Sur La Table

At first, as an artist, if you stop painting portraits, you can paint still lifes. They begin in the kitchen— no, they begin in a garden— if not your own, then the gardens of farmers at markets in Chautauqua or Shaker Square. And in the market you discover a big knobby cauliflower with gigantic leaves that seem strange and unfamiliar. And would that enormous cauliflower look good on a table with some kitchen paraphernalia tucked amongst its scary greenery?

With that cauliflower, I became hooked on still lifes. Surprisingly, all the fruits and vegetables and crockery and other items were a lot of fun to paint. They didn’t mind if the picture did not look just like them (unlike the humans whose facial expressions and character were so difficult to paint exactly right).

And there were these artists like Van Gogh and Vuillard, Cezanne, Monet and Bonnard and all those Japanese printmakers, who lit my way. So that, for ten years, I was able to grow as an artist who was excited, challenged, and content with arranging each still life as a ‘visual walkabout’ placed in a unique setting that I found both beautiful and intriguing.

Gloria Plevin
April 25, 2018