Printmakers

Soprafina Gallery
February 4 to February 26, 2011

Opening Reception:
Friday, February 4, 2011
5:30 pm to 7:30 pm

Gallery Hours:
Wednesday through Saturday: 11:00 AM to 5:30 PM
Tuesdays or other times by appointment

Soprafina Gallery
55 Thayer Street
Boston, MA 02118
617.728.0770

More information...

10th Annual Small Works Show

Cambridge artists support Maud Morgan Arts

October 15 to November 27, 2010

Opening Reception: Friday, October 15, 2010, 6:30 to 8:00 pm

Gallery Hours: Monday to Friday, 10 am to 5 pm
Saturdays Noon to 5 pm

The Chandler Gallery
at the Agassiz Baldwin Community
20 Sacramento Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617) 349-6287

Vernon Street Fall Open Studios

November 6 and 7, 2010, Noon to 6 pm

20 Vernon Street
Somerville, MA 02145

Night Glow, Peconic Bay Monotypes
Lenz Winery, 2009
Peconic, New York

These moonlight monotypes reflect a lifetime of gazing out over Peconic Bay, on the North Fork of Long Island. I will never cease to love that silvery glow that fillls the bay when a full moon first rises, and then the path that glimmers as the moon rides high in the sky. The images are intended to captures the dark on dark texture of barely-seen waves, constrasting with luminous moonlight, and a moment on a still fall night, when the distant horizon beckons with a shimmering glow.

Arc of Visibility : Between the Sea and Shore
Whitney Artworks, 2008
492 Congress Street
Portland, Maine

On my recent trips to the west coast of Ireland and Monhegan, I've been exploring the patterns and shapes of rock ledges and am intrigued by the forces that shape them.

The cracks I see under my feet on the ledges below the Down Patrick cliffs in Ireland are bizarrely regular as if some unseen hand drew a repetitive pattern of horizontal and overlapping vertical lines, according to hidden rules. In fact, as I learned from my geologist brother Henry, the forces that created the cracks are shifting continental plates, that created stress fractures along the shifting lines of compression.

Those same shapes are repeated on the indentations of the coastline cliffs, as wave action eroded cliffs and sections dropped off into the sea along stress lines — creating an affinity between the micro and macro view. The ragged, angular cliff shapes are dramatic, with deeply shadowed cliff walls above the ocean. The texture of the limestone layers on the cliff faces reveal in section what is seen in plan on the top of exposed ledge layers.

In the Fissure monotype series, both cliff shape and rock cracking are combined a symbiotic expression of the forces, the patterns, and the coastline landscape. There is an emotional resonance for me between the gigantic, seemingly solid cliffs and the sudden astounding chasms at the edge, as sunlit meadow gives way to shadowed dramatic depths, down to the pounding surf that is felt, not seen, slowly eroding it all... juxtaposed with the delicate, deliberate pattern of cracks, the rifts and fissures, seen underfoot on the safety of the shoreline ledges.

Read this show's press review...

American Artists in Rural Ireland
The Ballinglen Experience
Concord Art Association, Concord, MA
October 7 to November 2006

When I first went to Ireland in 1998, I expected to continue in the same vein as the abstracted rocks I'd been painting for many years. Instead, the experience broadened my view out to wider expanses of bogland and sea; I became interested in a sense of the "beyond" that is out of my grasp, like a fascinating infinity that pulls one outside of oneself.

In the following years back home, I continued to paint water, captivated by luminous coastal situations: the drift of the sea and atmosphere in diffuse morning light, the enormity of space... and still the sense of an expansive place beyond.

On my most recent trip 2 years ago, I was struck by the peaceful view from our cottage doorway out towards Down Patrick head, and painted this show's "First Light" on several successive mornings.

I am in fact addicted to painting outdoors; a day out in the elements can be a high like no other, translating the feel of a place and the weather into a painting. I tend to paint in a portable small scale — oils and watercolors — that are either finished pieces or sketches to gather information. Painting inside in my studio, one step removed from direct experience, is an opportunity for me to focus on the panel and the paint, and the essence of an image or remembered experience.