New Paintings by Catherine Freshley

Montana 
24" x 48" on gallery-wrapped canvas
  

Spring Storm on the Palouse 

30" x 30" on gallery-wrapped canvas

Clouds Over the Columbia 

24" x 24" on boxed birch panel

I've been more than a little preoccupied the past couple of months, planning for and now in the midst of a small remodeling project that has impacted several areas of our house in successive stages.  We currently have all of the furnishings from our living/dining/kitchen areas crammed into other areas of the house while our hardwood floors are being refinished.  The stove is not operational, the refrigerator is not in the kitchen, the dishwasher is taped shut, the kitchen cabinets are taped shut and covered with plastic, and wispy sheaths of plastic drape the doorways between rooms. There is a foggy quality of light in these rooms, and with everything out of them, it is only too apparent that they are in much need of fresh paint and that this would be an opportune time to address the situation.  Except that. . . . it is December 10th and guess who would be doing the painting?  Hmm. . . Do people really take on these types of projects so close to the holidays? Needless to say, my art practice (and blogging) came to a screeching halt.  

Meanwhile, my daughter Catherine, has been very busy at her easel, preparing for her current show at South Perry Pizza in Spokane.  If you're in the vicinity, stop in to take a peek at these works and Catherine's other paintings, and while you're there, do partake of some of South Perry's artisan pizza.  The show's up through December 18th.

Cheers!

"Place" . . . Recent Paintings by Catherine Freshley

"Willapa Bay Mudflats"

(Washington Coast)

30" x 40"

"Ross Island and Mt. Hood"
(Willamette Valley, Oregon)

36" x 60"

"Butte -- Columbia River Gorge"

24" x 48"

Our daughter, Catherine, has been painting like crazy and seems to have a ready pipeline of folks who would like a painting of a place that is special to them.  Place -- i.e., those places that have shaped who we are and that continue to pull us back to them after we have left -- is a theme that Catherine has explored for several years in her writing and art.   When she moved to Eastern Washington state, someone suggested that she concentrate on painting local landscapes of the Columbia Basin steppe, since the folks in the vicinity would likely be more interested in them than in paintings of the coastal area that has been so important to our family.  Of course, this makes perfect sense from a statistical standpoint.  Yet in the year that she's been there, Catherine has encountered people who have instantly recognized the rather anonymous scenes of her assorted paintings of Willapa Bay, and  have recounted fond memories of having spent a great deal of time in their childhood actively engaged with the endlessly changing coastal estuary that is impacted by the ebb and flow of the tide.  

Isn't it wonderful that mere pigments, when suspended in binders and transferred to a surface via a process of acute observation and carefully considered brush strokes, can instantly bring forth a multitude of memories and an infinite range of emotions?

Have a wonderful week!

Water and Sky.....Paintings by Catherine Freshley

Willapa Bay Field

30" x 40"

Float Plane on Lake Coeur d'Alene

24" x 30"

Lost Lake

18" x 24"

We had a chance to catch up with our daughter, Catherine, last weekend.  She continues to paint landscapes and she had a large work -in-progress in tow.  She is focused and disciplined, and somehow managed to add a couple of layers of paint during a very busy weekend.  If you're in the Spokane area, you can see her work at The Elk through mid-September.

I managed to spend a little time doing relief printing on Saturday.  I was working with a very limited palette again -- this time pthalo green and sepia -- and I used various bits of vegetation.  I imagine some of the prints will eventually find their way to this blog after I go back into them with additional colors and mediums.  Printmaking is so satisfying.  Always so many surprises along the way.  Alchemy, perhaps. 

Hope your week is off to a good start!

Thanks for your visit  :)

 

New Landscapes by Catherine Freshley

Untitled - by Catherine Freshley

22" x 30" 

Untitled -- by Catherine Freshley
 15" x 30"

Untitled -- by Catherine Freshley
18" x 24"

Untitled -- by Catherine Freshley

 15" x 30"

We're doing a little celebrating this month as our daughter, Catherine, has just hung her first solo show at Picabu Neighborhood Bistro in Spokane, Washington.  "Northwest Landscapes: The Pacific to the Palouse" includes twelve paintings comprising scenes from a pristine estuary, the Willamette valley and Cascade range in Oregon, and the grasslands of eastern Washington.   Here is an excerpt from Catherine's artist statement for the show:

"I have been fortunate to live the first couple decades of my life in places of particular natural beauty; whether that helped spawn my deep appreciation for place and home, or I have such a feeling for the water, the land and the sky because of it, I am not sure. For quite some time I wrote about the places that are important to me – attempting to recreate them, and preserve them as I know them, with words. While I have always been making art, it is only in the past year or so that I have taken to recreating these places (and some equally pretty, but less personally significant places) visually.

This interest in painting landscapes arose as a surprise to me, and suddenly, after driving across the country from New Orleans to Spokane. It started with a slightly blurry photo of a farm in Montana – taken one handed, eyes somewhere between focused on the road ahead and totally absorbed by the setting sun slinking across the backs of some cows and a low pond."                     

If you're in the area, stop by the Bistro to take a peek.  You can also find Catherine's work on her flickr site and in her Etsy shop.

It's been a lovely, "squally" day in Portlandia.  I managed to find visual inspiration while travelling through suburbia to get to the Department of Environmental Quality vehicle test station.  I saw gorgeous stands of bare poplar trees against an equally gorgeous sky; and a bonus stand of tall, dried cattails in a large wetland area.  A single red-winged blackbird stood sentry on the tip of one of the spent blooms; its form and colors in sharp contrast to the textures and subtleties of the browned cattails. Such a feast for my eyes!

Happy Saturday!!

Confections for the Heart

 Mixed Media works by Catherine Freshley

6" x 6" x 2"

  6" x 6" x 2"



 3 1/2" x 4" x 2"

Looking for something other than red to give for Valentine's Day this year? Maybe something a little more than a card....with some "staying" power?  Turns out my daughter thought folks might be, so she made a host of table-top or wall hearts for the holiday, (or any special day) and put them into her Etsy shop.  These are very textural pieces, with many layers of paint, collage, and high-gloss medium.  Oh, and if you do happen to be looking for pink or red hearts.....she's got those in her shop, too.  :) 

 Cheers!

New work by Catherine Freshley

Mixed media on canvas

6" x 8"

Image courtesy of Catherine Freshley

I mentioned several weeks ago that I might post examples of my daughter's recent experiments with a mixed media process that includes collage, oil pastels, acrylics, gel medium and/or resin.  Shown here are a couple of her new works. The piece above, in which an interesting magazine image is peeking out from the lower left corner,  is currently at Gallery 713, in the French Quarter of New Orleans; and the piece below is currently in her etsy shop.

Mixed media on wood block

5 1/2" x 5 1'2"

Image courtesy of Catherine Freshley

Hope there's lots of creative activity going on in your neck of the woods!!