I had been painting small blocks of wood with the idea of fitting them together into compositions within boxes, liking the contrast of paint to bare wood, seeing them as collages like the cutout paper ones, but with different texture and weight. Then there was a March group show themed 'A Common Thread' in Beacon and it brought this piece together, with the addition of some scarlet and teal embroidery floss I found in my studio, having purchased it for the colors, not because I embroider (except for the occasional tale). 

​Mixed media, 8"x10". The show is at the Howland Library and runs through 3/31.

In February I curated a group show at Catalyst Gallery of works inspired by the theme of chocolate, with about 30 works in a variety of media by 13 artists. We had a chocolate tasting at the reception, with Cacao Prieto's single-origin Dominican dark chocolate made in Red Hook, Brooklyn. We sold art and chocolate bars. Visit our gallery website to see photos of the works. After the show closed, I was offered the opportunity to install it in a storefront space in Cold Spring through March, where it is on view daily through 4/2 (in a slightly different iteration) at Robert A. McCaffrey Realty, 140 Main St. Though only 10  miles away, it is still the first 'traveling' exhibition I organized.

Here are my pieces from the show, some older, some new. I had been making these chocolate foil wrapper collages over the past year, which started as a way of 'sketching' with cutout shapes to find ideas for painting surfaces, so they were like studies, but I liked the surface of the foil, how the pieces looked alongside each other once I'd made a couple dozen, and the way it became a freehand design project. I am continuing to make them alongside my painting, and sometimes when I can't get myself going, I start putting pieces together and it unlocks something for me. I've been thinking more about this and how it fits into my other work, but I haven't found a way to describe it yet, or even to understand if it IS something. 

This post will have no significant content; it is serving primarily to kick off a fresh effort to update more regularly. A while back I did do a cursory update of the 'recent paintings' and 'exhibitions', but studiously ignored my blog. So it would appear that I've been frozen in time since October. Unlike my plants, which actually seem to thrive under my benevolent neglect. (The joy of houseplants flowering in midwinter!) Previous posts are old and curling at the edges. I use Instagram (click the link to see! Until I learn how to add the IG button to my site), and appreciate the ease of simply sharing images, but I also want to type some words that aren't preceded by hashtags. #later