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I painted this work from my memory of October 9, 2018, standing out in the street with my neighbors, our cars packed only with essentials, waiting to evacuate. I could see  Fire Over the Hill - oil on canvas two pink glows against the night sky, one from Coffee Park and the other from Fountain Grove/Mark West. Our adult children and their families were evacuating from Rincon Valley, and we were uncertain of their status. I merged the two pink glows into one. This painting is Available. Please contact the artist for more information.
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"It's been phenomenal, but everybody keeps congratulating me on my resurgence and my big comeback. I haven't been away, guys. I've been working steadily for the last 63 years. " -Betty White  Resurgence - oil on canvas, 48" x 36" My home is in Santa Rosa, California. During the firestorm of October 2017 my beloved town experienced unprecedented destruction beyond belief. In the Tubbs Fire, 4655 homes and 94 commercial buildings were lost, vanished. (Press Democrat, 11/1/2017) In the affected parts of Santa Rosa, people from every walk of life fled from their homes. Others of us took people in, on guard, with our suitcases and cars packed and at the ready. Betty White's quote is right on the mark. It's going to take time to restore our county, working with a steady, determined vision. Seasons will pass, the hills and vegetation will recover and the wildlife will return. We'll see thriving businesses, all ever changing. My displaced friends and community members will find new, permanent places to live. All a series of tiny, imperceptible steps, full of patience. Painting these new works has helped me place my vision on Resurgence, dwelling on the conviction and deliberate resolve that will continue forward in our reclamation, and spring back to the familiar where we can, reawakening our surroundings and our lives to what is most meaningful to us. These new works, shown above and below, are full of dreams for the phenomenal, for a full and beautiful recovery. "Peace is not something you wish for; It’s something you make, Something you do, Something you are, And something you give away." -John Lennon  early stage from "Botanica", commissioned oil painting I enjoy the negative space on the canvas very much while developing a painting and designing an art piece. Looking at the painting in process above inspires me to want to work more with the use of negative space. In developing my current artwork I am committed to color, to showing off color, to fill each empty block with color and cause all those various colors in the painting to interrelate, to perform together, dance and harmonize and cause a feeling of beauty and order. I am drawn to the use of more whites and light tones with my work. The white space in the unfinished painting above reminds me of snow: clean, pure, untouched possibilities peacefully surrounding and supporting the color. Peaceful. I want to prop myself up and surround myself with elements that say peace. -Jill Keller Peters You may want to read: El Dia de los Muertos It Looks So Simple and Easy, Right? Two Artists Under One Roof "The Greens Are Envious of Each Other" “There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.” –Washington Irving  La Artists - a painting by my friend and colleague, Tamra Sanchez . . . HeaL . . .
Today is El Dia de Los Muertos, the day we celebrate and honor the lives of loved ones who have crossed over before us. I have been thinking so much about loss lately, mourning and grieving with my community and friends here in Santa Rosa. In this short blog I am considering what other losses that I might observe: One's home, one's community, one's livelihood - one's nest egg, one's breast, one's health . . . one's country. It takes time to come to the point of celebration as in this ancient tradition. Life lived hand in hand with death. Loss requires a deep grieving and much courage. There was a time in my life that in my deepest grief I could not paint, didn't even want to. The viceral event that brought me back to painting was during the time while my daughter was in chemo, a young mother with two very young children. That was the point that painting became a paramount part of my survival, a strange and arresting alchemy. Regarding El Dia de Los Muertos, in the same way that I I dance with my departed grandson - I dance with the memory of other great losses, because they are what made me who I am today. I look at my life and see a stunning, unending thread. I see the brilliant colors of the frontside and the shadowy backside of a tapestry, all in interconnected with each other, all so genuine and poignant. Today I celebrate the beauty of life and just how Lucky I have been to have lived both sides with such generous benevolence. Indeed, one has to look for the lucky part to see it. I send my deepest condolences and heartfelt love to all effected by the fire. Be gentle with yourselves. -Jill Keller Peters You may also want to read: It Looks So Simple and Easy, Right? Two Artists Under One Roof Do Something Beautiful "The Greens Are Envious of Each Other" Why All Those Squares, Anyway? "I long so much to make beautiful things. But beautiful things require effort and disappointment and perseverance." - Vincent Van Gogh  Maybe simple is the right idea, but perhaps it's not so "easy". Simplicity is exactly what I'm going for. Colors are placed onto a grid to perform their interaction of color, their visual dance, and lead the eye to follow rhythms and pauses within the composition, allowing the viewer ultimately to go deeper within the artwork. When I begin a new painting I think a great deal of how I want the painting to feel, and how to go about making that happen. Following that, I choose a color palette that complements the concept that I am about to explore.  In all my work I plan out a simple roadmap that often takes a diversion, leaving room for spontaneity and some color adjustments.  Next, I draw a grid of the composition (the plan) with a pencil and a straight edge onto the canvas. I write some color "notes" onto the canvas with a pastel pencil. The notes are a guide for possible colors I could use; they help me to progress into a direction for the feeling that I want to convey.  I use masking tape to mask the edges of the color blocks, mix each color block separately and apply the oil paint with my painting knife. It is very meticulous. For some reason I love this aspect of it. After painting 3 - 4 color blocks, I pull up the tape. The paint must be bone dry before taking the next step, taping over an already painted edge in preparation to paint a new adjacent color block. Note that in the above photo the tape is pressed onto some of the dry, previously painted color blocks. You may also see some of my "notes" written on the canvas. 
In this photo I am pulling up the tape, and all is going as it should be. On some occasions I have moved ahead with the painting too quickly because it felt dry to the touch. This causes some of the previous painted color to pull up off the painting with the tape, causing me to experience that sick feeling in my gut. After this happens, I need to repaint the previous color block which requires more drying time, meaning I have to wait an extra week or more to proceed with this area of the painting. It is more than frustrating, believe you me. I see that the painting is teaching me that it wants more time. It wants me to be more patient. I find the thrill of pulling up the tape to reveal the beguiling interaction of color is worth every tedious step. When it's right it is ultra satisfying. "The meaning of a word - to me - is not as exact as a meaning of a color. Colors and shapes make a more definite statement than words." - Georgia O'Keeffe  Botanica - oil on canvas, 24 x 36 x 1.5 in, Commission "A colorist loves colors as a writer loves words. It is the love that comes through when the mind gets out of the way. Don't think too much. Trust your instincts. We all have the colors needed to make beautiful paintings. I try not to worry about what I do not know, what I have been unable to teach myself. My inabilities serve me better than my abilities. Art is not something that is learnt and then practiced, it is a form of communication and one is always trying to say something clearer. The mind messes up love and it messes up painting." -Ken Kewley The thoughts above, by Ken Kewley, are from an excerpt of a lengthy article that I very much resinate with, as an artist who works primarily with color. I took "written notes" from the article, and ended up rewriting practically the whole thing. It's true, the mind is always trying to say something clearer, or in an alternative, or an additional way. My main indicator of not over thinking is an extremely satisfying feeling, a spark, a deep peace, a freshness, like feeling of fresh air wafting through the room. Even still, I get stuck sometimes, usually toward the end of the painting when I have to ask myself just what the heck I'm doing, why I love this so much. And then it's patience that is required along with my own love of the art of balance. Patience, my dear Watson. It's only a matter of time. "Art enables us to find ourselves & lose ourselves at the same time." - Thomas Merton  Catalina, oil on canvas, 12" x 60" We are not only two artists under one roof, we are married. I create inspirational paintings, and my husband, let's call him "Josef", he creates visually as well, with food, but just as importantly with the palette of taste, flavor, relish, tang and smack. Our house is relatively small, and the entire domicile is my art studio, and a placeholder for my paintings that are awaiting their journey to an exhibit, a personal space or place of business. Josef and I compete for this space. During the years that he worked in the restaurant, the Green Music Center, Meals on Wheels and for the Schulz family I had the run of the place. Well, things just don't stay the same, and our home has become a shared working community, because he runs his business out of this dwelling as well. Some days we step all over each other, but time has taught us pretty much how to dance around it in respect to when one of us needs quiet, a listening ear, a trained eye.
We hang out on the patio relaxed and happy, talk about the people he met that day, among them, the three chefs from France, the happy local regulars, and "restaurant row", where the three former, well known Sonoma County chefs are still at it, but in a different way. Not glamorous, but still creative and connected with their audience.
We are artists. We take our creations where they can be viewed and drunk in, and tasted and savored, to connect. We add something to people's lives that was not there before. We rely on our wits and on the gifts and kindness of life, and the love of family and friends. I love our life, and express my gratitude for your gift of attending one of my art shows or teaching me to tap dance or cook, or who spent some time sharing a part of your life with me. In appreciation to the artist in all of us, Vive l'art!! Jill "Live what you believe . . . make your whole life your art." - Sue Bender  Delighted - oil on canvas, 36 x 36 x 2 in "Live what you believe - make your whole life your art" is a quote that has stuck with me over decades. I think about it a lot, and realize that it sounds like a HUGE task, but maybe it's more like a lot of little tasks strewn out over the years. Maybe this endeavor is what gives a juiciness to my life. You likely already have a great deal of knowledge about art. You have an interest in art, that's why you are here reading this article. But have you ever thought of your self as an artist, a creator of sorts? Trying not to be too simplistic, you may be really talented at creating an atmosphere to live in or to work in. Creating and building viable relationships out of the blue is another. And then, the vegetable garden, how is it laid out? Straight rows? Or is it a "wilde garten" like my husband's, each form of vegetation giving way to the other. I am a "straight row" kind of person, as you can imagine, however, I am fully intrigued by Josef's magic with methods that don't make sense to me.  We can think of a myriad of creative endeavors, but how do we make our whole life our art? I have an inkling that we can achieve it by listening to that still, small voice inside of us. We do it by taking moments, not hours, to make one small change, and much of the time it is done naturally without even noticing the effort. I believe that art is an important and fundamental part of life. Create. Make a change. Sing. Do something beautiful, but not only that, do something silly, goofy, something meticulously crazy, and add a little juicy goodness to your life.  Josef Albers is my most influential example of color theory, and whose thoughts I continually reflect upon, especially, "Every color is affected by the color next to it." The feel of a color changes, becomes less or more brilliant, less or more red, blue, green or whatever, depending on what color is sitting right there next to it. Those are the thoughts that I engage in as I paint my artwork, both Impressionist and Modernist. The color swatches above are from one of my favorite art books, Paintings on Paper - Josef Albers in America. Albers is the mentor I turn to for color inspiration when it comes to what one can do with paint, and how one can analytically make color harmony decisions. The book is full of color studies, and notes written in both German and English that are small and a bit cryptic. I often pull out my magnifying glass and to enlarge the writing and try to more clearly understand it. Josef Albers came from out of the Bauhaus era. His teaching posts at the Bauhaus, Black Mountain College and Yale enabled him to pass on his theories to several generations of artists and designers, from Max Bill and Mark Rothko to Eva Hesse and Ray Johnson. The book is beautiful, and finely produced. It was published for an exhibit at the Morgan Library. I'd say it's for people who really want to investigate color and to have a deeper understanding of it. Below you see a detail of a painting that is in process and currently engaging my senses. Greens, underrated, and lots of times painted with an over the top intensity.  48" x 36" oil painting in process I love working with them and yet have avoided featuring them in a painting for some reason. Following this creation, I can see more of them lining up in the future, waiting for me to paint them. The trick for me is to emphasize the color green without overloading the painting with it. And yet, that could be a great exploration as well another time. I'll be back soon with more to show you. |
Luminous Color Explorations
My name is Jill Keller Peters, and I am passionate about using color as a language to Archives
August 2020
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