Notes on a small summer release

Here we are in the thick of summer, although somehow it feels to me as though it’s only just begun.

Such is the time warp I have come to understand defines the liquid early years of parenthood - more a melting of time than a steady passing, punctuated by hours that last centuries. 

Planning for a spring release proved to be much like a day (several months) in the life of Wile E. Coyote, the old school Looney Toons character whose myriad plans to catch Roadrunner consistently and quite literally blow up in his face. Yet, though the whole endeavor often felt like a fool’s errand given the unexpected mom challenges that popped up throughout the spring, while watching those old Wile E. Coyote reruns with my kids, I found creative inspiration in animator Chuck Jones’s psychedelic southwestern landscapes. Watching my son’s chubby fingers pinch at a stream of water, I was reminded again of the sheer wonder of the world we inhabit. I tried to remember and imagine the feeling of some of those early impressions in my own life.

Much of what I attempt to do in my work is to capture moments of access to those unadulterated impressions in my adult life, to pay homage to the seemingly fleeting glimpses of the marvels that surround us. My children and my work as an artist are the two most potent reminders in my life to keep looking, to notice, to slow down so as not to pass them by. 

And so I carry on in this great lesson in acceptance, in patience and adaptability, trying my hardest to trust in it. The small collection of new paintings I share with you here represent a stop along the way, and I’m thrilled I was able to summon them up despite a bit of turbulence. As always, these paintings were made possible as much by my village as they were by my self.