Category Archives: Landscape

The Turn

Looking to the right as you walk out of our driveway and head further up the hill, there is a sizable break between the trees. Framed by foliage on either side, it’s a window out into the distance — a lookout different from our own view, and a place from which to watch the weather come and go and to mark the changes, week by week, throughout the year.

Depending what sniffs are on Quinn’s mind and how anxious she is to keep moving, I often stand there for a moment, soaking up the colors and light of that particular time on that specific day. It’s never boring, no matter the season.

For the last couple of weeks we have begun to see evidence of the start of fall. It’s such an iconic moment to catch “the turn”, visible in the slightest touches of orange or red poking through all the green. It won’t be long until this hillside, except for the evergreens, is a fiery display of reds, oranges and yellows. Another episode of dog-walk TV, at its best.

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Here’s a Fall Foliage Prediction map for any neck of the woods.

Snow Moon

This Saturday’s full moon (February 27th) will be 2021’s Snow Moon. It’s known as such because typically more snow falls during February than any other winter month…a designation I see as an attribute.

Planning for areas of snow in my next piece, it was necessary to keep those fabric sections free of dye. This is my first experience with “capping” (wrapping the areas meant to be protected in plastic)

I still get as excited about winter weather advisories foretelling heavy snowfall as I did when they held the promise of a day off from school. Now though, they signify a cozy day in the studio with multiple steaming cups of tea and the best possible natural light to work by.

So far, so good. The capping seemed to work pretty well. Note the “pleated” shibori area that abuts the plastic. It is purposely dyed a lighter color.

Admiring Carol O’Malia’s snowscapes at a local gallery several years ago, I was surprised when the gallery director mentioned that winter scenes are generally a harder-sell. I guess most people must favor warm and sunny settings, but my preference, if given a choice, is always a snow-covered landscape. The art cards I’ve saved and pinned to my studio wall through the years attest to that fact.

My snow gallery

I’m particularly fond of Japanese prints that depict snow scenes. So, with winter on the brain earlier this month, it was a happy discovery while poking through the Harvard Museums’ website on a completely different mission, to come across “The Armchair Traveler’s Guide to Mt. Fuji”. Just one in a series of video Art Talks, this guided tour of 3 paintings depicting Mt. Fuji centers its discussion on the mountain’s significance during the Edo period. Fascinating!

Eventually this will be part of a house that will be called “Snow Moon”. The moon is resist-stitched (kawari mokume shibori) just above the snowy horizon. (The blue dividing line is water-soluble ink that will disappear after I finish the embroidery that is yet to come. If you look closely, you can see the ink also outlines the roofline of the house.) This close-up doesn’t really show it, but the dye gets progressively deeper in color as it moves away from the moon (see previous picture). I dip-dyed the piece, moving farther from the moon area with each dip, in order to suggest its glow in the sky.

And, because nothing ever seems to happen in isolation, around that same time Carol Gillott of Paris Breakfasts wrote about an exhibit she’d seen last summer at Musée Guinet: Mont Fuji – Land of Snow. Her short post centers on snowy Japanese prints and the Prussian blue pigment which became integral to them after it was introduced to Japan by Commodore Perry in the eighteenth century. As always, she includes the added enticement of photos of Paris.

Getting ready to embroider, I have drawn trees for each section of the house, and chosen the thread colors that I’ll use for them and their shadows.

But if you’re looking for something a bit closer to home to satisfy (or convince you of) a love of art and snow, you’re in luck. Head up to the Highland Center for the Arts in Greensboro to enjoy their Open Air Gallery: Ski and Snowshoe Trail, which includes a wonderful variety of sculptures by Vermont artists on a 1.8 mile trail that begins at HCA and loops through the neighboring Wilson Farm.

Flags along the trail are a bright spot of color on an overcast Vermont day.

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Instagram of the Week

I guess you could say we’re all homebodies to some degree these days. Erika Stearly’s lush paintings celebrate the inside, making me appreciate my love of interiors even more than usual. I especially enjoy that she often shows a painting in 4 to 5 images along the way to completion.

Gesa Marie's Home in Munster No. 1010 by Erika Stearly

The Essence of Spring

Color is returning to our landscape as the snow slowly melts and evaporates. It’s a lift for my spirit to see the vibrant shades of green and red that quickly reappear after having been buried for such a long time. There is much to see and absorb as the season changes.

Red-barked dogwood, moss and lichen

Contrasted with the earthy shades of stones that have just emerged from under the snow, the vivid moss that survived through months of subzero temps is a wonder in both its color and its resilient softness.

Stones and moss

With the remaining snow as a backdrop, textures become more noticeable and appreciated.

White Pine

The shadows plants cast against the smooth surface of rocks create interesting abstract patterns. I can’t help but think of arashi shibori (wrapped resist).

Shadows on Stone

Arashi Shibori

Wide swaths of white still cover large portions of the garden, offering a counterpoint and an opportunity to look at individual features differently than during the rest of the year. It’s easier to frame interesting compositions because everything is still pared down to essentials. Variations of tone carry new weight in their subtlety.

The areas of “empty” space created by the remaining snow, offer a compelling contrast to these characteristics, simultaneously creating both weight and breathing room. And because color is just reemerging, there is a sense of promise that is missing during late fall and winter.

Courtyard Garden

Seeing my yard and garden in this way reminds me of the visual elements of Japanese gardens that I find so irresistible. Spring calls attention to the essence of the garden. It provides a chance to appreciate the intrinsic nature of plants through their inherent structure and their understated textural variations that aren’t as easy to see once their leaves and the grass have filled in. Irregularities that will become hidden once the beds are back in full bloom, are now their pride.

All of these elements carry strong suggestions for new work. I don’t think of myself as a landscape artist, but there’s no denying that my surroundings have a strong effect and influence on my thought process. The ice pieces I began in February are mostly finished and it’s high time to leave the winter months behind and to begin to concentrate on what’s to come.

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PS: The photos above were taken yesterday, the post written right afterward. This is what we awoke to this morning.

It looks like I will have more chances to enjoy the essence of spring…proving once again the Power of Persistence.

Where Have You Been?

“Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest”. – Georgia O’Keeffe

In conjunction with my current exhibition COLOR|stories, I gave a talk last weekend about my work and process. One of the things I touched upon is how the many places my husband and I have lived have influenced my work, leaving an impression through color, composition, and subject.

With that in mind, I thought it might be interesting to take a quick tour of the locales we’ve called home via representative examples that have resulted from a sense of each place.

Maine: Having grown up on the coast of Maine, the Atlantic ocean is deeply imprinted: the smell of salt air, the varying blue/grey/green, the sound of the waves…

Washington State: Recurrent visits to Pike Place Market resulted in many fish drawings and paintings.

Virginia: Most of the 10 months we lived in Virginia were so hot and humid that it seemed I barely ventured out of the air-conditioning. I made a series of clothes hanger drawings that year that were the direct result of so much time spent indoors.

San Francisco: I can’t remember if this piece was inspired by the quilt I was making for our expected first baby – or the other way around. But it was at this time that I realized that pastel dust and pregnancy didn’t mix and I was going to have to find another way to make art.

Hawaii: Sitting on a Hawaiian beach, how could one not be inspired by the expanse of sky and fluffy clouds stretching out forever over the clear, turquoise water?

Washington State, again: We were so happy to go back to Washington. The colors of the evergreens, Mount Rainier in the distance, and even the rain were all aspects we loved.

Pennsylvania: While living in PA, I saw the Delaware River daily. Watching as it reflected varying qualities of light was a large part of its charm.

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Vermont: There is so much to love about Vermont. The seasons have such a huge impact on us here and add so much depth to the routine of the everyday. Fall’s mantel of russet and gold, covering unmown fields, is a showstopper.

While each locale may not be immediately apparent in these works without knowing the back story, when seen in this context I feel that these pieces, as a group, create something of a road map of our semi-nomadic life.

It’s a worthwhile exercise to think about how the places in your life have affected your thought process and resulting work, don’t you think? We can’t help but be a product of where we’ve been.

February’s Self-Restraint

Last week I began the first stages of a couple of smaller pieces, looking forward to the learning curve that seems to come more rapidly when working in series and the pieces aren’t (hopefully) as time consuming to complete.

Winter Palette

I have been thinking about ice and snow – big surprise! – and the gentle depth of tones to be found in each. I love the pared down beauty at this time of year and watching for the subtle changes of color that take place in the landscape.

The winds were fierce on our hill earlier this week, leaving behind sculpted piles of snow that remind me of Isamu Noguchi’s work. The rounded forms seem proudly self-possessed, nestled comfortably within their environment. They have carved edges that are clearly defined but smooth enough to convey very subtle value changes. The effect is lovely.

So — how do I transcribe this idea surrounding winter’s visual restraint without being literal? These studies will not be landscapes, but I hope that they will tell part of that greater story. My thoughts revolve around the dissection of the landscape into basic elements; a process of subtraction that distills an image into its essence, with the idea of evoking memory and mood rather than portraying an actual place.

I recently came across this quote by painter Gerhard Richter which seems to cut to the core of the way I think about existing within my surroundings and the search for a way to express the emotional connection that results.

“Our connectedness to nature and our wish to commemorate life and our place in the universe compels us to describe our physical surroundings and, in doing so, ourselves. Landscape’s compositional and spiritual cues also contain the vital seeds of abstraction and beyond.”

Here’s to the hope that these seeds can be planted and will take root despite our frigid temps.

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And to continue with the idea of subtlety and understatement: let me share with you the beautiful photographs of Scott Peterman – a master of the restrained palette. Don’t miss this slideshow of his photographs of ice houses!

Elizabeth Fram

Eye of the Needle