After my father died in 1979, my mother took me to Japan and Thailand. She had entered a raffle at her church and won. The prize was: if she paid $25, a member of her family got to fly for free anywhere in the world! Lucky me that my godmother lived in Bangkok, and my mother still had friends in Japan, where most of us siblings were born! We arrived the day after my birthday in November.
My godmother took us to a huge silk warehouse and I was struck by the variety of color, texture, and weight of the materials. When I got back to California where I was living at the time, I created abstracts with fiber reactive dyes and raw silks. Below is the only one I still have. I did it in a big shed studio my husband and I rented in Santa Cruz, CA.
My godmother took us to a huge silk warehouse and I was struck by the variety of color, texture, and weight of the materials. When I got back to California where I was living at the time, I created abstracts with fiber reactive dyes and raw silks. Below is the only one I still have. I did it in a big shed studio my husband and I rented in Santa Cruz, CA.
"Fuchsia Field" (35" wide by 30" high) on raw Korean silk. 1981.
I did this one below on raw canvas, again with fiber-reactive dyes. "Triptych" 1981. 109 3/4" x 36 1/2"
In 1983, my mother visited and told me about the Caravan House Galleries in New York City, so I went back east briefly and rented a studio in Stamford, CT, where I painted a large series of paintings, most of which I sold. Below is one of a series I did on commission and is the only one left of that series. It is "Untitled Abstract" and measures 19" x 88" tall.
Somewhere in here, we rented a house on Pryce Street in Santa Cruz, that was going to be torn down. So we tore down walls ourselves and created small studios for each of us. I worked big with bold colors there. Here I am with one of my paintings!
In 1984, my husband and I bought an acre of land a mile in from Monterey Bay and a mile south of the Pajaro River. We built a house there from the ground up, with two huge studios. My first art there was the house itself. Here I am as a Tools Girl standing in front of the 50' wide by 19' high wall I was almost finished sheathing with plywood! Below this is our 50' x 100' wide floor with the ocean a mile away across strawberry fields! (It's behind me to the left and out of the picture.)
When I finally had walls in my 30' x 50' studio, I bought a 100' roll of canvas, 10' wide, a gallon each of the five primaries (yes, you heard right), a 5 gallon bucket of acrylic medium, and a 5 gallon bucket of acrylic gel medium. (Whoever said there are only three primaries must not have tried to mix purple out of red and blue! MY five primaries are: cadmium red, alizarin crimson, cadmium yellow, ultramarine blue, and thalo blue.)
I was fascinated by the ever-changing colors of the river. So I did a series. Please excuse the only picture I have of the only one I have left. I call it "Pajaro Falls."
I was fascinated by the ever-changing colors of the river. So I did a series. Please excuse the only picture I have of the only one I have left. I call it "Pajaro Falls."
Originally, I painted this series as horizontals. Because I was using gel medium on raw canvas, I mixed each color separately, one at a time, and they took over a day to dry. I'd apply it and then mix another single color for the next application and again had to wait a day to see if it was right. Below is the only picture I have left that shows the ocean out the slider.
I soon grew tired of this unsatisfyingly painstaking process. I stopped using the gel medium again, used water tension breaker, the Golden acrylics, and large brushes on raw canvas. I did a series of large paintings, this one inspired by Mark Rothko who is still one of my very favorite artists. It is called "Half of I/Me" and is the lower half of a vertical I cut in half because I didn't like the top half. This half measures 60" x 43." I painted it in 1988.
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