At Mears
Recently a friend paid me a studio visit, her first in many years, and lost herself in the stacks of postcard-sized artwork I regularly make. After much deliberation, she pulled two collages from my Shenandoah series, drawn to the blues in the palette. As other guests wandered into my studio and occupied my time, she continued to browse and came up with two charcoal watercolors made at the lake. Now she was conflicted; she preferred the beach palette and theme but really wanted collages. When I suggested she could get the best of both worlds and commission me to make custom pieces for her, we all left happy.
The watercolor and charcoal paintings she admired are studies that informed a deeply personal collage series I worked on last year. A handful were made at the time, and while I sold one, they all continue to be difficult for me to part with. I’ve had several inquiries about my favorite, a beloved cottage nestled in the trees above the shoreline, and I’ve known I would revisit this subject at some point. I dug out my source materials from that work, paintings as well as the scraps from the 2025 series of six collages. Excited about what was to come, I painted furiously for two days, proud of myself for cranking out pleasing base paintings and new textures that convey all the joy I hold for this place. However, when it came time to start piecing compositions together, I felt stuck.
The cottage was built in the 1920’s and to my knowledge has only ever had two owners. Originally a two-bedroom beach house with an attic for bunking, it expanded over the years with the addition of a dining room, bathroom and third bedroom. Charmingly rustic with a tin roof and wood painted deep brown, 100+ years later the outdoor shower is still off the back porch and the sunset puts on its ever-changing show over the water each evening for an audience seated comfortably on the screened-in front porch.
The cottage is at the heart of our summer memories, and in my mind, it is the heart of this watercolor collage series, lending meaning and context to all the other compositions. Its shape as seen from the beach is iconic. It’s the windows and roofline that make this home identifiable to anyone who has ever spent an afternoon on a raft taking in the shoreline. I want my impression of this haven to be unmistakable to my loved ones, for one look to evoke all our shared experiences. It’s a lot of extra pressure, especially considering this work is commissioned, intended to go home with someone who has never laid eyes on this place. But of course, this project is greater than the two pieces I’m being paid to make. There will be many more in this series than my collector will buy. This artwork is a legacy for my children, and for my grandchildren who are just forming their memories with a fourth trip this summer. I need to get it right for me, for my family.
I worked for several hours, tentatively making the obvious tears with the safe paintings, the ones that tried too hard to be realism; the ones I didn’t love too much. The exciting paintings that made my heart sing sat untouched, propped up on display in front of my worktable, deemed too precious to alter, while I continued to push around the same few pieces, the ones with overly feathered bleeds inside uninspired shapes. Frustrated, I packed up the paintings and all the torn bits of paper, pausing the project for a few weeks while my husband and I filled our suitcases and left the country for a vacation.
When I returned to my studio and pulled everything out again, I found myself stuck in the exact same place. Still determined to recreate the cottage composition and still wildly unsuccessful. I began to wonder whether revisiting a prior subject is a good idea. Maybe I had nothing left to say about this place, but that seemed crazy given that one week of thirteen summers has passed living within and looking at that house from the water. My boys grew up there, roasting marshmallows and learning how to build and tend a campfire in the backyard, running down the 64-step winding path through the curtain of tall grass at the water, swimming to the sandbar, soaping up for a bath in tepid waters, jumping breathlessly through pounding waves, soaking in the countless stars in the dark sky.
I stared at the precious paintings holding court, the ones with the rich textures, delicious bleeds and intriguing brushwork I was saving for . . . for what? They were telling me I didn’t need to overcomplicate the making, to use their best features for clean, simple and surprisingly fresh compositions, to start somewhere else.
When the sluice opened and I allowed all the materials I made to be available, ideas started flowing. I like to say that first tear is the hardest, breaking the seal, unleashing creativity. But really it took my willingness to alter not just any work, or the safe work, but my best work to get the process moving.
I put the idea of the cottage aside, leaning into the abstract, letting the patterns and shapes lead rather than trying to tear with precision. I thought about all the changes in the landscape we’ve seen over the years. Trees cut down to enhance the view from the house. How rising water levels have swallowed up peers and seeped into dry sand to steal the beach. Felled trees in the aftermath of vicious storms making the path to the south point impassable. I sat with these drafts for several days before gluing anything down. I was deviating from work that seemed easier to explain, yet as I reflected on our time in this place this direction felt right. And this work left in its wake new, interesting shapes and scraps that became the cottage compositions I was seeking to make all along.
When I finally ran out of useable paintings and scraps, I lined up all fourteen collages and considered what I would name these pieces. Attaching a few words to the work somehow always pulls the theme together for me. The right name can make a good piece of artwork over-the-top special to its artist or owner. Where is my eye drawn and what does that shape symbolize? Through this lens the cottage collages of the same view suddenly weren’t the same at all, each one evoking a different memory: The campfire sending up smoke signals behind the house, rocking waves floating their tumbling score through the windows, the lather of soap in a giant freshwater bathtub, and the pristine sand of our “spot”, first thing in the morning before awakening to the hard kiss of lounge chairs and beach toys.
As I was giving another friend a sneak preview of this new work, she asked me, “You’re really going to make this collector choose among all these pieces?” My immediate response was a resounding yes. But upon further reflection, those precious paintings I struggled to tear up have been through a making journey with me, blooming into precious collages with names and personalities. Could I really give them all up? Who is conflicted now?