Recently, I spent two weeks in Seattle, with my sweet husband Joe who underwent radiation for advanced cutaneous t-cell lymphoma. We stayed at South Lake Union House (aka “the Cancer Hotel”), patient lodging for Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, and shuttled to UW Medical Center every day.
What does an artist do in this situation? Away from studio. Away from big work or commissions. Away from the cadence of routine. Well, as my work with Chris Clark (Firebird Rise) revealed: art is HOW you get through it. So, on Day 2, I walked to Blick on Capitol Hill and got myself a good hardbound sketchbook, gouache, charcoal, powdered pastel and graphite. My choice of materials was both intentional and impulsive. I chose gouache, for its opacity and solidness. I chose charcoal and graphite for layered, soft mark-making. Powdered pastel (I selected two colors) was new to me, just happening to be on the aisle I wandered down. The color palette itself was highly intuitive. I pondered briefly and picked 6 colors. As it turns out, it was a very autumnal palette. In field sketching, it is interesting to have a limited palette. It forces you to make unusual (and sometimes “unrealistic”) choices, which can be very fresh. I was inspired to make full spread sketches from Courtney White on Instagram – her work is nothing like mine, but I love how she fills the pages and builds layers in a finished way for sketchbook pages that are mature works of art.
Every day after treatment, I walked to Whole Foods for our meal needs. The route took me past Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle City Light Substation with its tree sculpture and dog park, and various other public art installations (including the fabulous sculpture by Akio Takamori). One day I walked through Denny Park to Winston Wachter Gallery. Another day, I found Ghost Gallery.
Along the way, I’d shoot quick phone photos. I loved the angles, the shadows, the windows, the trees in the intensely urban environment. Later, back in our room, I’d work from these photos in the sketchbook, with the intention to fill the book by the end of our time in the city. Journal-writing was also an important part of my practice, excerpts of which I wove into some of the sketchbook pages.
This work has been a bit of a throwback to 2010-2017, when I was painting urban landscapes (scroll down to “2017 & Earlier” section) based on similarly spontaneous snapshots of street scenes in Portland, Oregon. Once I moved to the Olympic Peninsula in 2016, I started painting water, mountains and trees. The direct experience of environment on my work is profound (regardless how abstracted it becomes) – I wonder if that is true for other artists? At any rate, the vitality of the city was palpable. I loved the public art, the community gardens, the rooftop view from our building, the juxtapositions of towering buildings against the character of old brick, of old churches.
You can view the whole sketchbook in this pdf. Perhaps these sketches will find their way into other work somehow, sometime. Or maybe they are enough, by themselves.
Inspiration during this trip especially included the art in the clinics and hospitals. Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (now called Fred Hutch Cancer Center) has a wonderful permanent collection that I have long enjoyed, and at UW Medical Center, we appreciated the original work – even a Max Grover right in the Radiation Oncology hallway! What a difference a thoughtfully curated, original piece of art makes to the medical experience. Art lets me breathe.
COMING UP: just 3 spots left in my Make Transparency Stars workshop on December 9 at Northwind Art School. Plus look for Make It Abstract January 30 & 31, and Paint From Poems on March 6 & 7. I have been taking a break from teaching and very much look forward to stepping back in. Also, 2023 Calendars are here! You can buy from me (just send me an email) $15 each, plus postage if mailing.