“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
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
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
July 8, 2020
in person remote Humboldt Park
A day where the sun was hot but the shade was cool. I remember sound of the willow trees dancing in the wind. A curious snake ran across our feet, twice! Our brushes were busy making suns, flowers, and bits of sky.
August 12, 2018
Humboldt Park
