Monday, January 14, 2013

Wild October


The summer and fall were productive times for me in the studio. A large selection of my work is going to be exhibited during the month of February at the Gallery of the Quogue LIbrary in Quogue on the south shore of Long Island. www.quoguelibrary.org


The two pieces pictured here have special meaning for me since I made them in late October and early November just after hurricane Sandy. I hadn’t started out to make pieces about the storm at all. Actually, I was blessed with some free time in the studio by my good luck of not losing my electricity or suffering any real discomfort from the storm that so damaged much of the city. I began working on these two pieces and was amazed at how fast they developed. In fact, I had to rush to keep up with them as each in its turn seemed to clamor for attention, telling me “Here, here.” It was like a train rushing down the tracks and I had to run to jump on before it left. Most artists have periods when a piece is going well or, unfortunately more commonly, when a piece is going slowly and painfully. But the intensity of work on these two images was, for me, extraordinary. I was working every day for at least six hours at a time. Near the end, I realized that, of course, these two images certainly were about the storm — the wildness and destruction of the storm.


WILD OCTOBER DARK  11 in. x 9-1/2 in.  monotype, pastel, colored pencil, and collage


WILD OCTOBER LIGHT  11-3/4 in. x 9-1/2 in  monotype, pastel, colored pencil, and collage