Lincoln Park Conservatory

On a recent Saturday, I visited the Green City Market, wandered through the beautifully landscaped gardens of LIncoln Park, and settled into the Lincoln Park conservatory to make this painting.  I sat along side a friend who was also drawing, it was a delight to interact with curious passersby and make this quick sketch painting in the conservatory. This painting doesn't quite capture the marvel of the scene, which was the contrast between the soft, lush plant textures with the rigid metal and glass of the beautiful structure. Lovely afternoon!

Commissioned Painting

I recently had the pleasure of completing this commissioned painting, which was to be given as a wedding present. It was made from a photo taken at the couple's wedding and was indeed well suited to translation into watercolor. I was really taken by the soft light in the background, the green shade of the plant and the contrast of that color to the rustic shelf on which it sits. It is a lovely symbol of the commitment of one couple and a pleasing image as the recent supreme court rulings move our country one step closer to equal marriage rights!

Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

Last weekend I had the pleasure of travelling to San Francisco for the wedding of an old friend.  In additional to travel Mill Valley for the wedding, there was the delight of a few days to explore San Francisco, including visits to "little Russia" (home of grocery stores with some unfamiliar snacks and Russian Orthodox churches), Fort Point (which has an awesome view of the water from the vantage point of the underside of the Golden Gate Bridge), the Sutro Baths (ruins of public baths that were around until the mid-20th century--7 pools that could accommodate 10,000 people at a time!), and a hike in Pacifica (along this bluff called Mori Point, which runs along the water).  

On Sunday, a day which was uncharacteristically warm and sunny for June in San Francisco, we made a visit to Golden Gate Park. It's really a stunning piece of public infrastructure, which includes a buffalo pasture, botanic garden, and Japanese tea garden. The experience was made even more fantastic by the fact that the roads are closed to vehicular traffic on Sundays, so bikers and walkers rule the roads. I was particularly taken by the Music Concourse, a grand plaza which separates the de Young museum (also really interesting) from the Academy of Sciences. It is a public space that feels European in nature, particularly the Spreckels Temple of Music, a classically designed bandshell located at the west end of the concourse. So, I sat on a sunny afternoon, before the Temple of Music and painted the elegant arcade of Ionic columns, while enjoying a rehearsal and performance by Circus Bella and the Golden Gate Park Band.

Painting on the Rails

Keeping with the theme of painting while on the move, I made this painting while traveling by train to St. Louis. As is typical of the midwest, much of the landscape felt wide open, gently rolling fields and big open sky. The charms of painting on the train made me even more curious about the experience of traveling west, by train, through the great plains.  For now, I enjoyed the short trip south to St. Louis, where I delighted in a visit to the Buckminster Fuller conservatory at the Botanic Garden and the wonders of the City Museum.     

Gloomy Afternoon at Lake Harriet

Two weekends ago I spent the weekend in Minneapolis for a wedding. I'm pretty taken by the natural beauty of the twin cities: lush trees, the great Mississippi, the Minnehaha Falls, and dozens of lakes.  I had the lucky opportunity to stay with a friends' family near to Lake Harriet on this recent visit.  It's hard to describe how idyllic the neighborhood lakes, like Lake Harriet, seem to me.  Lake Harriet, located two blocks from where I was staying, feels clean and fresh, surrounded by tree-lined walking and biking paths, a bandshell for summer concerts, and charming homes. On a gloomy Sunday afternoon walk, I couldn't resist sitting in the bandshell overlooking the lake and making this painting. Later that day, in fabricating a "thank you" card for our hosts, I painted the same scene again, but the second time the lake, sky, and water lived in my mind's eye. The second version, painted from memory, was simplified into the more essential relationships of lights and darks, without attempting to differentiate the details of the scene. I'm uncertain which was the more compelling painting, but certainly the experience of sitting before the a vast sky, lush trees, and reflective water can't be beat!

Sketches from the Open Road

Last weekend I drove with friends from Chicago to Minneapolis for a wedding.  It's a pleasant drive north to Madison, passing through the Wisconsin Dells before arriving in Minnesota.  On the long drive to Minneapolis, fortified by dinner at a restaurant, which boasted that they deliver your meal by train (it was a model train that ran by our table alternately delivering beverages and ferrying stuffed animals around the restaurant), I decided to do something which I had never done before…make a watercolor painting in a moving vehicle.  The experiment was fairly successful, the sketches are not particularly nice paintings, but it was a delight to try to capture something about the passing landscape as it rushed by at highway speed.  I was particularly taken by the ribbon of sunlight that ran down the middle of the highway, the contrast of the dark hills beyond with the lightness of the sunset sky, and the perfectly round glowing orb of sunlight.  Soon the light slipped away and it became too difficult to paint, but there is such delight in making a painting even when it isn't particularly beautiful or representational.

Generousity

I was recently inspired, by a friend's blog post on generosity. Considering the nature of generosity made me curious about how I would go about representing the idea of generosity visually.  There is something that can feel a bit counterintuitive about giving, perhaps there is a moment that feels as though something is being taken away from us, a void where what we have given away once was.  Perhaps it is as though generosity responds to the same properties as govern the principle of mass conservation, which implies that mass can neither be created nor destroyed, although it may be rearranged in space.  When we give there is a rearrangement that happens, something is taken away from us, but there is also a space that is opened inside of us.  We are made open and able to receive in new ways.  We are changed in some way, we are renewed and remade by the process of letting something go and letting in something new.