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Living close to the earth, water and sky:

My new Mini Light Hours series (#minilighthours)  andreaklawson.com mini light hours gallery page  has been launched for the December 2018 holidays! I created these small affordable works to relate to my Light Hours multi panel installation. The mini Light Hours  are small 4 x 4" and 4 x 6" paintings to be hung individually or in groupings of two or more. Before Mini Light Hours was Light Hours! I would like to tell you more about how I created the paintings. 

My studio rests on the oldest continually inhabited land overlooking Port Townsend Bay where I observe nuances of luminescent light and color reflecting from sky to water. I am excited about creating a series of paintings that show changing light on sky and water over time and seasons. My Light Hours project creates an awareness of and appreciation of Northwest Landscape, and close observations of changing light throughout days and seasons. For this project, I combine multiple panels painted at the same location (Puget Sound Bay), over each hour of the day, at each of the four seasons; summer and winter solstice, vernal and autumnal equinox. Each hour is represented by a sky panel and a sea panel. The abstract-impressionist paintings represent colors, light,dark and gestural responses to the sea-sky-horizon.  In this way, I paint moments of color and pattern which call attention to the constant changing sky and water caused by movements of sun, change of weather, and interference of man.  When completed, each season of paintings willI be grouped together and exhibited on four different walls or areas in a gallery, planned so that the viewer can appreciate and compare paintings from contrasting seasons. So far in 2018, I have painted Spring, Summer and Autumn. On December 21st, I will be bundled up outdoors painting the Winter Solstice!

                                                 Lighted Ship, Sunset  4 x 6" on canvas

 

Intrinsic to my love of nature experienced through light and time is the awareness of the need to protect wild spaces. As part of a dialogue about the value of our landscape, I invite the viewer, to find new ways to reflect upon our dramatic environment.

"Man at his best, like water,                                                  

Serves as he goes along:                                                              Heron Shore oil on board, 4 x 4"

Like water he seeks his own level,

The common level of life,

Loves living close to the earth,

Living clear down in his heart,

Loves kinship with his neighbors,                     

The pick of words that tell the truth,                           

The even tenor of a well-run state,

The fair profit of able dealing,

The right timing of useful deeds,

And for blocking no one's way

No one blames him."

Lao Tzu, (translated by Witter Bynner)

 

Autumn Sea Triptych, 4 x 16" on board

 

I have the privilege of looking forward to Thanksgiving and appreciating all that we have while working to keep a bright environmental and human future, and I sincerely hope that you too, are warm and safe this November.

What are your thanksgiving thoughts this year?

 

Andrea K. Lawson

November 18, 2018