When I was a child, I saw the world through art and music. In high school, I'd hurry through my reports and spend hours on the cover illustrations. Those covers earned my grades! The flute carried me through the storms of adolescence. At Sarah Lawrence College, my first and only art class was with a teacher that rigorously explored the abstract properties of color and composition. It was - he was - dry and difficult. By the end of the semester I concluded, and he concurred, that I had a facile hand but lacked an artist's mind. At eighteen years of age, I lay down my pencil and brush.
The intervening years were full with music, family, and a rich career in psychology as a teacher, researcher, and clinician. My love of art stayed with me, but I never looked back at my decision to abandon the drawing and painting I had once loved.
Then in July 2003, a friend invited me to join a watercolor workshop. I was reluctant, still believing I had no artistic ability, but my friend insisted. When I first squeezed pigments onto my plastic palette, I was surprised that my eyes filled with tears. Then, when I dipped my wet brush into paint and swirled forms on the white paper, I felt as if I were coming home. By the end of the week I knew I had to paint. Since that summer, I've drawn or painted nearly every day, studied with inspiring teachers, entered competitions, exhibited in group and solo shows, won prizes and sold paintings. I am now fully committed to art as a vehicle of growth and discovery, and as a career.
People, especially their connections, their uniqueness, and their preciousness pull me to tell their stories. The struggle to capture the essence and character of the persons emerging under my hand evokes the complexity and uncertainty of our relationships with each other. Sometimes I get it right; sometimes I'm not quite there. My husband's and my years in the Peace Corps in the 1960's, as well as our extended African family, have inspired a series of watercolors conveying the beauty and hardship of African lives. Paintings of children evoke both their promise and their often uncertain relationship with the world around them. These human connections move me profoundly.
Our connections are not only with each other, but also with the world around us. We exist through and within nature, and connect with each other within a matrix of the natural and human world. Through my paintings I explore these relationships, and invite others to join me in this world of connections and their meanings.
Although I work in both oil and watercolor, watercolor remains the medium that I find most expressive and exciting. Water moves soluble pigments in ways that can never be fully predicted or controlled, and requires flexibility and ingenuity. The uncertain process and sometimes surprising outcomes of watercolor painting provide a wonderful metaphor for life. In my work, we struggle together, the paintings and I, and in the process, we are always pulled into unexplored territory.
Whatever the medium, the reward, if I get it right, is that the completed work translates form, value and color into an image that communicates something essential, while delighting and exciting the eye.
Contact Carolyn or visit her artwork page to view examples of her work.