musings from the studio and beyond ~
dawn chandler’s reflections on art and life. . . .
9.26.2013 ~ painting autumn in frisco, colorado
9.24.13 ~ that old september feeling: recalling autumn, on the edge of baldy
9.17.13 ~ what i really need right now….
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| what i really need right now…. ~ by dawn chandler ~ mixed media on panel (diptych) ~ 12″ x 36″ x 1.5″ ~ copyright dawn chandler 2013 |
It’s the clouds, maybe more than anything else, that defines New Mexico for me.
The sweep of grasslands and mesas between Springer and Las Vegas, New Mexico was the inspiration for this “reconsidered” landscape. I had just left Philmont after my stint as “artist in residence” — a week during which the gripping drought was finally broken with the return of quenching rains. When I drove through that same region just two weeks prior, the grass was white with death. Now they were green with renewed life.
In addition to my own musings, this painting —as with the others in this series — incorporate text from the Robert Service poem “The Call of the Wild.”
Here, too, are the strange vertical lines I feel compelled to add to these paintings as the “final touch.”
What do they mean?
Honestly? I’m not sure….But I enjoy several interpretations:
— They delineate passageways into experiencing the land.
— They delineate force-fields.
— They are the creases in a folded-up beloved memory of a certain place, kept in my pocket and pulled out when in need of a reminder.
The lines make me consider:
— The way our memories are often compartmentalized.
— How our memories narrow. Over time, most of the details of an experience fade, but often there’s a passage that’s clear. Sometimes that passage shifts.
— How as we age, our chance to achieve our youthful dreams and passions diminishes; rusts away. but sometimes we’re given a second chance — a narrow window to try again. We need to catch it while we can.
What’s your interpretation?
9.11.13 ~ new england comes to new mexico
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| remembering the storm ~ by dawn chandler ~ oil & mixed media on panel ~ 6″ x 6″ ~ copyright dawn chandler 2013 |
After a week in New England, I’m returning home to Santa Fe today — a home soggy with late-season record-breaking monsoonal rains. I’m thrilled to wake up this morning in Albuquerque to socked in grey skies. I feel as though I’m back on the coast of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. If I close my eyes and breathe in deeply, maybe the crows will turn to gulls, the drip of rain from pinon into the flap of a sailboat’s halyard; the distant highway into the low drone of fishing boats….
I miss my New England, where my roots — and my parents — are deeply buried. I miss the clapboard and brick-sided houses and field stone walls; the green green green of the woods and the light of the birch trees and perfume of wet pine needles. The panes of the windows and white trim of the architecture and the briny smell of the Atlantic. And the history. The history of my family whose presence in these parts is evident in the crumbling cemeteries of centuries. And the early history of our nation, whose stories and characters very nearly strayed me from a career path of art to that of a historian and teacher.
And yet..
And yet..
And yet, the smell of New Mexico sage may be even better than the smell of New England brine.
May be.
8.30.13 ~ reading the letter & finding me: alabama meets new mexico
Sometimes you meet someone and they electrify your soul. That’s what happened last evening when I had two Alabama lawyers over for a studio visit and dinner. Within minutes I started to wonder if maybe we all hadn’t been separated at birth at some point. Their passion for New Mexico and the way they talked about the sky out here and their almost spiritual encounters with random people they’d met could have been myself speaking. The depth to which they were moved by my art only strengthened my feeling of kinship to them. When one kept coming back to this work of mine with a story of my parents embedded in it, I knew on some level we were sisters.
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| hoping they’ll find me ~ by dawn chandler ~ mixed media ~ 8 x 8 inches ~ copyright dawn chandler 2013 |
I can tell she has a poet’s heart, not just by the Leonard Cohen lines that she introduced me to, but because she was also drawn to this — one of my recent “Spirit Series” paintings I had displayed in Taos during my latest show:
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| reading the letter ~ by dawn chandler ~ oil & mixed media ~ 8 x 8 inches ~ copyright dawn chandler 2013 |
I’m happy — and grateful — to have just added to the growing collection of my paintings now residing in the fine state of Alabama.
Thank you Sisters. Thank you for the Sisterhood, your patronage and a most splendid evening!
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
~ from “Anthem” by Leonard Cohen