Women's History Month

For 12 years, I painted nothing but jazz musicians. As I traveled with my late husband, Kai Winding, htmlhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxUj2fKFX7A,  I always had a sketch book in hand and rapidly drew ink sketches of the performers. Even a few years after Kai's death, I continued to focus on the mostly male jazz musicians. One day I realized that that subject was not part of my life anymore. I am not a musician, I am a painter. Females were the biggest part of my life. I have 3 daughters, my partner in the gallery we co-owed in Scottsdale AZ, was a woman; most artists are women...

Then I started my women focused work. It is interesting that I was asked, "What's the matter?
Don't you like men?" All those years that I was drawing and painting men, no one asked if I didn't like women.

The Jazz Festival in Holland

Stan Getz in Nice, France

"I Open My Hand And Let Go from the series, "Her Journey"

"The Maiden and The Crone" from the series, "Every Woman is a Goddess"

Last year, I completed a series of women artists.

Here is one of them:

As I write this, I realize how many series have been focused on women.  I DO LIKE MEN.

Here is a series that I made 2 years ago; "Women Who Changed the World" I removed Suu Kyi, destroyed the painting, after she changed and ceased to be a hero. Here is the short video of that series.
https://vimeo.com/146562085

Reverie, The New Series

Almost finished. Perhaps one more day day of work.

As I am in the last part of my sojourn on this planet, meditation and contemplation are most important to me. "Be still and know God" My daily prayer is "I will perform all duties serenely, saturate with peace"

This sense of peace has influenced my work for a few years now. Perhaps that is why working with my older colorful abstract does not pull me at the moment.

I am working on my latest series, "Reverie" and enjoying the challenge of accurate representation of the model, while keeping the paint strokes fresh and un-blended.

Here is what is happening, so far:

Detail

In process

Work from my archives

Here are some faces in encaustic that I made several years ago. They were just a part of my series. "Time of Witness" ; my tribute to the wisdom of the Mexican woman. I made 13 of these faces of my friends and neighbors.

Eleanor Roosevelt, A WomanWho Changed the World

I am happy with what is happening in the studio with this new series. This painting of Eleanor Roosevelt is finally working the way I want it to. These portraits are painted over abstract encaustic paintings that don't please me anymore. I have to fuse at least the first layer of oil into the encasutic to assume a permanent bond. I do wear a heavy mask while fusing, since the fumes can be toxic. I then can scrape though the oil to the encasutic base.
Here is the process:

Finished painting

A Different Time

A friend once asked me if I had had therapy. No, I haven't, but that question prompted thoughts about how my art has expressed what was happening in my life at the time.

About 1989, when I was living in Phoenix, Arizona, co-owning a huge art gallery (10,500 sq. ft.) I created a series; "Her Journey; Every woman's journey to self-realization. Below is a painting from that time.

You Must Lift Yourself From Hell Alone