Caswell Series, #2: Rules Were Made to Be Broken

Caswell Series, #2: Rules Were Made To Be Broken is another gouache on paper, 9" x 12", from 1981. It is part of a series from material gathered on Oak Island, NC, at Civil War era Fort Caswell. I loved the old buildings and the wide open area they occupied, and did many paintings from the photos I took on several visits there. One time I went down with an artist group for the weekend. We had a short workshop on basic composition; the only thing I remember from it was the leader's stern warning: "never put anything in the center of your picture." That rubbed me the wrong way, since I had recently graduated from art school and was pretty tired of being told what to do. There was also plenty of historical precedent to show that she was wrong, so I decided to deliberately stick a chimney in the dead center of this painting and make it work. I think it does.

My students are told that I don't give artistic "rules" - only "suggestions."

Caswell Series, #2 is in a private collection in Raleigh, NC.

Winter Squash

Winter Squash (8" x 7", gouache on paper, 1977) was one of the first paintings I finished. I was still in art school, and my brand of realism was not highly favored at the time, at least in the Art Department. That was OK, since the little painting received fifth place in the first juried show I entered. It also has the dubious honor of being the only one of my works that was stolen, from Village Smith Gallery in Winston-Salem, NC, in 1979.

There was an abundance of winter (butternut?) squash that year, so I used them as subjects in three paintings.

In case anyone wonders, "gouache" is opaque watercolor, similar to tempera. I used it almost exclusively until 2000.

Crocus 2

Crocus 2 (10.25" x 7.75", oil pastel, 2005), is the second work in my crocus series. The sunlight was so bright on the tiny flowers that the centers appeared to be floating above the shimmering petals. I have several other versions of this one in my UFO (UnFinished Object) pile.

Crocus 2 is in the collection of CT Communications in Concord, NC.

Crocus 1

Crocus 1 is a 10" x 7" oil pastel, done in the spring of 2005. I had a lovely clump of purple crocuses last year. They were the only thing blooming at the time, so I took many photos and as a result have quite a few paintings of them.

This one is in the collection of The Independent Tribune, a newspaper in Kannapolis, NC.

For some reason I seem to be in a Purple Phase of my art. Nearly everything I do lately has at least a little "royal" color. I like it.

Good Intentions....

And we all know what those are worth. I started this blog as a way to talk about my work, or get some response as to what others might think of it. If a picture really is worth a thousand words, maybe I should just post the paintings and see if anyone has any words to say about them. Maybe. But sometimes there really is a story behind a painting that needs to be told. The jury is presently out, but will return shortly.