Nos Nymphéas

This moment demands that we think and dream big. It’s time to bring our hearts and minds together. Nos Nymphéas, a walk-in painting that embraces the viewer, is a project I dreamed of during an art residency in France ten years ago. Nos Nymphéas is an homage to the massive Waterlily --- or Nymphéas – paintings Claude Monet painted in and of his garden, and by his gift of this work at the Armistice. The goal of this public art installation is to invite the viewer to get lost in these paintings, and then, to locate themselves in the thoughts, ideas, dreams and feelings that arise.

Nos Nymphéas is a response to Claude Monet’s practice of tending to and painting from his garden. What inspires this work is not one garden but diverse, multiple earthy places, relationship, thought and feeling. This body of 5’ high x 5’ - 9’ wide paintings is where I’ve trained my attention during social unrest and pandemic times. In my admiration for Monet’s practice, and for the gift of the environment his work creates, is a question:

What is it you hold dear? How do you regard, tend and care for it?

This is the heart of my painting process too, a sense I hope to impart to visitors to Nos Nymphéas —- Nos means ‘ours’. Our studio is preparing to activate this public art installation, at times with workshops that support mindfulness, and also with collaborations incorporating sound and movement. Nos Nymphéas’ design includes inviting seating, thoughtful lighting, and low- and high-tech interpretive elements to engage visitors with this question.

2014 Residency in France—The Bonbonnerie Paintings

This is a body of work I painted on residency in France, in 2014 on 5’ high paper I found there. Bonbonnerie inspired me to create a response to the installation of Monet’s immersive Waterlily paintings, open to the public, through a walk in a park in Paris. Alone in a small village in the val du Loire, I imagined herself a royal painter, preparing arwork to bring to court. The name is inspired by the Belgian cacao a friend gave me, challenging me to use it as a medium, integrating with the raw pigments I had begun to integrate into my palette in 2010.