Complex June

The two pieces you see here, June Morning and June Evening, are some of the most complex work I've done recently. As always, they started out as a monotype made on the etching press using some small weeds that grow in the spring out in Southold, where I spend my weekends. These delicate little plants held up surprisingly well in the printing process. It always amazes me that seemingly delicate and fragile bits of nature are at times the strongest.

After the prints were made, I began working with other materials such as watercolor, pastel and colored pencil. Since the small weeds had delicately but strongly embossed the paper, I was able to use the subtle differences in the physical heights of some parts of the image to accept color in differing ways. I then began using some small slivers of collage from a printed photograph of my own that was made in Wave Hill. (Wave Hill, in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, high above the Hudson River, is a magical place.) These slivers of color and light seemed to open small windows into another possible world.

As I worked, two different times of day became evident in the way each piece progressed in terms of color and light. I realized that I had both morning and evening of a warm, alive, filled to the brim June day.