February 21, 2006


Downstream
(# 3 in a series of four from
"Fishing with my Mother")

mixed media 11x14 inches

I had these photographed today by expert art photographer Perry Smith at Photo services ... thank you very much Perry. He is not only a photographer, but humorist to boot. You have to be to work with artists.

Anyway, I decided to show this new work of mine, as I have finally started to finish some work which has been hanging around in my head and my studio for far too long. Some have morphed into new and interesting mixed media pieces and others started out on fresh new canvases like this one. (Yes Molly, one of those canvases is for your beloved Peacock painting...)
This series was a visual journey of growing up with a mother who loved to go fishing and thought we should too. We fished in the lakes around Iowa and Vermont where we grew up. We learned to fly fish in Colorado on vacation. (I think I hooked my mother's best friend's little boy in the arm on that excursion) We took our poles up to Minnesota and Cass Lake and caught Northern Pike. Those are some very scary looking fish with big teeth. We went tent camping out West and took our poles. In Florida we went deep sea fishing out on the Gulf of Mexico and I remember throwing up a lot and feeling rather green in general. On that trip my grandfather caught a huge bonito fish. My grandmother cooked it that evening in a tomato sauce which was simply horrible. Ah well.
However, my mother was passionate about this and my father obliged her by letting her fish and helping us girls untangle our messes and keeping the "green bass" off our lines. It was a homey, fun, kid - like thing to do as young girls but I know that my mom would still like to do it today. I for one would not. Give me a perch dredged in cornmeal sauteed in butter and lemon or better yet some sushi near Grant Street in San Francisco, but no more fishing for dinner!

And so for her love of fishing these small works finally flowed forth. These and some other mixed media works of mine will be in an exhibition in April at the new Seacoast Gallery in Portsmouth. More on that later.


The word for the day is ... Wave ... as in ... the sea, your hand, and a sexy dip in your hair.


1 comment:

angela said...

oh this is beautiful. the lush of the green, the blue. something calm, but giving energy. reminiscent of past summer days. but promising continuations of new days.

and i love how the landscape has broken itself into the image, yet belongs there.

even before reading your word of the day, ripple is the word that came to my thought. soft. gentle. ripple.