Point Pleasant Park, originally uploaded by leyaevelyn.
Jo Beale (of Jo Beale Gallery) called this morning as I was cleaning up my studio. (It took three hours just to change the paper on the floor; everything was so dirty, needed to be sorted, moved, thrown out; quite the job!) Jo seems to sniff out when my work is going through a big change and decide that is a good time for me to show at her gallery. Of course, I’m eager to show the work, but first, eager to do it.
And of course, I agreed. So it will be in August, when I am also putting some work in a group show in the Lunenburg area for the month.
Jo and I talked about change and how unsettling it is, how the process is uncertain, undefined yet exhilarating, and also frightening, at the same time. It is, after all, natural. Nothing stays the same, and if that isn’t acknowledged, it is a problem. It is a problem to hold onto something that becomes static.
It’s the way the work is changing that surprises me. There is more movement, less heavy verticality. There are new lyrical, meandering lines, a subtle story. As long as it stays subtle, I think I will be okay with it. I don’t want to lose the “statement” part, the take it or leave it quality (and do take it, if you can), but I don’t want my paintings to be ruled by me. When it doesn’t work for me, is when it becomes my storyline. At best, I am the intermediary.
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