Normally I have made my figures and then used them for my paintings … but this winter I found I was drawn to paint rather than sculpt.

It had lots to do with my hands in aftershock from the treatments, the ends of fingers splitting and nails peeling, side effects of chemo. A brush was more manageable and I could lose myself into canvas and layers of paint.

In this time emerged a sadness I could not quite understand. I had responded perfectly to the treatments, my cancer was literally gone and the work of prevention had all been followed through, where was this sorrow coming from . . .

Now that there are several months behind me I can look back and understand some of it was my hands. They and I now live with pain throughout my body that I carry even in my sleep.

It is my new reality, something I now manage rather than overcome. Perhaps the wrapping that I do around my larger forms has found deeper symbolism with this pain and entangling of it in life and time well traveled . It certainly resounds for me today.

I am still not back to my figures but find myself painting around them while they sit quite still “watching me” wondering what I will want to ask of them.

There are big canvas birds I began when we opened our gallery two years ago. As I paint a canvas I put one up on the table and dribble and run brushes over it and wait for their spirits to emerge. And for mine.

During the gallery season, it seemed impossible to work in a disciplined fashion, too many things pulled and called every day but the plan was that winters would be free to spend working on art.

Little did I dream that the gallery would open for just one season and that fall I would begin a whole new journey with breast cancer.

I managed with the help of my husband, gallery mates and friends and, in little bursts, I did create some new work.

Facing cancer re configures your priorities and in the fall we decided to move to the old building we had bought for studios and storage. We felt it was the right time to simplify our lives.

The imagined time for working meant creatively, the new living space was our challenge and the studios would wait.

Story continues and mid-January I made it through the glass doors we had built between the apartment and our work spaces. Things were piled high and I found myself shrinking from “overwhelm” as I took in the mountain of accumulated materials we, two life-long artists, had managed to accumulate and felt the need to hold on to …

S i g h …

Winter into early spring brought the new reality of Corona Virus and life brought all of us into a time of accepting and the new discipline of living six feet from one another.

We found ourselves having to close our gallery as the coming summer and tourist season that affords us this privilege was not going to be strong or perhaps, even happen. After a long winter of bills and rent it seemed crazy to hold on. SO much work had gone into creating this place and in a blink it was no longer an entity. Amazing how fragile our livelihoods proved to be.

so … all of that was considered carefully and then all of the “gallery stuff” had to be unloaded into spaces already overflowing.

I have named us “Accidental Hoarders” and have quite a lot of things that remain in the car which drives about with me until I find the strength to begin sorting and shifting once again. If you need a display case or perhaps a plinth let me know and I will stop by and unload one for you, ha ha !

So, there has not been the peaceful time of working I had imagined and there is no brilliant new studio I can write proudly about but we keep working steadily away and one day it will simply be there.

Meantime, working in the front corner is a good thing for me. It takes me out of my overwhelm and lets me emotionally release some of the energy I find keeping me company these days.

so … a long story as usual but one to express that these paintings are part of this time I have just rambled on and on about :)

In the next post I will set the finished ones into separate galleries for simplicity, labelled with size, materials and prices. It will bring some sense of accomplishment to these many months (years) of transition.

p.s. I do hope to soon write about the peace and fulfillment  I found while making and finishing some new imaginative friends.

Imagine with me :)

yours truly, K a t e .