musings from the studio and beyond ~
dawn chandler’s reflections on art and life. . . .
9.17.13 ~ what i really need right now….
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| what i really need right now…. ~ by dawn chandler ~ mixed media on panel (diptych) ~ 12″ x 36″ x 1.5″ ~ copyright dawn chandler 2013 |
It’s the clouds, maybe more than anything else, that defines New Mexico for me.
The sweep of grasslands and mesas between Springer and Las Vegas, New Mexico was the inspiration for this “reconsidered” landscape. I had just left Philmont after my stint as “artist in residence” — a week during which the gripping drought was finally broken with the return of quenching rains. When I drove through that same region just two weeks prior, the grass was white with death. Now they were green with renewed life.
In addition to my own musings, this painting —as with the others in this series — incorporate text from the Robert Service poem “The Call of the Wild.”
Here, too, are the strange vertical lines I feel compelled to add to these paintings as the “final touch.”
What do they mean?
Honestly? I’m not sure….But I enjoy several interpretations:
— They delineate passageways into experiencing the land.
— They delineate force-fields.
— They are the creases in a folded-up beloved memory of a certain place, kept in my pocket and pulled out when in need of a reminder.
The lines make me consider:
— The way our memories are often compartmentalized.
— How our memories narrow. Over time, most of the details of an experience fade, but often there’s a passage that’s clear. Sometimes that passage shifts.
— How as we age, our chance to achieve our youthful dreams and passions diminishes; rusts away. but sometimes we’re given a second chance — a narrow window to try again. We need to catch it while we can.
What’s your interpretation?
9.11.13 ~ new england comes to new mexico
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| remembering the storm ~ by dawn chandler ~ oil & mixed media on panel ~ 6″ x 6″ ~ copyright dawn chandler 2013 |
After a week in New England, I’m returning home to Santa Fe today — a home soggy with late-season record-breaking monsoonal rains. I’m thrilled to wake up this morning in Albuquerque to socked in grey skies. I feel as though I’m back on the coast of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. If I close my eyes and breathe in deeply, maybe the crows will turn to gulls, the drip of rain from pinon into the flap of a sailboat’s halyard; the distant highway into the low drone of fishing boats….
I miss my New England, where my roots — and my parents — are deeply buried. I miss the clapboard and brick-sided houses and field stone walls; the green green green of the woods and the light of the birch trees and perfume of wet pine needles. The panes of the windows and white trim of the architecture and the briny smell of the Atlantic. And the history. The history of my family whose presence in these parts is evident in the crumbling cemeteries of centuries. And the early history of our nation, whose stories and characters very nearly strayed me from a career path of art to that of a historian and teacher.
And yet..
And yet..
And yet, the smell of New Mexico sage may be even better than the smell of New England brine.
May be.
8.30.13 ~ reading the letter & finding me: alabama meets new mexico
Sometimes you meet someone and they electrify your soul. That’s what happened last evening when I had two Alabama lawyers over for a studio visit and dinner. Within minutes I started to wonder if maybe we all hadn’t been separated at birth at some point. Their passion for New Mexico and the way they talked about the sky out here and their almost spiritual encounters with random people they’d met could have been myself speaking. The depth to which they were moved by my art only strengthened my feeling of kinship to them. When one kept coming back to this work of mine with a story of my parents embedded in it, I knew on some level we were sisters.
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| hoping they’ll find me ~ by dawn chandler ~ mixed media ~ 8 x 8 inches ~ copyright dawn chandler 2013 |
I can tell she has a poet’s heart, not just by the Leonard Cohen lines that she introduced me to, but because she was also drawn to this — one of my recent “Spirit Series” paintings I had displayed in Taos during my latest show:
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| reading the letter ~ by dawn chandler ~ oil & mixed media ~ 8 x 8 inches ~ copyright dawn chandler 2013 |
I’m happy — and grateful — to have just added to the growing collection of my paintings now residing in the fine state of Alabama.
Thank you Sisters. Thank you for the Sisterhood, your patronage and a most splendid evening!
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
~ from “Anthem” by Leonard Cohen
8.23.13 ~ escaping to the aspens
I have to get out.
Out from enclosure; out from a roof and four walls.
I’ve spent all my summer under a roof and already there’s the whisper of autumn in the air.
I need coolness. And damp. A cool damp place where parched dust doesn’t blow and the grass isn’t brittle from the heat.
I’m craving green aspens.
So it was that yesterday I loaded my paint kit , some water, an apple and a thermos of chai into my pack and headed up into the high reaches of the Santa Fe mountains….
And found myself again on the Aspen Vista Trail.
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| escaping to the aspen vista trail (santa fe) ~ by dawn chandler ~ oil on panel (en plein air) ~ 8″ x 10″ ~ copyright dawn chandler 2013 |
So quiet. Nothing but the sound of leaves quivering in the breeze, the high-pitched buzz of an insect or two, and the rare murmur of hikers’ voices.
Otherwise, perfect silence.
Until…
I heard a stone fall.
And then …another.
Then a rush of sliding pebbles and dirt..
when this hole appeared
in this bank, directly to my right, right off my painting elbow:
and soon, I was being watched
The challenge of the day** — which is, of course, the constant challenge when plein air painting — was dealing with the ever-changing light, as there were patchy clouds all day. Here it’s overcast. When the sun did shine through, it was fleeting, but oh so glorious.
*other than the fact that my feet hurt. The one thing worse than painful hiking boots that are too small, is knowing that I sized and sold myself those same hiking boots a year ago in my brief stint working in the shoe department at REI. Good thing I’m no longer selling footwear to people! (good for a number of reasons, that.) The happy ending to this story is that the boots were replaced on the way home with a less graceful but much more comfortable half size up. Whew! [And no, I did not trade in my old pair and take unreasonable advantage of REI’s generous return policy. That they were the wrong size is my own fault, not theirs. I will find someone to give them to.]
8.21.13 ~ have you camped? have you galloped? have you roamed?
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| have you…. ~ by dawn chandler ~ mixed media and rust on panel ~ 12 x 24 x 2 inches ~ copyright dawn chandler 2013 |
Have you…
Have you gazed?
Have you camped?
Have you galloped?
Have you roamed?
…Have you…?
Am thrilled to have this painting take up half a page (!) of The Tempo section in the The Taos News a couple of weeks ago when they ran that cool ’10 Questions’ article about my recent art exhibition with Joan Fullerton. [Click here to read the article]. Unfortunately the online version of the article doesn’t include the painting image, but it sure looks grand in the print version!
The Taos News article helps shed insight into this new painting series, as does my Artist Statement from the show:
Have You Gazed?
For years I have been painting in two distinct styles — “traditional” landscape painting in oil, and a much more abstract style in mixed media collage. It’s been my longtime dream to somehow merge the two styles into one; to create more than just another “pretty landscape’ and take the viewer deeper. But how go about it?
Then, a confluence of influences occurred:
• I began to read, write and study poetry.
• I rediscovered—after a quarter-century hiatus—my love of backpacking.
• The wondering of how I could go so long without engaging in an activity I was once so passionate about.
• The discovery of my 30-year old booklet of “Wilderness Quotes,” to which I used to turn for inspiration when conveying the “Wilderness Pledge” to Boy Scouts, back in my days of teaching backpacking and camping skills at Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron, NM.
• Finding among those pages, Robert Service’s epic poem, The Call of the Wild. Though poetry critics surely roll their eyes at Service’s doggerel lyricism, his poem inspired me in my youth, and passages of it still make my pulse quicken. The text and phrases in these paintings are from this poem.
• Reflections on the land, and people’s increasing disconnect with the natural world
• Reflections on pathways and journeys.
• Gratitude for rediscovery.
If passages of this painting look familiar to those of you who are on my postal mailing list you may recall this painting from my “save the date” card for the Taos show:
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| across the mesas ~ by dawn chandler ~ mixed media on panel ~ 12 x 24 x 2 inches ~ copyright dawn chandler 2013 |
Or this painting from hiking Taos’ Wheeler Peak:
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| descending wheeler peak, taos ~ by dawn chandler ~ oil on panel ~ 12 x 24 inches ~ copyright dawn chandler 2013 |