Last summer my wrist and hand overdosed with pastels. In fact, I damaged tendons by having three summer residencies where I painted all day, even painting nocturnes. Actually it was 2 1/2 residencies, the third was not completed due to overuse of my gripping thumb. How the lovely colors and sensual marks of my loved pastel sets could become so difficult is still hard to understand.
By Fall, I began wearing a brace and figured out novel ways to handle a paintbrush as well as a palette knife, but the pastels stayed in storage while I worked carefully with oils. Eventually, I was wearing the brace 20-22 hours a day, and not improving much, visiting hand specialists who administered different shots (some worked for a while) and various tests for carpel tunnel and other injuries.
After several months I retrieved a pastel commission from storage and slowly completed the late winter gorge scene. Such joy to commune with my colors! After delivering it, I needed to do this new pastel painting for myself. Views of the curve of Niagara Falls always intrigue me, individual boulders and favorite islands have been repeated in plein air yearly in paint and pastel. I just needed to be a pastel artist again.
I usually complete a large work in about a week's worth of studio painting, but this took more than two months. I paced the use of my hands, experimenting with working left handed, always aware that I didn't want more pain, but enjoying the pastels, the sound of mark making and richness of pigment and texture. I loved the process and the painting and entered it into the Kenan biennial 'Niagara Frontier Art Exhibit', one of my favorite local shows.
Accepted, this work of ...what, a year?....hangs proudly in the Kenan dining room, right near a digital collage by Carl Schifano until August 29.
Horseshoe Racing, 22x28 pastel 2014
