From the fragility of life one expands to the idea of overcoming.  This has different implications and connotations for each individual.  However, a butterfly has survived egg, larvae, caterpillar, cocoon, and now it is in the final life stage as an adult butterfly.  Everyone has struggles and the cocoon can be a dark and lonely place.  It is interesting that while I am in a cocoon–I am painting butterflies.

The butterfly has worked hard through the hardship of fighting out of the cocoon and stretching it’s wings.  It is interesting that compassion is not for us to stretch it’s wings for it (and inadvertently kill it), but for us to let it succeed.  In a way the struggles we face make us stronger.  Do they make us stronger in preparation for the next bigger challenge we face?  Do not take me as implying that we need to ignore our community, neighbors, etc and leave them to their fate!  If the caterpillar crawled away from it’s only food source, then we certainly should put it back where it can feed.

There is beauty and joy in having overcome and survived.

Sketch while sitting with my husband at a refuge in the mountains near Falzarego Pass.

On Sunday, I did a lot of thinking concerning the project I am undertaking in the next few weeks.  I came up with several ideas of paintings and became very excited about one of them.  However, none of the canvases available were big enough to do the idea justice.  I found several very large stretcher bars (and one smaller stretcher bar (yet still larger then my butterfly paintings).  I decided I probably would have a hard time stretching a canvas larger then this smaller stretcher bar, and chose it for my purpose.  Then I just needed a canvas.  This particular quest for a large piece of canvas, and was solved rather easily when my hostess, Demetria, was going to Firenze (Florence) last Monday evening,  gave me a lift and took me to the art store.

Here are the materials:

Here is the stretching of the canvas in action:

Here is the final 31″ x 48″ product ready to embrace the idea (I hope):

On a snowy winter afternoon, this January, I painted a small, three-hour work of a woman reclining.

A flower at Lake Agnes, Canadian Rockies taken when the sun came out after a rain storm.

Were you influenced by someone special (other artist(s), teachers, a family member, friend, etc.)?
My father, Allen Steely, has always been interested in photography as a hobby and he influenced me by seeing and pointing out the beauty in the world around me.  In college, my painting professor, Kevin Sparks, greatly influenced how I look at painting and communicate through metaphor.  I have been influenced by a variety of great artists from the past including and not limited to the following: Caspar David Friedrich, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Kathe Kollwitz, Lucian Freud.   Recently I have been influenced by local Indiana artists Caroline Mecklin and Jim Gerard.

What do you generally try to achieve with your art?
Through painting and drawing, I attempt to create subtle metaphors layer by layer in order that I might achieve a greater understanding of the natural world.  I work with natural objects juxtaposed with transitions in time. I try to walk the line between abstraction and realism and create a composition that speaks to a viewer on several levels.

What were you trying to communicate with the piece Black & White Herd?
The current work begins with butterflies as a reference point and then takes flight into an examination of speed, pattern, and the imagination.

Do you feel you were successful?
Yes, to some extent.  I am always looking ways to improve, and better visually present, and communicate.

What medium or media do you prefer and why?
I prefer oils, because I am interested in how the process parallels my thought process.  Also, I like the way that the finished oil painting looks.  I enjoy the depth and variation of colors, tones, and light.  I recently have been interested in using watercolor focusing on the transparency of the colors.  I also enjoy working in black and white charcoal, conte, and digital photography.

How would you describe your artistic process?
For this past series:  I carefully consider my subject matter and different implications that the viewer might generate when they encounter the subject matter.  Then I decide on a composition that is dynamic.  I pick a canvas shape and size that will enhance the dynamic, moving, living nature of the piece.  Then, I begin to block out the basic shapes of the butterfly wings so that they open or close.  I decide which wings I want to hide during the opening and closing process.  I begin by looking at an actual butterfly (or an image I took with my camera (I prefer not to use the camera, but with butterflies, I sometimes have to in order to figure out the patterns on the wings).  Then I put away the picture and develop the painting layer by layer adding a light source with shadows, and developing the colors so that the painting is unified.  I try to keep the initial ideas of time, motion, life, struggle, overcoming, etc. in front of me during the process so that I do not become lost in the process.

Has your art changed substantially during your career? If so, how?
The unifying theme of my major series has been animation and an interest in the metaphysical ideas of speed and time as seen in joints of bones, flowers, and butterflies.  (I call my paintings “dynamic still life”) As I move ahead, I intend to keep that theme, but am open to other ideas as I grow as an artist.