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Today, I received a surprising email that got me looking back on my evolution as an artist over the past ten years. The email was from a person who had purchased a painting of mine at an estate sale and wanted to know more about it. They sent a photo of this piece from 2015:

Looking at it sent me on a journey back to my roots as a painter. Although I have been an artist my whole life, I began painting regularly in 2014, after a long hiatus, occupied by raising children and running a vintage clothing business.

In searching for inspiration and motivation for what to paint, I started looking at the work of tonalist and impressionist landscape painters like George Innes, James MacNeill Whistler, and Monet.

The landscape of my home in the Finger Lakes region of upstate NY has dramatic seasonal shifts, which I witnessed on my weekly excursions to nearby towns in search of vintage clothing for my business. During my drives, I would take photos to capture the nuances of light and shadow and then work from the pictures in my studio.

Between 2014 and 2017, I faithfully painted each season as it arrived. Monochromatic winters with a pale sun peeking moodily through the foggy skies, spring filled with vivid pale yellow/greens and colorful flowers, summer’s brilliant sun coming through trees in the woods or reflected on the lake, and autumn’s golden light, and jewel-toned foliage.

Each change in season brought with it inspiration and new paintings. My style was loose and a bit impressionistic, and I never had trouble deciding what to paint. Until one day, after a very prolific and colorful season of Autumnal paintings, I suddenly didn’t want to paint another winter. I felt that I had already painted my best winter scenes and didn’t feel compelled to paint the landscape anymore. I thought that the subject had been exhausted for the time being.

These thoughts led to a feeling of artist’s block. I spun my wheels for a bit, and then, thanks to the influence of a friend, an abstract artist, I made some experimental abstract pieces.

Suddenly, there was a breakthrough, and I understood how making abstract art freed me from constantly needing to find a subject. Instead of thinking about what my painting was meant to represent, it became the subject itself. It's not OF anything. It is what it is. It is texture, it is color, it is shape, and when done right, it is free of resembling anything in the physical world. It becomes more of an object to react to emotionally.

In the seven years since I abandoned representational landscape painting, I have only painted one landscape, a view from my roof deck during last summer’s devastating forest fires in Canada. The sky was slate grey, and the sun was a red ball of fire. I thought perhaps I’d do more, but I did not.

If you want to see my early landscape artwork, scroll through my Instagram, @minimalistabstraction,back to 2017- (this may take a while!) There, you will see the transition in my style. Sometimes, I wonder if I should go back and start repainting landscapes. What do you think?