Back In the Studio

I was SO happy to be back in my studio this week for the first time since the August 1 show.

I was also immediately annoyed.

There was a very specific painting I wanted to work on—one I’d left halfway finished when everything got crazy before the show. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it.

Naturally, I couldn’t find it.

So I pulled out The Stack.

You know The Stack: the paintings that didn’t work. The ones put aside with some variation of Nope, I hate this, or What on earth happened here?

After spending so much time making the Breathing Room collection, carefully building layers of glaze and paint and marks, I found myself doing almost the opposite.

I added layers to these old paintings—and then started digging through them.

Scraping. Pulling things back. Excavating. Looking for whatever might still be there.

This pink painting began as an abstract rose bouquet. You can still see traces of the flowers and vase if you know they’re there.

So I called it Bloom Again.

And then there was the purple one.

I’ve been sitting outside at nightfall lately, watching the sky move from blue to purple to indigo, with the trees becoming almost black and a little blush of rose lingering along the ridge. I’ve taken dozens of photographs of it.

I’ve been obsessed with those colors.

And suddenly, in the studio, I was painting them.

I wasn’t even aware of the connection until after the painting was finished, dried, and photographed.

But there they all were: blue, lavender, indigo, purple, blush pink, even black.

Nightfall.

And now I see something I hadn’t seen when I started:

Bloom Again is about emergence.
Nightfall is about transition and disappearance.

Both came out of looking beneath the surface.

I don’t know what this is yet. Maybe the beginning of something. Maybe simply one really good day back in the studio.

I don’t have to know.

For today, I’m just ridiculously happy to be back.

Messy. Hopeful. Weird.

And very, very alive.