Showing at the Mobile Museum of Art
June 10, 2011 by Susan Downing-White
I didn’t tell anyone I was coming. It was the day before the official opening of The Prominence of Place: Dori De Camillis & Susan Downing-White. What a thrill it was to slip in the front door, turn the corner and see my newest paintings on a blue wall. A blue so perfect, I can’t imagine any other shade would have suited them so well. Donan Klooz and Paul Richelson, curators at the museum, really did a wonderful job in the concept for pairing Dori’s and my paintings, and also in the presentation of our work.
Four of the paintings were created for this show, twelve others were lent by generous collectors all over the country, but mainly in New Orleans and one from Mobile. When I made the list of works to try to borrow, I thought of paintings I lived with briefly before shipping them off for a show. My favorites quickly found new homes and were gone. It’s one of the things you get used to, but I wanted to see them again.
Seven of the borrowed paintings continue the painting out onto their frames. There’s an evolution to the frames I’ve used, starting with a simple circle cut out of masonite in the painting, Only Here. I’ve had lumber specially milled in the flat, plein-air style frame that gives me space to include small trompe l’oeil objects on the grisaille paint. Having it neatly joined often proved more frustrating than I would have dreamed possible.
Because one very good joiner moved away just before a show, I went through a period of constructing my own painting and frame combination–by sewing them out of heavy cotton canvas. (In the show, these are Her Vine Covered Cottage and When Ships Come In.) I was feeling desperate and happened to look at a tablecloth with a mitered border in my dining room–an idea was born. I remember comments the curator for a show of Alabama artists at the National Museum for Women in the Arts, Ruth Stevens Appelhof, made when she saw my home-made solution. She thought I ought to make some really large versions of my paintings. Maybe one day I will, but seeing the two at the museum reminded me what an awful chore that sewing was, and how imperfect the result. I’d have to find someone to do it for me next time.
But these frames on the newest paintings are my favorites of all time! I’ve found two lovely moldings from Florida Frames in Clearwater, who cut and assembled them with wonderful precision. I paint the inner part and then add a gilded edge. The next paintings I make, for a show in March 2012 at Cole Pratt gallery in New Orleans, may have a tortoise-shell finish over the gold leaf. I forgot I’d done that, but there it was on one of my paintings from 1997.
Probably one of the best things about this experience is that I see how my work has changed since the earliest painting in the show, done in 1996. I remember where I was and how I felt when I made each of these paintings, but they all share a common thread and hang together well.
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Showing at the Mobile Museum of Art
June 10, 2011 by Susan Downing-White
I didn’t tell anyone I was coming. It was the day before the official opening of The Prominence of Place: Dori De Camillis & Susan Downing-White. What a thrill it was to slip in the front door, turn the corner and see my newest paintings on a blue wall. A blue so perfect, I can’t imagine any other shade would have suited them so well. Donan Klooz and Paul Richelson, curators at the museum, really did a wonderful job in the concept for pairing Dori’s and my paintings, and also in the presentation of our work.
Four of the paintings were created for this show, twelve others were lent by generous collectors all over the country, but mainly in New Orleans and one from Mobile. When I made the list of works to try to borrow, I thought of paintings I lived with briefly before shipping them off for a show. My favorites quickly found new homes and were gone. It’s one of the things you get used to, but I wanted to see them again.
Seven of the borrowed paintings continue the painting out onto their frames. There’s an evolution to the frames I’ve used, starting with a simple circle cut out of masonite in the painting, Only Here. I’ve had lumber specially milled in the flat, plein-air style frame that gives me space to include small trompe l’oeil objects on the grisaille paint. Having it neatly joined often proved more frustrating than I would have dreamed possible.
Because one very good joiner moved away just before a show, I went through a period of constructing my own painting and frame combination–by sewing them out of heavy cotton canvas. (In the show, these are Her Vine Covered Cottage and When Ships Come In.) I was feeling desperate and happened to look at a tablecloth with a mitered border in my dining room–an idea was born. I remember comments the curator for a show of Alabama artists at the National Museum for Women in the Arts, Ruth Stevens Appelhof, made when she saw my home-made solution. She thought I ought to make some really large versions of my paintings. Maybe one day I will, but seeing the two at the museum reminded me what an awful chore that sewing was, and how imperfect the result. I’d have to find someone to do it for me next time.
Probably one of the best things about this experience is that I see how my work has changed since the earliest painting in the show, done in 1996. I remember where I was and how I felt when I made each of these paintings, but they all share a common thread and hang together well.
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