A Tale of Three Cities

Over the past year, I’ve been extremely fortunate to travel a fair bit and this has opened up some new sources of inspiration for me in my cityscape work. These are the benefits of being the “portable artist spouse” of a business school professor.

Featured here are three new pieces, each one from one of my favorite tourist destinations during these recent months. You will see these new originals exhibited at the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts during the weekend of July 12 – 15, 2012. I will display my artwork in booth O-49, along Fairmount Avenue near the intersection with Fraser Street.
The first piece is Study, Parisian Night. I found this subject while walking through the streets of Paris on my way to dinner with my husband. I was pleasantly surprised by how walkable Paris is because there are always so many other people out and about that I felt quite safe just wandering around and finding cool things like this composition.

The second piece is entitled Duality, and it’s a continuation of a theme that I’ve enjoyed exploring for many years in my cityscapes: The relationship between people, storefront windows, and reflections. I found this latest subject during an absolutely perfect early summer afternoon in Milan, Italy. Since returning home last month, I’ve been somewhat amused by the travel section advertisements in the Washington Post because they often run ads for “Essential Italy” and Milan is not regarded as one of the highly desirable cities to visit in Italy. I haven’t been to southern Italy yet, and I understand that it’s superlative. But Milan was pretty righteous for me. You will see more works inspired by my trip there in the coming months. Indeed, Duality is now the third piece I’ve created based upon that trip. Earlier pieces included Standoff and Headturner.

Finally, there is Twilight Brights, a work inspired by, where else? Midtown Manhattan. When I exhibit my artwork at outdoor art shows, I often explain to patrons that when I capture a subject like this, it’s less about the literal subject (a plain old row of taxi cabs) than it is about the pattern of color and shapes. This new piece exemplifies that interest. I was attracted to the pattern of rich colors and vibrant lights. The taxis are purely incidental, but they work.