WINTER SOLSTICE

MOVING TOWARDS LIGHT

Solo Show, Gallery Route One, Point Reyes Station, CA

March 5, 2022 - April 10, 2022 11101 Highway Route One Open Thursday - Monday 11 - 5 Virtual Exhibition Walk Through and Artist Talk at www.galleryrouteone.org

Distanced

Solstice

Darkened Trenches

Turneresque

Inner Light

Late Horizon

Big Bang

Second Coming

Solstice Study 1

Solstice Study 2

Solstice Study 3

Solstice Study 4

Solstice Study 5

Solstice Study 6

Solstice Study 7

Distanced 2

Winter Solstice, Untitled

Sequence 1

Sequence 2

Sequence 3

Sequence 4

Sequence 5

Sequence 6

Dear Heart

Artist Statement

This work seeks light from a nadir and hopes for its return. Loosely painted in different media, it is ultimately a classic study of the tension between light and dark.

The losses of the past two years have been many. It was only by working in my studio on these paintings that I was able to fully realize all that I have been burying in my efforts to cope. Fissures in the myriad containers that held my life secure have unnerved me. Unendingly thankful for the arrival of new dear ones to my small family, I pray for the easy warmth to return to some of my closest relationships.

Not so long ago I worked with opposites as co-existing peacefully and validating each other. Lately I perceive a struggle between opposites, light and dark, life and death. Though always different sides of the same coin according to Zen philosophy, I somehow never questioned that the forces of good were greater than or equal to the maleficent ones. But I am not so sure of that now. Winter Solstice is about me grappling with this --striving to arrive again at a psychological equinox.

I tell myself, "Acknowledge deeply felt convictions and instincts. Act on them. For what you allow will continue. Hope for a future without tyranny and the fear that stokes it. Hope that compassion is greater than division." And as Margaret Barkley wrote in her poem Solstice 2020, “wish for the light to make a difference, to reach into the darkened trenches and ease the ache that brings the meanness.”

The most recent paintings in this show, Dear Heart and Winter Solstice Untitled, in welcome an influx of light and gratitude.

*Note

Language in this statement, including the show’s title, Winter Solstice, reference a poem by Margaret Barkley entitled Solstice 2020. In May 2022 it will be published in Reverberations II, an exhibition that matches poets and visual artists and presented by the Sebastopol Center for the Arts. I was assigned this superb poem to interpret. It inspired not only the piece for that show, but this entire body of work.