Working in Series

Scott and I escaped the cold this winter and spent January and early February in Palm Springs. Beyond the obvious advantages of trading a New England winter for the desert, it turned out to be an unusually productive stretch in the studio.

In the backyard painting!

With several exhibitions coming up, I found myself thinking differently about how I was making work.

Rather than approaching each piece as a completely separate composition, I began working more intentionally in series — taking a design and exploring what happens when the underlying structure stays constant but the palette changes.

It sounds like a relatively simple shift, but for me it opened up all sorts of possibilities.

Color can completely change the personality of the same geometry. A combination that feels energetic and playful in one palette can become quieter or more architectural in another. Put several of those pieces together and another conversation starts happening between them.

I've always been interested in repetition, pattern and variation, but working this way gave me an opportunity to push those ideas further.

It also allowed me to think about the work at two different scales. Each piece still needed to stand completely on its own. But I could also imagine several pieces living together — related without necessarily matching.

That became particularly important as I prepared for two exhibitions back home: a solo exhibition at the Wellesley Free Public Library in March and Patterned Worlds, a two-person exhibition with Lisa Houck at Concord Art in April.

Palm Springs also gave me an opportunity to get some of the work out of the studio. I showed pieces at SOPA Creative Gallery during its First Wednesday art crawl, which meant conversations with an entirely new audience.

SOPA Creative Gallery, led by T. Santora

And meanwhile, Provincetown was undergoing a transition of its own. Stewart Clifford Gallery, where I've been fortunate to show my work, had been sold to Ali Gray and her wife. The newly named Ali Gray Gallery would open in May, and my first solo exhibition there was already scheduled for August.

So even from 2,600 miles away, Provincetown was very much on my mind.

Looking back, what I remember most about those weeks in Palm Springs is having the space to experiment.

Same structure. Different colors. Different relationships.

Sometimes putting limits around what you change makes you notice just how much possibility remains.