CHROMA: PURPLE

Beginning in 2019, encaustic artist Caryl St. Ama, painter Margaret Lazzari, mixed-media artist Nancy Kay Turner and I began a collaborative project using color as a commonality. As part of the Hana Kark Collective we each worked independently to create 25 birch plywood panels, 6” x 6” each, in each primary and secondary color. We started with blue, intending to work our way through the spectrum. Without a clear idea of how we would ultimately assemble the work, or where the process might lead us, we began. We had our first exhibitions of the work, mid-process, in September 2019.

The final color in the series is purple. In the yellow series I used full sheets of paper and added layers of cloth and paper on top. I didn’t find the paper particularly enjoyable to stitch on, but was intrigued with the direct and obvious use of language. I began thinking about this purple series in October 2020. A lot had happened in the year I’d been working on the Chroma series. In the midst of the social, medical and political upheaval of the Summer of 2020 I decided to talk less and listen, without responding, more. I needed quiet. I needed time to understand, and think, and learn. The covid-induced physical separation eased this process. I went back to those gessoed pages from “The Story of the Irish Race” and found it remarkable that so many words describing the early days of Ireland were spot on today. It gave me hope that one day we’d be looking at all this with the wisdom brought only by experience, time and patience.

Industrial waste fabric scraps have been pieced and overdyed. Found words and phrases are appliqued and embellished onto the panels. The stitched pieces are laminated to 3/4” baltic birch plywood. Click on the images below for a close-up view and detailed description.