Longing 2000

In my late 20's I lived both in Mexico and then, a year later, in  Ecuador.  I was young, blond and, most significantly, American.  Walks on the street would inevitably attract Latin men, either in groups, or alone, calling out, whispering of their love, trying to get physically as close as possible to convince me of their passion and ardor.  Because I was an American woman that meant I possessed lose morals and with just a little urging,  I would probably do any manner of things of an explicit sexual nature.  Kissing noises, hands on private parts, arms around my shoulders.  Every once and awhile a breast squeezed in a crowded space. All this to excite me?

Over Thanksgiving, I was hiking with my daughter, her boyfriend, and my husband.  We were on a low cliff trail overlooking the flood plain of the Rio Grande River.  Below us were two young Hispanic men.  One waved to me, I waved back.  Then, from below, "Can I suck your titties?". Giggling, they ran, losing themselves in the thick growth of Tamarisk that grows along the river banks. I wondered if they knew just how old those titties were that they wanted to involve themselves with.

Man with TV 1984/ before and after

 

My husband Bob and I have always had issues with the TV.  We are addicts, Bob worse than me.  We have tried different techniques over the years to try and keep our addiction under control, but now, past midlife, we have finally given in to the dark side and have a flatscreen TV and cable.  Our only nod to our addictive selves is that we don't have a huge TV, just a mid-size one--kind of on the smallish side.  This painting is about that addiction; the little TV with the rabbit ears our attempt to keep the importance of the TV to a minimum.  Of course we both watched it all the time, so it was kind of silly. 

 

I recently found a slide box full of before and after images, showing what the photographs looked like before I painted over them.  In this photo, Bob had collapsed on the couch, tired from doing some kind of physical labor. The painting is so much more elegant and interesting than the photograph, although you can see the connection between the two.  For example, one arm is "real", the other wiped so that the cushion on the sofa becomes the structure of the arm.  I think what is most interesting in Man with TV is that the painting reveals something that couldn't be described otherwise:  a reclining man in a gray world completely absorbed in the small square box in front of him.





Black Snake 1999

I hadn't seen "Black Snake" in quite some time, and had forgotten just how much I liked it.  I was visiting a friend who happens to have a large collection of my work, this being one of them.  We walked around to the different rooms with my paintings in them, and when we came to this one, I stood in front of it for quite some time.  My friend began to talk about the painting, and what it meant to her.  She talked about the snake and how it could mean so many things:  betrayal, heartbreak, money problems, rivalry, revenge.  She felt that each girl was reacting differently to the implied threat of what the snake meant.  I listened, fascinated.  When I made the painting I had photographed  my daughter, Ramey, when she was four with her younger friend, Emily.  They had been making faces, using their hands to twist their features into bizarre shapes.  Once I started combining the paint with the photographs of the girls, I realized that they needed something to look at, so I  added the little black snake.  I thought what my friend brought to the image was  more interesting than what I had thought about when I made the painting, and I liked that it spoke in a stronger, clearer voice living at her house than it had in mine.

The Rapture 2009

Rapture: The state of being transported by a lofty emotion; ecstasy. Free Online Dictionary

For many years my husband and I had a postcard stuck on our refrigerator door.  I loved the image.  Cars smashing, planes flying into buildings, little souls rising from their graves headed toward the big guy in the sky, his robe white and dress-like, similar to those of the small figures flying up to meet him.  It was the Rapture.  According to About.com.Christianity the Rapture is what happens when "True followers of Jesus Christ will be transformed into their spiritual bodies in the Rapture and taken from the Earth to be in Heaven with God. Non-believers will be left behind to face severe tribulation as the antichrist prepares to take his place ......How will the Rapture Occur?  According to several verses in the Bible, believers will suddenly, without warning, disappear from Earth in the "twinkling of an eye."  "

For years I've mulled over the idea that a group of people would believe that if they just followed the teachings of one person, in the "twinkling of an eye", all would be well.  They would be among the chosen that would zoom right on up to heaven, avoiding all the confusion and misery of what was to follow.  I've always known that I wouldn't be one of those fortunate people, but, really, who would want to belong to a group that would believe any of this?  My Rapture puts a different spin on things.  These followers of Jesus Christ are being tossed, helter skelter, to land, who knows where?  Heaven?  Maybe, maybe not. The beings left behind are the ones experiencing the true rapture, calm, but clearly filled with some kind of peace and presence. 

Quarrel 2000

In November of 2000 I headed to my local polling station to vote for Al Gore for President.  I went to bed not knowing the outcome of the election, and when I woke up the next morning and turned on the news, I was none the wiser. The results from the state that would determine the outcome of the election, Florida, had been too close to call.  A mandatory machine recount was called for by Gore which still showed Bush ahead by almost 900 votes.  Gore requested a hand recount in the four liberal, most densely populated counties. 

For a month people dickered and argued and hurled accusations at each other.  Who were we to trust?  The Supreme Court in Florida was called in, overturning a state court decision not to extend the time limit to recount the ballots.  Then the US Supreme Court overuled that decision, which disallowed the recount. It was a horrible time for all of us, those citizens who had marched in on that Tuesday in November and cast our ballots.  There was anger and fear everywhere with the media painting a bleak and horrific picture of what could happen if we couldn't decide on a president. I was left with feelings of hopelessness and despair.  Why was it that this problem couldn't be solved in a way that didn't involve so much hatred and bitterness? It was the Quarrel to end all Quarrels, and gave us an inkling of what was to become of future politics in America.

Bob and Blackie 1980

It was 1980 and my husband, Bob, and I were close to officially being adults.  I was in my last year of an MFA program at Arizona State University, and Bob was just finishing his family practice residency. His medical school had been paid for with a scholarship from the United States Government.  In return, he had to pay the government back, year for year, by being a doctor on an Indian Reservation.

We decided to take a road trip, visiting the different reservations so we could make an informed decision about where we would spend the next four years of our lives.  We drove our 1969 VW bug.  Old, funky, and fun to drive, we had no concerns about bad heaters, zero cooling, and a tiny engine.   We installed horse head decals on either door, and a luggage rack on the roof, which flew off well into the journey.  Mount Saint Helen's had just erupted, and the weather had an odd feel to it.  With our two dogs, Doug and Blackie, sitting on the tiny bench seat in the back of the bug, we drove from Arizona to Washington State in about six weeks time. Along the way we stopped  and spent time with the Zuni's, the Hopis, and the Lummi Nation in Washington to name just  a few.  By the end of the trip, we knew that the Zuni tribe, our first stop, had won our hearts.

Woman Trying to Step Outside Herself 1991

In 1991 my family and I moved from the Zuni Indian reservation in New Mexico to Uptown in Chicago.  We had two young daughters, and were to live there for a year before moving back to New Mexico.  The titles of my pieces from that time reflected my world.  Many have to do with struggle and separation, Woman Bleeding, Woman Being Pecked, and Bound Man to name a few.  The work also seemed to be about immanent danger and isolation, such as  "Man with Snake on his Head" and "Man Looking both Ways". When I call up these images, and what was going on with me at the time,  I know things were difficult, yet my memory is that it was a tremendously exciting and rewarding experience, one that I wouldn't have traded for anything.

Woman Trying to Step Outside Herself spoke to me of confinement, of trying to move away from fear and lonliness.  At the time, one of my biggest challenges was expanding the boundaries of who I was as a person.  The old Holly wasn't working in many ways, and the new Holly had no idea of where she was to go, just that she had to leave, to move on.