New Work - 2010 - Cities Revisited              Return to artwork menu

         Click on the thumbnail images below for full image and information about the piece, and availibility of the original or limited edition giclee prints.                                                       

                        
Courthouse Reds From Grant             LG and the Temple                    Ben Franklin Bridge Blues             London V and A Entry                   Prince From Grant Before PAM            Paris St. Sulpice 2

                               
    City Walls in Carmine                    Brighton From Seymour 2                      The Mews Revisited                   Market and Greist          Ann Arbor Nichols       Paris St. Germain      

          
         Copper Windows             Painted Wall 2   
                    

This new series of paintings is a culmination of the urban structural concepts that I have worked with for the past two decades. Some of these paintings, including LG and the Temple and Ben Franklin Bridge Blues, were developed from drawings that I created 10 to 20 years ago. And some are from drawings that I have changed and pondered over and come back to, bringing them into color and completion in stages over the past 18 months. Courthouse Reds From Grant is one such piece that was constructed over time, layer-by-layer, in my mind and on paper, with the resulting stacked feeling of form and space reminding me somewhat of the Roman Forum ruins. It is, in fact, a view of the Lancaster Courthouse and other buildings to the east, from an alcove off Grant Street.

A few of these pieces are image ideas that I have painted in the past, but have now played with, changed, and approached in a different light. Brighton From Seymour 2 is a new play on my 1988 painting of a long-vacant industrial site (now removed) in Lancaster City’s southwest end. And The Mews Revisited is a revisiting of a favorite part of London, and a site that exemplifies how I often view a city, from the little back streets and alleys (mews were rows of stables and carriage houses set along the backs of properties, that became the early alleyways of this city). The two images of Paris were also captured from this type of narrow back-street setting. The long narrow image of the Nichols Arcade in Ann Arbor developed from a series of photos I took 11 years ago, and have thought about painting so often - I wonder what took me so long. My palette for all of this new work has moved in new directions with pale golden yellows, soft greens and royal blues, and various violets, along with my ever-present reds, always using color to evoke and hold the energy of the space.
 
   
Here were my thoughts as I finalized and framed this work. There is ample talk, these days, about the success of the local art scene in Lancaster, and how many talented artists live, exhibit, create, and perform here. And this is true, particularly in the visual arts where we have a plethora of new artists on the scene, new galleries, and many exhibit opportunities for all. I hope that all of the new-on-the-scene artists, and recent First Friday attendees, appreciate how long this successful celebrating of the visual arts has been going on in Lancaster. Sometimes, I am nostalgic for those earlier times, remembering events like the Gathering of the Arts in the early 1980’s. In the late 1970's, when my husband Rudy and I were both studying art at Millersville University, there seemed then to be a communal gathering of artistic minds and, although not as many galleries, ample opportunities to share your art, your thoughts on your process, and your creative energy, with other artists and the public. I am now seeing my work placed in yet another phase of the "Lancaster art scene". And as I do, I  look back over the 30 years of exhibited pieces that I have shared here, and I think - these paintings have been a long time coming.  I hope they bring you joy.