new painting This painting (Once, 62"x24") is recent, if not literally "new." It's among those that I have been stockpiling for my upcoming show at Darnell Fine Art in Santa Fe, which opens July 11th. All 15 of the paintings for this show are either finished or close to it, which is something that has just dawned on me over the past couple of days as I've shuffled things around, brought a few to their finish, and counted them up.

For months I've been too much in the thick of it to really imagine the show as a whole, a body of work. But now I'm starting to see more clearly how the paintings relate to each other, and to acknowledge developments of colors and techniques that have come into play. For me, a show is a slice of studio life, the best work from the period of time leading up to the event (in this case, that means since January) as opposed to a body of work developed around a distinct theme, which is another perfectly viable way of doing it. The way I prepare for a show is the result of my process--I rarely work in series or in a "project" frame of mind, which is what it takes, I guess, to produce a thematic kind of show.

"Connections" A solo show of abstract paintings by Rebecca Crowell is the title the gallery and I settled on for the show. Connections refers to the physical placing together of panels as well as to the conceptual ideas and relationships between them. This is the underlying idea that runs through all of my multiple panel work.

And who knows, maybe the idea was planted by this (slightly beat-up but legible) bumper sticker on my car...this has been on for a number of years and now seems oddly like a prediction for my work:

  ¶ 9:53 AM