This summer's 5 day Cullowhee Arts workshop at Western Carolina University was a welcome escape from the Charleston heat, and the wilting national news. 

The class was plein air so we were outside every morning and returned to the same scene each day where we were perched high on a hill in Sylva, NC. Lots to see and paint and a great little town.

Chris Liberti was once again, a fantastic instructor. We rendered the same scene first in oil paint, and then in abstracted collage with over painting and oil pastel. His work has layers and layers of paint and the geometry is something I can relate to. Lots of learning going on. See his work at www.chrisliberti.com/

​And it was nice seeing friends from previous years and catch up.  (I even bought a little honey bear painting by Nathan Perry.) And there's always a tad bit of art supply envy -
​it's all about the easel. 

Green Skirt is a collage of acrylic painted paper over a quick oil painting sketch. These are layers applied over a period of time as the sketch was done months before I decided to add collage. 

​Life also has layers that build over time. I think it was in the early 1990's when I lived in Williamsport, PA and a friend talked me into driving up to a college in NY state to hear Maya Angelou speak. A treasured experience, to be sure. I was teaching graphic design and not yet painting at the time.

Maya Angelou talked about her journey, much of it hurtful and sad. She read a poem, a soothing balm, by Langston Hughes called Harlem Sweeties and I was hypnotized by his words and her delivery. Talk about layers! It stuck with me.

So, many years later when I picked up the paint brush and had occasion to paint black figures, Rollins Edwards and George Stinney Jr, among others, a variety of hue is what I chose to depict, layer by layer.

Excerpt from Harlem Sweeties
BY LANGSTON HUGHES

Let me repeat:
Caramel, brown sugar,
A chocolate treat.
Molasses taffy,
Coffee and cream,
Licorice, clove, cinnamon
To a honey-brown dream.
Ginger, wine-gold,
Persimmon, blackberry,
All through the spectrum
Harlem girls vary--

So if you want to know beauty’s
Rainbow-sweet thrill,
Stroll down luscious,
Delicious, fine Sugar Hill.

Langston Hughes, “Harlem Sweeties” from Collected Poems. Copyright © 1994 by The Estate of Langston Hughes. Reprinted with the permission of Harold Ober Associates Incorporated.
Source: Collected Poems (Vintage Books, 1994)

To enjoy the entire poem go to  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47874/harlem-sweeties

Green Skirt is currently on display at the 2019 Piccolo Spoleto Juried Art Exhibit at Charleston's City Gallery through June 9. It's a wonderful grouping of works by a variety of artists.

http://www.piccolospoleto.com/visual-arts-2/

The Frist Art Museum in Nashville was really a delight in a variety of ways. The building itself was historic with great details. I think originally a post office. Although 2 hours of parking cost more than admission to the museum. 

A Dorothea Lange show made me realize how much I can relate to her work and activism. Her record of the dust bowl, Japanese internment and a town that was flooded for a dam project.

There was also an impressionist show, made even better by a group of 4th graders who each wrote about a work in the gallery. What a treat. They were enthusiastic and insightful. It made me miss my Art in Motion days in Pennsylvania. 

There are a million projects that are rumbling around in my head so I'm usually forward thinking at all times. But there is something about little pieces of painted paper that keep me circling in place and even going back into quick painted studies -  adding on. 

And paper has now found its way into the quick figure drawing studies I've done lately. Let's see where this goes.

​These mixed media collages will be on display soon. 

Well my year of professional development is drawing to a close, and what a magical adventure it's been. Cullowhee Arts' two workshops on Lake Logan in Canton, NC were beyond the "alchemy" promised for the other group of artists there for the week. They worked with ground pigments and we had paint. And gourds, pumpkins, apples and shiny surfaces. 

Our instructor was CHRIS LIBERTI.“I simply enjoy the process of painting, working with my hands, looking, mixing, adding a spot of color, standing back, looking and going in again.” He is a formalist who values perceptual experiences more than symbolism or context. 

Chris,  www.chrisliberti.com/,
led our group through a week of still life set ups that involved coming back to each painting and adding layer after layer. Thanks to hocus-pocus, the oil paint was dry and ready for more.  

It's always nice to meet people from all over who come to these workshops. ​And this Minnesota kid was glad to see some real fall color! It's been a very, very good year.

Pushing Paint with Jennifer Pochinski
This has been a summer of continuing education which means another workshop and a return to Black Pond Studio.
Oh joy!
​
Jennifer is amazing and when she says pushing paint, she really means it. Her brushes were huge and the whole effect was thrilling and a big departure for me, which is what workshops are for. I can't wait to dive in at home.
See Jennifer's work at www.jenniferpochinski.com/.

And Black Pond Studio has a knack for bringing in the right people to teach - the classes fill up fast. Really fast. It's like trying to get concert tickets! 
www.blackpondstudio.com/classes-workshops-/1

It's great meeting artists from across the country and I was the only one nutty enough to drive 17 hours but that afforded a detour to visit family in PA where I was greeted by this little guy, who is just the best. And the subject of a few paintings. What a trip!