A few adjectives: insecure, motormouthed, muddy, vulnerable. One of the most uncomfortable things I’ve ever done on video. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
April 13, 2020
Remote Columbus Ohio
November 7, 2020
Humboldt Park
Chilling sparkle, brilliant huddle
September 7, 2019
Hahn House Wisconsin
gold and orange and white and red beneath
transparent forest green water
luminescent yellowgreen aroids
reverberating with chitchat
February 6, 2019
Garfield Park Conservatory
A friend on a bench. Brushes in pockets.
Plants are smiling and I, well, I’m a little nervous about them.
September 3, 2017
Garfield Park Conservatory
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 remember walking into the Garfield Conservatory seeing Leslie with all that she had prepared for the group of people we were planning to meet, she was a bit flustered because some not everyone who said they would be there came – she had taken such great care to provide for all involved – in this moment I felt her heart on her sleeve. That for tied into to whole experience we had together that day. A kind of breaking through any part of the day that might have brought disappointment, distress and just stopping – letting go, resting on a single plant, or in my case, a piece of architecture and how visitors navigated the space. I was so grateful to Leslie for her honest and generous presence, with her you don’t have to wonder, you can just be. A gift.
-Iris.
I remember when we did our plein air painting date with the Spertus fellows. It was more than two years ago, right? We went to Garfield Park Conservatory and maybe half of the group showed up. I remember feeling a little nervous since painting or art making in general is really not what I do but I pushed myself to walk around the conservatory and choose a couple of spots to sit on and try it out. It was very refreshing and meditative, and I’m thankful for the opportunity you gave me to explore that. It would be great to repeat something similar with the group one day!
-Ionit.
You think that you know how to paint/ You go to the conservatory/ You realize that you don’t know how to look
– Roni.
I mostly chose to hang in the desert room at the conservatory because I am from the desert and, simply, that room fills me with longing and belonging, even as it constitutes a fantasy space. Unable to depict what it looks like, my time there also yields a fantasy space. I was truly honored to see some of my little shapes and pareidolic moments in Leslie’s works later. To reconsider art history as our history feels radical and generous and that can be more than enough for an afternoon, for a stray text, for a night in the studio.
As an unconfident but constant drawer, painting with Leslie is a delight — I have such faith in her eye and hand and find myself endlessly impressed by her makings, even when talkative me is left wordless in front of them. We share many traits but continual practice and better-or-worse endlessness is one of them. To share in that sharing and to tether together, well, you know what they say: it’s not nothing to be really quite something.
– Jesse
October 22, 2017
Garfield Park Conservatory
Avery, Max, and I loved the virtual plein air painting date with Leslie. It was a perfect activity during the Stay At Home order.
April 22, 2020
Remote Chicago
August 24, 2019
Little wolf Wisconsin
a small sits dog between two.-KG
August 1, 2018
Back Balcony Chicago
