1SF: One Square Foot
LIMarts Members’ Exhibition
The Long Island Museum
1200 Route 25A
Stony Brook, NY 11790
The exhibition opening is Friday, December 4, 2015
from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m.
at the Long Island Museum Visitors’ Center.
The show runs through January 31, 2016.

The LIMarts, an artists’ collaboration of the Long Island Museum, charged us to create on one square foot. Every artist had to paint in this size and I was not a happy camper.

When I picked up my one square foot artist’s panel from the museum, I grumped for a long time in my studio muttering about squares . . . such a constraining shape; it’s too small, I can’t paint glory on a square, and I never work on square canvas. But I recognized this gift of being pushed to work inside the box for a change.

Anxiety had set in the moment I knew I had to paint this size. I ordered five more of the exact size . . . I mean, what if my painting was ghastly? What if I could not fix it? Should I practice on the extras? But I wanted my first square to be IT. I wanted to paint fresh and new for the square experience. So I practiced in my mind’s eye.

For what seemed like a very long time, I percolated on squares. One day in my studio as I meditated (well ok, there was more grumping) on a square blank canvas, I suddenly knew the answer! Expand into the limit. Paint a portal into the infinite. I felt my breath change as I imagined this experience. This felt right.

Square Expansion was created with a wash of colors under a moonlit night of painting. I just knew one night that I was ready. The indirect outdoor light, the glow of the moon, the rustle of the trees, all galvanized my process and, as is my way, the painting just poured out of me.

Square Expansion evokes a landscape of another world. It is one of my Universal pieces which has multiple orientations. Turned upside down, the work is more abstract.