(Faculty Submission)
Theme: Home
Medium: Watercolor
Artist Statement:
While in normal times I’m a fiction writer, during the monotony of quarantine, I started to find myself craving color. This spring, I took a Zoom watercolor class through the Worcester Art Museum to learn basic techniques—I’ve never painted before. Watercolor seems an ideal medium for this moment of uncertainty. Unlike acrylic or oil, the paint moves on the paper in surprising ways, forcing the artist to adapt and improvise. I got particularly inspired by the work of World War I watercolor artist Claggett Wilson, who used an earthy palette and depicted scenes not usually the purview of watercolor—moody battlefield panoramas full of sharp contrast.
I grew up in central Kansas, and each summer before this one, I’ve gone home. The sky is what I miss most—its bold volatility, its strange beauty, its vivid sunsets. The scene here is adapted from a photograph by the Kansas artist George Jerkovich. The little castle atop a lookout spot called Coronado Heights was built by the Works Progress Administration during the Depression, another period of great disruption in our country’s recent history. I hope that social programs like the WPA might emerge from the vast unemployment our country now faces.