Greetings from my tidy and reorganized studio, where I now spend my cool mornings sitting in a shabby, uber-comfy, overstuffed vintage swivel chair by an open window, unless of course it’s closed because of the smoke from the Canadian wildfires that have been plaguing us lately. I had already put up sheer linen curtains during the first heatwave this summer to keep the afternoon sun from making the studio unbearable. Curtains also made the room, along with plants and an old Turkish rug protecting the landlord’s carpet, quite homey. Then my printer died a couple weeks ago leaving space on the desk for collages instead of doing them on my tilted drafting tabletop. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m preparing to run a workshop at the gallery and part of that has involved my creating collages to use as examples. The workshop may not happen now, but I’m okay with that because it has motivated me to do the two beauties above and below. I’m especially happy with the hawk, which was meant to be simple enough for kids to follow but took on a complexity that, dare I say it, is quite sophisticated.

Also in the works this week was Peaches, below, an 18x18” continuation of the Fauvist theme I wrote about last week. Fuchsia and orange, seriously? It works for me, and women in particular really like her, although I’m not sure about the men. All I know is I’m excited about exploring this sort of palette again since the early birds in the series had some very odd color combinations and I’m not attempting to imitate nature. I was getting rigid with that until working in black and white with the Charcoal series freed up my approach - as did the switch to canvas which lends itself to a softer texture that comes across cleaner, and, here’s that word again, sophisticated. Some use the term Post-Modern about my new pieces but I don’t think of my work that way. I’m more of an intuitive, instinctive painter. So bring on the fuchsia/orange and maybe chartreuse palette - on with the day.