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| Sara Post, Redwoods, ©2011, oil & cold wax |
Last week I had the occasion to attend an opening for an artist friend whom I've mentioned frequently in this blog, Sara Post. Sara's exhibit, Close to Home, was up and ready to see in our local Davis, CA gallery, the Artery.
I had a particular curiosity about this exhibit because Sara had confessed to me over coffee several weeks back that she had one month to come up with the artwork for this show. When she told me this, I knew for a certainty that she would take the proverbial tube of paint and run. And run with it she did.
A couple of weeks later, I stopped by her house to drop off a book. When I walked into her studio, work was spread over the tables, hanging on the walls and arranged on the floor. Joyful abandon reigned supreme.
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| Sara Post, Sprinklers, ©2011, monotype |
I'm fascinated by how specific conditions such as an imminent deadline can elicit completely different creative responses in people. Sara decided to look no further than her own backyard for inspiration.
A wise choice judging by the results. Sara honors the beauty of houses and gardens and the fascination that we bring to them. It's as if she's taken a magnifying glass to the world outdoors; exploring walls, windows, doors and rooftops; the spaces they create and the landscape they define.
Her work places itself in a tradition of modern landscape painters such as David Hockney and Cy Twombly.
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| Cy Twombly. Untitled (detail), ©2007 |
As I gazed at the pieces I found myself drifting into an imaginary back yard where pools of deep turquoise water drifted in and out of focus and grasses blew in the wind, waving their tips of gentle gold.
I crisscrossed the gallery, picking up one observation here and dropping another there, imagining the possibilities that my own back yard might offer.
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| Sara Post, Flags, ©2011, monoprint |
If, as Voltaire says in his novel Candide, "we must cultivate our own garden," this exhibit invites us to explore the abundant possibilities which may lie therein.