Shannon
- Aug 25, 2020
- 2 min read

Summer Postcard 2020

Updated: Aug 31, 2020

This summer--despite everything--I was able to again abscond with my paints and step into the quiet. This time for solitude and creativity was possible thanks to the kindness, generosity, and loving support of a number of people. I know that love makes my world go round, and I'm thankful.

1. At Home

The artist has the privilege of being in touch with his or her unconscious. And this is really a gift--it is a definition of sanity; it is the definition of self realization.

--Louise Bourgeois

My neighbor gave me some paint samples they had leftover from the process of choosing a new color for their dining room wall (they settled on Sweet As a Peach). I thought about their lives on the other side of our shared wall. About family, identity, sexuality, expectations, roles, and renewal.

Femme Maison after Louise Bourgeois

Diptych

Acrylic on canvas

20" x 26", 8/2020

I Think I Lost It, Monoprint, 4" x 6", 1/2020 and Rhyming, Acrylic on panel, 5" x 7", 8/2020

Self with Hidden Barnacle

Acrylic on dyed linen, 16" square, 8/2020

I painted this over the beginning of a painting of a barnacle that fills the frame. If you know where to look, you can see it. Here is another recent image of the same barnacle to help you know what to look for:

Barnacle

Watercolor, 8" square, 8/2020

I've been reading that "the amount and size of barnacles that cover ships can negatively impact their efficiency by causing hydrodynamic drag" (Wikipedia).

I find this barnacle to be very beautiful. It bears prolonged consideration. It's doing no apparent harm. I'm not ready to scrape it away.

2. Further Afield

Some images from my time apart from the time apart that 2020 has been.

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.

--Oscar Wilde, from the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray