Vernal reunion, march 2022

This month’s image is a merging of different types of flares and blazes that allude to distinct findings and aha moments. March often renders me this way; completely flabbergasted by the power of renewal, reunion, and remembering! And of course, the color green is the most poignant at this time of year in my SoCal home. The hills and mountains all around are lush with greenery and I am flooded with gratitude for having known and loved this land and its horses.

Copper Eye—-> Reggae In Green ——> Vernal Reunion

The image started in 2008 as a large piece of thick drawing paper. In the comfort of my garage studio, I made a life-sized portrait of my horse, Reggae. In the drawing, he seemed just about to nicker his hunger call for alfalfa hay or rub me with his face (a common ritual we had upon my arrival to his paddock.) I was quite proud that I had captured him poised in mid-greeting. At the time, I had caught a look in his eye that I drew with a copper oil bar—the iridescent sheen worked its way into the mane and coat, mimicking the way Reggae’s shaggy coat always got singed by the SoCal sun. I called that drawing Copper Eye, rolled it up, and stored it away for the next 4 years.

Fast-forward to the year 2012 when I unrolled it in a different garage studio and began to cut it out so that I could stitch it to a new canvas that I painted from memory about springtime. It seems I have a hankering to stitch and stretch together painting surfaces in an effort to integrate life experiences. Maybe it’s an attempt to conjoin segments of time by sewing, cutting, or pasting several canvases together. I see now that it has been a subconscious effort to make sense of patterns and spiraling cycles while coming to terms with time’s fleeting nature.

During the last few days of February, 2022, I worked the hand sewn image into a digital composition, altering the original by including my newer image of a hand holding a feather up toward the sun (AHA!) I applied light filters, pastel gradients of color, and translucent layers of iridescent light that were inspired by the coppery sheen of my horse’s sun-kissed coat. I changed the composition and added multiple layers, including a layer of a Bargello quilt pattern that I found in a tiny store in Ruch, Oregon last summer. The quilt image is both an homage to the process of community stitching and the world of psychedelic imagery. My hope is that it also invites intrigue. Happy Spring!

Yours in Green,

Edy