here to eternity

I posted this (22"x26" framed) recently but here it is with more context. This painting will be in an exhibition opening April 11 at Theo Ganz Studio in Beacon, called dispatches from eternity. Artists were to interpret the title. After I made this piece in January, the curator encouraged me to submit it, suggesting it suited this theme, and I saw this was completely true in its way. I started looking at some of my work more critically as I wrote my accompanying paragraph, and it became part of an ongoing revision of my artist statement. Which, since I haven't posted at all for so long, is almost a fresh piece of writing, even though it has similar content.

My paintings often start with the idea of wanting to describe some moment in time by way of a detail or a memory. I find an object, a sign, a streetscape, and by photographing and later painting it, I am able to place my thoughts in that time for a while. I feel an emotional, appreciative response and also a detachment from an experience I never really had, and must be content to imagine.

When I am not coming across objects and scenes myself, I look for images in old found photographs, in ephemera like ice-cream wrappers and road maps, catalogs and clippings. I may paint them as I see them or I may add or remove elements to find my own perspective. It's not a sentimentality, though I like when my work evokes a viewer's own memories. Painting lets me bring my objects back into the conversation, from one everyday life into another.

This potential for fluidity between past and present, of memory and experience both real and imagined, is my approach to the idea of eternity. It is the sense of time stretching in both directions and back around with no clear meeting place, a continuum along which we map our own stories. This painting of Newburgh is based on a photograph from Newburgh Historical Society's archives, and depicts a bustling lively city in the 1940s or 50s, full of culture and commerce, pedestrians, cars and activity. The photo captures a moment in the city's rich and complicated history, and in making a painting of it now, I want to slow down our observation of it, even to stand at the same corner the long-ago photographer stood. The six panels comprising the piece are like six different perspectives of the scene, and also resemble a window in time through which we can see life happening.

winter keening, spring dreaming

I admit that it's somehow satisfying to hurl frozen-together chunks of wood at the ground to bust them apart, or to kick loose some iced-over pieces of wood that have welded themselves to the pavement. Plus it's easier to drive over muddy dirt roads that have re-frozen rather than sinking oozily into the deep ruts after last week's thaw. Yet after four more days of trudging back and forth with my laden wheelbarrow that has amazingly lasted one more winter, and carrying armloads of wood up steps onto porches and into sheds, I think I'm about ready to hang up my superalls for the season. Will winter relinquish its icy grip and let us uncurl our clenched white fingers, will the mounds of dirty slush finally melt and the frigid air not sting our faces as we hurry, bundled, to our cars.

No, it was not a good day to try on swimsuits.

In its final hours, winter had one more snowfall to release. As ready as I am to shake off the cold part, I didn't mind the snow, one more chance to appreciate the beauty of it. Living 36 winters you know that it will melt quicker than you think and that the spring bulbs are just beneath the earth, far more ready to face the sun than your pale and withered winter skin.

You also know that saying you'll go back to regularly posting to your blog is easier than actually doing so; as much as you enjoy it, there seems to be some resistance. Let spring, a time of renewal, also be a time of renewing such efforts.

copy center

 I have new prints of these nine paintings now available for sale. All are on 8 1/2" x 11" paper with an approx 1/2" white border; the square ones are different, and the small ptgs are actual size, for example the Mixer is 6"x6". Many others are on my Etsy shop, the rest will get there very soon. They are $25 each, or $20 for a limited time if you visit either Catalyst Gallery (137 Main St Beacon) this weekend or the Brewster reception (Studio Around The Corner, 67 Main St) where I'll be this Friday 7-9pm. 

show around the corner

Reporting on this week's news: I have a show opening on Friday at a gallery off Main Street in Brewster. At The Studio Around the Corner behind the Old Town Hall, just steps away from the long-shuttered Cameo movie theater and a couple blocks from the Metro-North train station, six miles from where I grew up on Old Milltown Road. 

I am showing 12 to 15 paintings and will have prints for sale as well. A local photographer will also be exhibiting his work. The reception is Friday evening, 7-9 pm; more info is below. Window Letters (here) is in it; not a new painting, but still one of my favorites.

VIEWFINDERS

Paintings by Erica Hauser

        

With Photographs by Pal Gyomai

Opening Reception – Meet the Artists

Friday, February 20, 7p – 9p

Additional Studio Hours: 12 – 2p

Saturday, February 21

Saturday, February 28

Sunday, March 1

Studio Around the Corner

67 Main Street, Suite 101

Brewster, NY 10509

(845 363-8330

Cover: ‘Window Letters’

Oil on canvas, Erica Hauser

begin again

City of Newburgh, 1940's, 20"x24" made up of 6 panels, acrylic/canvas

There's really no way for me to un-self-consciously start up my blog again without acknowledging the -ulp- four months that have gone by since I last posted. It wasn't intentional, as in, let me regroup or take time to clarify my intentions or make more work or any such excuse. No, just the same old, one week became two became a month became four. But I regret this lapse. It started (or stopped, I should say), I suspect, as a reluctance to repeat myself here after three years of "Look, I'm in another group show/ I stacked a lot of firewood/ I read books/ I made new prints/ I organized a show of 50 artists at my gallery/ I made calendars/ I'm in another group show/ I made a thing for an event/ I painted more stuff/ I drove and took pictures."
Which, far from a reason to shut up, could have nudged me to broaden my activities, except- surprise- these reports are actually why my blog exists, as a method of communication to others and a record for myself that's smoothed out and cinched in for general perusal. When I went too long between posts, I missed doing it. I didn't stop painting or exhibiting, but it's sobering how easily I could tell myself that blogging 'doesn't matter' because time went by and things were ok without me going on about it. I am remembering now that 'ok' isn't enough and shouldn't be. No one will ever make as big a fuss about me and my work as I, so- very needlessly to say-  it is up to me to create the content.
A couple months ago, someone did contact me to ask if I was ok, since I hadn't posted in so long. Embarrassed, I typed "yes.." and went back to posting a blink-and-you-miss-it update on the mixed bag that is Facebook. Then last week, a discussion at a BeaconArts board meeting about using our website to generate connections in and beyond our community by sharing content from local creative businesses and artists' blogs made my sheepish-artist ensemble complete. I had been ba-a-a-adly negligent for too long. Time to begin again. Or tomorrow, tomorrow is fine too.

local color

Two receptions this weekend for area group shows that I have some work in. One is Art of the Automobile at Mamaroneck Library as I reported the other day, and is actually tomorrow Oct 18, 2-4 pm. The other is Reflections, opening at Front Street Gallery in Patterson on Sunday Oct 19, 10-2 pm, which has my Disco Ball painting.

Meanwhile, the  Self-Portrait show continues at Ann St Gallery in Newburgh through Nov 22. Then next Sat Oct 25 is the opening of Small Matters of Great Importance at the Edward Hopper House in Nyack. It's good to get the kids out in the fresh air.

you painted trucks

Some phone calls flew back and forth about work I would contribute to a Westchester group show of cars a friend was organizing.
'You got car paintings?'
'Yes, I sure do have car paintings.'
'Great. What sizes?'
'A bunch of different sizes, 12 or 20 inch…'
'Great. I'll need a few smaller ones as it turns out.'
'No problem', I assure him, forgetting the pivotal word CAR. I have a few large paintings of cars (the Edsel; the Beetle, a couple Fords) that will be too big. I grab two smallish vehicle paintings- one older, one new- and drop them at the venue- the Mamaroneck Public Library. I send off an email.
'You got my pieces, right? Did you hang the show yet?'
'HAUSER!!! Yes you are up.... NO you did not paint cars.... you painted trucks!!! Fear not, all is well. Love how you paint... always have.'
'Oops. Sorry. Trucks aren't cars?'
The show, Art of The Automobile, is up through Oct 27, with a reception Sat Oct 18th 2-4pm.