I was too tired to even squeegee the shower glass door on a recent May morning. Just the day before, my husband Jon and I had set up my solo exhibit at the Ledyard Gallery on the second floor of the Howe Library in Hanover, New Hampshire. I was fatigued by the physical effort of moving art over the previous week and a half as I had also delivered paintings to a few additional locations in my home state of Vermont. The real tired came from completing the goal. The task. The many months of thinking and planning had come to fruition. I was exhausted in the best possible way.

A small caravan of two. Two SUV’s. A dark gray 2024 Subaru and a 2018 vibrant blue Volvo, respectfully. Jon and I headed to Vermont’s twin state, New Hampshire. A forty- minute drive of primarily mountainous roads. Cargo spaces filled with my paintings. My work. An exhibit was to be hung.

As I drove down our now familiar street, I was struck by the bucolic setting I had witnessed for several years, but it felt different this early morning. I felt at home.

The sky was a striking cobalt blue with large billowing clouds in shades of brilliant white tinged in lavender gray. A Chamber of Commerce Day. I didn’t want to be anywhere else.

The Vermont landscape with its many shades of green. Rich and lush. Impossible to imagine stick season when there was an explosion of green everywhere. The crowd of trees appeared impenetrable on the many rolling hills. The variations of this jeweled color easily coexisted. Cool undertones yet warmth in equal measure. Emerald and mossy greens. A saturation of a deep bluish green that hovered over the forest floor. An enviable harmony embraced by botanists and artists.

Plein air painters dotted the Artistree Community Art Center grounds as I drove by. Only two point one miles from my home. A place where I have exhibited many times and have taught there too. The village of South Pomfret, Vermont. The Grange Theater, Abbott Memorial Library, Teagos General Store, Saskadena Six ski resort and the expansive hilly landscape. I belonged. I had layers of proof framed in black just behind me in the cargo space as I drove along the winding remote roads.

From start to finish, the installation was a 5-hour effort. Lugging paintings from the temporary staging area in the house to carefully loading my work into our cars. Protecting the paintings with cardboard dividers and blankets as they were stacked times twelve in each vehicle. Large paintings for the most part. A temporary stay since the canvases were soon to be unloaded and transported once again upon arrival at the Howe Library. A metal cart was made ready for us to ease the carry.

Months of thinking and planning had gone into this exhibit. Designing a show was something I loved to do. I looked forward to the visual challenge. Always. The paintings from my inventory that had already been exhibited elsewhere needed to be made anew. I lined the paintings up as we unloaded them to begin the visual process. Leaning them along the long gallery walls while they temporarily rested on the carpeted floor. Thinking and moving them from location to location. Shuffling and deciding. Composition, canvas size and color all needed to be considered. I soon settled in on a design. After a few more tweaks, we began to hang the show.

A gentleman and presumably an employee of the library did a loop of the work in progress. Frequently stopping and looking at the pieces already hung. He closely passed by me as he exited the gallery. Quietly he commented “very nice.”  Soon after, Tessa stopped by to also look and chat with me. She is the art director for the Howe. Why so many dancers? she asked. Were you a ballerina? I giggled to my 5’1 self. I tried hard to be but no I was not a dancer, I responded. I started to tell her about my mother, Lincoln Center and Baryshnikov, but the conversation was met with unknowing eyes, so I stopped. Immediately and awkwardly, I shifted gears as I careened down a steep social interaction hill that I was not equipped to handle. Instead, I tripped all over myself.

Mentally, I recounted my years of tap, ballet and pointe. Yes, I took lessons and danced from kindergarten to college. Countless lessons. My dance teacher through high school taught classically, but the ability was simply not there... However, I had been a devoted student of figurative art since my days at RISD. Why didn’t I tell her that...

All that remained to be done were the labels I mentioned to Tessa. She collected the hanging materials and questioned if a hammer on the desk was the library’s or ours? She took one more lap and stated that the exhibit looked great. She smiled with approval. They were accustomed to smaller paintings and photographs, she told me, but Tessa was very happy with the scale and power of the exhibit. A sigh of relief allowed me to breathe again. I had offered something different and new.

I sat amongst the stacks on the second floor of the library just days after the exhibit was hung at the Ledyard Gallery. I was anonymous and felt maybe even invisible. The gallery walls spilled into the music section. Do people even come up here? I wondered aka panicked. Quiet except for the blow of air. Just a few people occupied tables and desks to work and study.

I settled into a chair located at the far-right back corner. First pulling the chair away so as not to bump the painting or the frame. I had hung two dancer paintings in complimentary locations for the visual advantage of those entering the room. A cushioned Mission chair. A dark print fabric in navy or maybe even black displayed shapes of gold medallions. A wooden frame with a warm reddish stain showed some wear. I too am showing some wear. I sat there quietly and observantly.

Every painting I scanned with my aging eyes meant something special to me. I don’t remember every brushstroke, but I do. Strokes energetically slashed across a tutu shouldn’t work, but they do. Going against the fabric was somewhat bold. Making a statement was in play. Emphasizing energy and movement even while the figure was still. Breaking rules. Often.

A simple and subtle stroke of blue in a dancer’s hair. Unusual but intentional. A blend of hues and shades to create just the right color. The color must feel as unique and powerful as the image on the canvas. Nothing straight out of a tube. It is about telling a story. Color helps engage the viewer while it enhances the composition. Bringing the viewer’s eye to different aspects of a painting while employing the same color throughout the whole canvas. Hidden or obvious.

A plan. Each painting had one. Primitive ochre outlines are as detailed a start as I ever will do. Loose and free. I love freedom. Freedom to imagine. Freedom to create. Freedom. Trying never to restrict myself as each painting is a journey. Directions change as the painting unfolds. Some plans fail. I have made plenty of bad art. Bad art leads to better outcomes. Pushing boundaries becomes easier when I sink into the acceptance of mistake making.

Bad art most commonly happens when I try to paint like someone else. Albeit someone I admire. How I think I should paint. Thoughts of who I should be as an artist often swirl in my mind. Getting stuck in the idea of what I am “supposed” to do. What art is acceptable? Respected? I fail each time I get lost in the “should” narrative. I had a painting teacher many years ago who would remind me to stay true to who I am as an artist...he knew self-doubt would interfere, and time and again it has...

I can spend endless hours trying to force a painting to work but that is often a warning sign for me to change it up. Taking the painting in a completely new direction becomes required. Transforming an image from a landscape to a dancer. A dancer to a floral. Not a system so to speak but instead a resolution.

Sometimes a canvas is simply meant to boast a different composition, and it is my job to do the work of discovery. Imagining there is a soulfulness or destiny for a stretched canvas is a bit out there, but I believe it.  Maybe it is more about relaxing into the process I know all too well or simply understanding who I am as an artist. Either way it is something I have experienced countless times.

The pure exquisite play of employing the color of a repurposed canvas has always proved exciting. The opportunity for happy accidents in painting keeps the process fun and unexpected. Other than raising children, where else does such spontaneity live?

A cardboard image of Beethoven sat on top of the wooden stack. His printed image outlined in burnt sienna on off-white heavy stock paper. The small image told a story. Beethoven was synonymous with classical music. He defined this area of the library. Overhead and at the formal gallery entrance were the words Ledyard Gallery spelled out in flat silver letters on an uninspired pale colored wall.

The exhibit opened on June 1st. Mom’s birthday. So much goes back to her, even the selection of the date for the show. I haven’t spoken to her in over 23 years, but she is with me. Always with me. She died far too young.

I had just recently found a photograph with items from my parents’ home. I had gone through nearly everything, I thought, so I was taken aback by this discovery. The image and another were tucked in a plain white envelope with my father’s distinctive handwriting on the outside. A black and white image with my two siblings and our mom. One on each side of me. I was just a baby and only a few months old. My sister and I seated in the chair. Donna’s hair like our Mom's in length and color yet she wore bangs. Her eyes cast to the side, but she was holding my small hand and smiling. A sisterly connection I cherish daily. My brother standing and leaning-in was dressed in a costume. A court jester, he claims, but my sister and I suggested in a recent conversation that it may have been a Halloween clown costume. My mother with her forearms resting on the back of the fabric chair. She was beautiful. Dark brown to black hair swept off to the side. A wavy bob probably set with rollers the night before. Red lipstick I imagined as the gradation of gray in the photo expressed a strong lip color. 50s glam. The faces were happy. My sister and I questioned who the photographer might be. Possibly our father but unlikely.

A loud banging noise from above startled me. Construction on the library roof? Possibly. I believed I was on the top floor of the 70s contemporary style building, but maybe something else existed over my head. Jolting me back to reality, I had to put reminiscing on hold for the moment. I had enjoyed spending some solitary time remembering my mother. Imagining my mom in her vibrant years and not her end-stage pancreatic cancer days.

Similar palette choices I observed as I once again returned to reviewing each painting from my corner chair. Blends of warmth and coolness. Light and dark. One painting seemed to stand out as the exception. “The Atlanta Flower Shop” as it displayed more warm tones than cool. Unusual for me as I gravitate towards lavenders and blues. I had taken the resource photo in a small floral shop in Atlanta while visiting my sister many years ago. The trip was filled with warmth and laughter, so I suspect the palette was influenced by this memory.

Frames beautifully built and painted black by Jon. Mathematical precision in each frame. A uniformity I prefer for exhibition purposes. Linen canvas. Cotton canvas. The paint sits differently on each and I can discern the difference from even across the library. It is not a matter of better or worse just different.

Pieces that once sat on my easel and drying ledge are now on the gallery walls. Brand new abstract florals just weeks old. I often study a painting that is drying in my studio while working on another at my easel. Thinking and understanding what needs to happen next or what might change. The process of art consumes most of my thoughts while working or otherwise.

A still life of random objects juxtaposed with abstract shapes in surprising colors support the image. Not typical just fun. A Vermont stream with a magical interpretation. A touch of fantasy to bring the viewer into a world far from reality. A longhorn next to an image of a snowy landscape displaying the work of industrious beavers one winter on Adams Street near our family home in Massachusetts. Years ago. A variety of compositions intended to provide something for everyone.

A floor fan whirls while a fellow library goer adjusted the direction of the flow of air. Had he looked at the art as he walked past it? Don’t know. He had to go by it.

“Repose.” A ballerina whose sculptured back is the focus. Heightened anatomical information to reinforce the movement of her pose. Muscles and ribs explained. The influence of Lucien Freud, maybe. Would like to do more of that. Uncomfortable information appeals to me.

Movement on display in “Run Wild Run Free.” Thundering horses. Bold color choices. Using unusual colors to describe the usual. The largest painting in the exhibit, and it didn’t show as well as it might. The painting is most powerful hung just a bit higher with plenty of space above and below. Viewed from steps away. A special painting as it will never happen again. I entered a special creative space while painting it that happens rarely. The energy and excitement of painting this piece is unrivaled. Well, except for the dancers in my painting “Dancing at Dartmouth.”

Feedback on my world. My heart. My soul. A required guest book purchased by me invited visitors to weigh in. My stomach hurt as I approached the podium with the details of my exhibit. Bio, inventory list and the guest book. A long black pen attached to the podium by a silver flexible chain available for viewers to enter comments.

“Love your art” “Make prints” Jill

“Lovely exhibit” Kip

I despise the print conversation but thrilled there were no negative comments. Yet. The cost to properly scan a large painting and make prints is no small expense. An inventory of prints takes up studio space while collecting dust.

Tessa had warned me that other artists had received unpleasant and hurtful comments when we spoke of guest book requirement at our first meeting months ago. I nervously shook my head in response mentally recalling my mother telling us if we didn’t have something nice to say then don’t say anything at all. Growing more and more concerned about what comments might be written about my work, I walked away after tidying my information and business cards till my next visit.