color

Firstly, happy Mother's Day, Mom. I'm sure I'll speak with you before you read this (though I am, in fact, pleased that I've finally devised a reason for my mother to go on the Internet). I love you. What can I say? I welled up even while I was making the card. Was sorry that we can't go wandering through a garden today as we've done before, but we'll get to that in a month or so. I am missing all the things that flower in the spring at this time in NY- will I truly go another full year without sniffing lilacs?- but I did see flowering cacti for the first time, and the vibrant sunsets are beyond description.
So, the Fiesta was, I must admit, a milder affair than I'd thought. I caught the parade and strolled through the fair, and in the evening I danced in a drumming circle, but the rest of the day I spent partly in the studio and partly visiting the two bookstores. I discovered a New Mexico artist, Joe Waldrum, whom I hadn't known, whose work really got to me. He's not around anymore but reading about him and seeing his paintings (one is pictured above) excited me. I love when that happens. It was his approach to light and shadow on buildings, to really getting the lush quality of color and sunlight that so evokes the feeling of this place. Also a book on Taos modernist painters, and some books on Georgia O' Keeffe I was happy to leaf through. I can see how here in particular, abstraction and representation could blur into each other, something about the landscape and the shape of things. Such as, abstracting the surfaces of familiar objects. I have approached this at times in my painting and it pleases me, softening the angles and laying in broad swaths of color to evoke what the eye sees. This may only make sense inside my head for now, my thoughts are brimming.