“Motions,” Art Show at Campbell House

My New Show at Campbell House in Southern Pines, NC
Reception Friday, October 4, 4-6pm

I’m keen on nostalgia. Keen, but not sentimental. My nostalgia has a Cutting Edge.

You might wonder what in the world that means.

I’ll try to answer. It means things have halos around them. Like people, they have ‘their day,’ and then age, mellow, deteriorate, or gain patina like an expensive antique would. Or they die.

It may mean that besides being three-dimensional, that they are multi-dimensional. An object achieves life outside of the people that own it due to the passage of time. Locks are designed for beauty and longevity to keep people safe. So when they age on abandoned buildings, their beauty beckons me. Their story intrigues. Why, I wonder, are such beautiful fittings left to ruin. I wonder where the owners went or why.

Was there a murder or suicide like on Forensic Files, or an attempted arson. I ask myself if the heir or heirs died in a car wreck or in a battle overseas.

As a child, I searched the fields for arrowheads. I visited our  250-year old family house and noticed the old doorknobs and decorative fittings.

I saw spider webs lit by sun and dew.

There is sometimes a sadness surrounding things–or a sense of place. When a moth lands on a windowsill it reminds me of a church basement and family feeds.

When a dragonfly lights on a car, the mystery of an ancient creature and a metallic modern creation converge for a moment, maybe even collide.

So I try out various subjects–the debris in a barn that saw its day, the sun playing over each piece after tobacco barns were a thing of the past, turned dangerous, and needed pulling down.

Born in the outlying area of Dunn, NC, near the Cape Fear River, I have lived around the U.S. and abroad—in Massachusetts, Kentucky, North Carolina, Austria, and Germany. My husband and children and I traveled extensively over the U.S. and Europe.

I work in watercolor, oil, and pencil and cannot give either discipline up. My family were arts oriented teachers who encouraged every appealing art direction, even drawing on the wall from my crib. Through influences of the masters, Rembrandt, Reubens, da Vinci, old lithographs in books, these moments were caught and seen. Through foreigners’ eyes as far away as Russia my home and pieces of reality were examined.

In a rural setting in the Old South, my light catchers stored up birds, colored glass, warped and decayed wood.

That’s how they achieved a cutting edge with me. Nostalgia cuts into my indifference and draws fresh blood and pain, sometimes from their unexpected beauty–and sometimes from sensing the story did not have a happy ending.