620 Mt. Diablo Blvd., Lafayette. The opening is Saturday, June 7 from 7 to 9pm. Please come and wish me happy birthday!

New Road

New Road
12"x12"

It feels like a new season, my son graduating from college and my daughter excited to leave in the fall. So is this woman my daughter or me? Who knows...

In Your Arms #2

In Your Arms #2
16"x12"

I'm so glad beach weather is here. I'll have sand in my shoes until September.

Crescent Moon

Crescent Moon, 18"x15"

Today is my open studio at Hunters Point. Please come by!

Waiting

Waiting, 24"x24"

What is she waiting for? A bus? Daylight? True love? You tell me.

Garden

Garden, 24"x24"

I love my garden. Sometimes it feels like a subversive act.

Homecoming

Homecoming, 18"x48"

Today I'm flying to LA and driving home with my son. He's finishing a college internship and is graduating next month. I'm so proud of him. It seems like yesterday he was smaller than me...

Bedtime Story

Bedtime Story (diptych), 12"x24"

After 30 years, I continue to learn new things about my husband.

Woman in Desert

Woman in Desert, 12"x24"

I love the clarity of the desert. Everything is made very simple and clear.

Night Dance

Night Dance, acrylics on canvas, 36"x46"

"To love someone is to see him as God intended him."  --Dostoevsky

Orange Room, Blue Light

Orange Room, Blue Light (triptych), 12"x42"

A painting of contrasts--orange and blue, warm and cold, togetherness and lonely outside.

Helping Hand

Helping Hand, 45"x48"

I was hanging a show in Virginia City, Nevada, when I came down with a bad case of altitude sickness. I had a seizure and was unconscious for 24 hours. After I got home and was feeling better, this was the first painting I did.

Do you have pivotal points in your life where some little impulsive decision changed everything? This painting has a few of those--a phone call, a weekend at a bird sanctuary, a ride in a U-Haul truck, the job that sent me yearning for more... Different modes of flight...

White Dove

Good-bye 2013!

Hello 2014!

It's All a Miracle

It's All a Miracle, 12"x70"

Sometimes when I can't sleep, I remember all the miracles in my life, but lately I've been forgetting some, so I thought I'd paint them.They're intensely personal, but maybe there's a universal thread there, too. This one has the car that broke down as we coasted to a house in a new town that we'd never been to before, volunteer movers who came to empty that house 30 years later when I couldn't lift another box, and the life that happened in between.

Found #4

Found #4, 26.5"x12"

"Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you. See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands: your walls are always before me."-Is 49:15-16

Friends, Skyline Gate

Friends, Skyline Gate, 16"x16"

"All art is solitary and the studio is the torture area."--Alexander Liberman
Many thanks to Dana Zed for getting me out of the studio last week, painting out in the hills.

Three Boys Arm in Arm

Three Boys, Arm in Arm, 12"x12"

I'm dropping off new paintings today at the Studio Shop at Burlingame. It's like my children leaving home.

Keeping Watch

Keeping Watch, 18"x18"

This is a redo of a painting I first did when my son left home. The feelings are still there, 34 years later.

At the Boonville Hotel

Many thanks to the Boonville Hotel for hosting my work with such style, and for hosting my husband and myself for a wonderful weekend getaway. I can't imagine a better place to escape the Bay Area, just 2 1/2 hours away. -- www.BoonvilleHotel.com.

Breeze

Breeze, 24"x60"

Sometimes I paint from ideas in my head. Other times photos help. Then I can take out the wrinkles and sags. A cheap face lift.

Blue House and Backyard Party

Blue House, 30"x24"                                                                 Backyard Party, 30"x24"   

Writers can do rewrites. How about artists? The painting on the left,"Blue House", always felt a little sad to me, like I was the one being left behind. I waited a couple of years and turned it into a gathering of friends. Thank you to the companions on the journey when the kids leave home.

Birthday Party - 6 Panels

One challenge for me as an artist is to keep painting fresh. My latest new thread that I'm following is what I call narrative sequences, groups of 5 to 8 panels, 12" tall, that can be rearranged in different orders, making different stories. This one is called "Birthday Party".

Rain Forest

I'm often asked where my inspiration comes from. My son and daughter have always been patient models, but now they are also thoughtful critics and insightful peers, sending me websites and videos and accompanying me to beautiful landscapes. Not to forget the man behind the camera as well...

Safe Hands

Safe Hands, 14"x14"

Much love to a little girl in Denver who is close to my heart....

Desert Two-Step

Desert Two-Step, 24"x36"

Another of my desert series. How many legs are too many?

Woman on Boulder

Woman on Boulder, 16"x16"

My daughter blooms in the most barren of places.

Feast in the Desert

Feast in the Desert, 36"x48"

I recently read my grandmother's diary. She lived through the Depression on a desert farm. I want to do a series of desert paintings.

Couple on Boulder

Couple on Boulder, 11"x25"

 One of those together-but-separate paintings, inspired by a recent trip to Pinacles National Monument

New Plants

New Plants, 30"x30"

Just got back from Denver, hanging with my sister and her brood. Such a contrast between the huge skies and the brown winter landscape, between pink babies and my empty nest.

Woman and Birch Trees

Woman and Birch Trees, 24"x24"

If you're moving into the unknown, at least have sensible shoes.

Golden Thread

Golden Thread, 18"x48"

There's a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn't change.
People wonder what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can't get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time's unfolding. You don't ever let go of the thread.
-William Stafford

Big Step

Big Step, 24"x12"

There's Noah, striding into adulthood. I'm glad he has long legs.  If you want to see the person who inspired this, go tohttp://www.kickstarter.com/projects/noahaust/how-to-make-a-nightmare?ref=live.

Dancers #2

Dancers #2, 16"x16"

a private moment exposed....

Piggyback Ride

Piggyback Ride, 9x12

A writer — and, I believe, generally all persons — must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.

• Jorge Luis Borges

Burning House #3

Burning House #3, 24"x24"

Why paint burning houses? Fresh start? Get out while you still can? Goes so fast? You tell me.

Lighter than Air #8

Lighter than Air #8, 28"x14"

Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth.
-Theodor Adorno

String of Lights

The progression of a painting....