Pinwheel

One of the recurring themes in my art is looking at life with the eyes of a child.  I try to feed my inner child inspiration and nurture her so she is always with me, alive and healthy. I remember in grad school at UCSD I did very large oil on canvas that was strongly rectangular about playing jacks as a girl with my cousins in Montclair. There are balloons in the background and a large brown hand in the foreground is throwing jacks in the air.  It is mostly a red painting. I equate red with fun and excitement.  Now I am working with a very oily material that I can layer up on paper—Sennelier Oil Pastels.  They were a gift and what a gift! I love that set of pastels but at first found them on the overwhelming side. I find them much easier to work with using an actual oil pastel pad as the support. I typically work with them for a while and then put them back away so they last so I’ve had them over a year now.  Lately I’ve been incorporating them with chalk pastel pencil which is a slightly tricky technique but it creates very interesting densities and textures.  The other theme I like incorporating into my work is movement—I think there is an animator or filmmaker living deep inside me whose only escape is within my paintings and drawings.  I enjoyed so many rides down winding, hilly country roads and would often have a pinwheel with me, hanging it out the window.  This drawing brings together the idea of movement with the inner child.  It is called Pinwheel and it is a nostalgic look back at those road trips to the Jersey Shore and elsewhere.