“I found that when water is put onto the paper first, then the color can disperse freely and take it’s own path.”
July 13, 2018
Lincoln Park
Leslie met me in the back garden area of my apartment, and I had hoped the space would be clean, manicured, and peaceful. It had been such a space all summer. Contractors, however, had just begun a large refinishing project on the building two days prior. Construction materials were strewn about, and my precious garden was already turning down in preparation for autumn.
I was anxious.
We cleared dirt off the picnic tables and repositioned them so we could work side by side. We sat down, chatted about watercolor materials, and then got to work and shared intimate and quiet thoughts continuously. Leslie built up two or three brilliantly, colored watercolors. I lost track of the brilliant colors and found an image of grays.
As time elapsed, I was restored and whole.
Leslie met me in the back garden area of my apartment, and I had hoped the space would be clean, manicured, and peaceful. It had been such a space all summer. Contractors, however, had just begun a large refinishing project on the building two days prior. Construction materials were strewn about, and my precious garden was already turning down in preparation for autumn.
I was anxious.
We cleared dirt off the picnic tables and repositioned them so we could work side by side. We sat down, chatted about watercolor materials, and then got to work and shared intimate and quiet thoughts continuously. Leslie built up two or three brilliantly, colored watercolors. I lost track of the brilliant colors and found an image of grays.
As time elapsed, I was restored and whole.
August 13, 2019
Hyde Park
How wonderful to spend the morning contemplating the beauty of a tree, even if I couldn’t capture its beauty. It was beautiful just to sit and stare at it and the way the light was filtering through its leaves.
September 5, 2020
Humboldt Park
Watercolor painting outside with Leslie was like dying wood pulp, while walking backwards through light and time in the forest….Janet. A chance to slow down and look. To connect the eye with my hand. To observe color in natural light and translate through the brush.
An invitation to be creative with no pressure or obligation. One of the parts of participating that feels so exciting is that it is not really about the outcome of the painting but the process of looking, using color and feeling what it is like to paint.
An excitement about landscape painting that I have not personally experienced. The invitation by Leslie and feeling of being guided through a process I would never normally initiate. -Marianne together in peace
to capture reflect nature
create in color -Zora ELIOT_ I do wish to revisit our watercolor moment at Annie’s. I’ve thought a lot about the slowing of time at Annie’s place with the watercolors. It was an eyeopener to realize that maybe what I need so desperately right now in this pandemic is to stop and look, use paint as a meditation I have since done some watercolor here on our property and I want to continue when I find the time, not as a medium to master but as a way to enjoy a moment, a way to contemplate, a way to experiment with seeing. It doesn’t require too much like doing a sketch of a design with premeditation.
The other day I went to Michael’s (the closest art supplies) to get my mother some gouaches for her birthday, I thought that it would be an improvement from watching TV all day.
I got to the counter and thought to myself, wait a minute I’m jealous, I don’t even own some gouache paints. But I refrained from buying myself a set as I have so much in the way of art supplies, some barely used. What I really needed to do was find the time and inspiration, to shut everything out except the existential beauty of a moment.
I want to thank you again for allowing me that moment at Annie’s. It stays with me!
July 3, 2019
Soldiers Grove
I think of how our worlds are wound. The winding of worlds creates opportunities for patterns of contact, convergence
and community to form, disperse as such and reform in new configurations.
Sitting on the bank of the Herring Run in July 2019, with watercolors and paper, I tuned in to compositions.
These were not only those formed of moving water, lines, shapes, wind, heat and leaves, but also the communing around which this plein air painting project is structured. My peripheral senses are often stronger than my direct line of sight. And so this setting – a plein air painting date in Baltimore, Maryland, was for me much more about the subject of being, listening and looking together as artists, friends, cousins. It was an opportunity to weave connection into reflections of color, shape, form.
August 10, 2019
Herring Run Park Baltimore
I met Leslie on my birthday, in July of 2020. I became aware of her paintings and her plein air project just before her show at Julius Caesar. I loved the idea of the project, which seemed like a perfect way to have a socially distanced outdoor experience, and I loved her paintings, which had a very unique vocabulary of shape and color as she dealt with botanical subjects. She graciously allowed me to pick a few paintings before the install, and we figured out a day to arrange a delivery of my new little collection. As we talked, it occurred to me that I was living in a perfect setting for a plein air-painting excursion. My home outside of Chicago had a field of native wildflowers, and the purple coneflowers were putting on quite a show.
Leslie showed up with her portable painting tables and pallets of Japanese watercolors and we spent the afternoon painting with my sister Natalie. Leslie made a number of beautiful paintings, while I muddled through various attempts to put something on paper that wasn’t immediately offensive. She was a gracious teacher and encouraging painting partner. It’s nice to spend time working alongside somebody that has a very developed practice. The paintings weren’t overly precious, and she worked with an ease and confidence that made it fun. She had a nice repertoire of encouraging comments to keep you moving: “It’s just paper.” Or “You can start another painting if you don’t like that one.” Leslie’s paintings were abstract but rooted in the situation. She pulled elements like the color of the coneflowers, or the shape of a bush, or the bending of a trunk, and synthesized them into imaginary landscapes that were fantastic, but familiar. I don’t think she could have made the same painting sitting anywhere else, they seemed very specific to the time and place. I didn’t end up with any paintings that I liked, and I don’t think I’ve touched my watercolors since, but it did give me a refreshed appreciation for my immediate environment, the beauty of the flowers and the grasses, and the power of concentrated observation to transform your connection to a place.
I’ve spent the past few months of this elongated isolation dealing with a number of white oak trees that have died. I hired a guy to come out with a portable sawmill and we spent a few days sawing up boards and slabs and beams. I’ve been learning to work with the wood and have been making some initial attempts at sculpture and direct carving. I like to think that my day painting in the field was a little bit of encouragement to make something beautiful out of our immediate surroundings.
July 17, 2020
in person remote Barrington
for Leslie
my lucky brain
is stretching
popping the knots
extending
neural branches
easily
while painting
leafy patterns
and blooms
the riot of variety
in the greenhouse
is almost overwhelming
sitting in one place
it takes hours
to open our eyes
conversation flows
like watercolor
in hues of our own
choosing
planted spirits
teach us to see
and to be
January 20, 2020
Garfield Park Conservatory
in the thick warm air
wet color with you and I
a thousand greens here.
February 28, 2020
Garfield Park Conservatory
September 29, 2021
Humboldt Park
It was the most beautiful Summer day. The kind of summer day where time seems to slow down. I was thinking about how you perceive things that are alive, when juxtaposed with death. Painting with Leslie that day felt like praying. Made me think about this Mary Oliver poem.
July 23, 2019
Humboldt Park
July 8, 2020
in person remote Humboldt Park
