This is a series of paintings made of last summer.
They are of views from the cottages I rent with my daughter every year in Nova Scotia, and works made from a week spent last June at Great Spruce Head Island in Maine in the family home of Eliot and Fairfield Porter, among eleven other artists, hosted by the wonderful painter Anina Fuller ( Fairfield and Eliot Porter's niece).
The way I approached each painting was intuitive. I used a variety of supports and sizes- boards, canvas or linen on stretchers, depending on what felt right to the subject. They are all oil paintings. Some subjects asked to be painted quickly, with broad quick brushstrokes and thick paint to convey the movement and the lushness of the subject or the immediacy of a moment. Others asked to be made more slowly, methodically, attempting to capture the quiet feeling of a stretch of time in a contemplative space.
"You are not quite in control of nature; you are part of nature. It doesn't mean that you are helpless either. It means that the whole question of art is to be wide awake, to be as attentive as possible, for the artist and for the person who looks at it or listens to it".
Fairfield Porter
I try to always be aware of my surroundings, to appreciate them, but only a handful of moments in a week will spark a desire to paint it. It might be the way fog is hiding parts of a view, or brings out all the varieties of grey in the rocks, or the way the sun bathes a distant field or island in warm orange light while I am myself in shadow, or the pink of the sky at dusk (or dawn) which only exists for a moment. It might be the breadth of colour in a summer garden, or the flowers in the ditch on the side of the road, the
silhouetted leaves against the sky, the reflection of light on a varnished table, etc… I am always taking pictures and if there is time I make watercolour sketches, and if I want to explore what I saw more deeply, some of these things end up becoming an oil painting.
In the oil works I want to communicate the quality of a moment, something transient, intangible- and turn it into something solid. I try to capture the character or the feel of it through as much or as little detail feels right to each subject. I often get there by trial and error. Sometimes that means wiping down all the work of a day and starting over.
I am not satisfied until it feels right and I never really know how that will come about.
I want to acknowledge that as I painted the Maine landscapes, I couldn't help but be aware of the works of Fairfield Porter, Lois Dodd and Alex Katz- all artists that I love.
As I explored that landscape, I kept seeing what they saw, the light, the spruce trees, towels on a line, an old tennis court, islands in Penobscot Bay, flowers on a table, views through old paned windows… I can see echoes of them in some of my paintings of there.
I want also to mention the intense gratitude I have for Anina Fuller- who has hosted the artist residency "art week" since the 1980s. She very generously shared her family home with twelve of us on Great Spruce head island for a week. She painted with us, encouraged discussion, told stories of the people who used to come there, read poetry written by some of them in front of the fire each night. made us each feel like we belonged there and was so generous and inspiring. I hope to make it back there one day.
