by Kathleen Conover, AWS-df, NWS
On September 28, 2022, our winter getaway on Pine Island, Florida, was directly hit by Hurricane Ian. We were in Northern Michigan at the time, far away from the firsthand trauma of the event. Once basic infrastructure was restored on the island, we headed down. Although we had damage and my studio was a complete loss, I can only feel gratitude for not losing everything, like so many others. The emotional impact of lost lives and the overwhelming widespread destruction can’t be shown or felt in pictures or videos. It took us awhile to take it all in, but when the initial shock lessened, we started to clean up. After many days of tree removal, untangling construction debris, power washing, bleaching walls, combing insulation from foliage, etc., something else happened. The emotional impact was starting to filter through this artist’s mind.
I began to see exciting abstract designs in the destroyed homes and the huge piles of debris accumulating on the roadsides. I sheepishly started taking photos, concerned not to become callused to other’s misfortune. While waiting for my studio construction to begin, I started en plein air sketching and electronically playing with my photos — cropping them, rotating them, and putting them in grayscale. Loving the raw beauty of the elements of line, shape, texture, size, and motion, I began to see order in the chaos.
Working in a Strathmore, spiral “Visual Journal” of 140#, 9”x12” watercolor paper, I drew off 8”x8” squares to do my individual studies (a Stan Kurth suggestion). Each work started with a specific inspiration or focus and shortly I abandoned the scene, photo, and any plan and embraced where the work was going on its own. Each work became a new, intuitive adventure.
These small format, one-to-two hour painting sessions also gave me an opportunity to explore different materials and styles of approach. The works were always abstracted, some totally expressive and non-objective, while some held on to a bit of visual reference. Watercolor was the foundation medium throughout my book, mainly because of its portability. I also played with ink, gouache, charcoal and graphite. (We had traveled to Pine Island with a backpack, so art materials were minimal).
Canal View
My process usually started with a photo or plein air sketch, as in this view of sunken and torn down boat lifts in Canal view, original photo. Next, I often edited a specific photo. I would sometimes crop it, flip the orientation, or put it in the grayscale, looking for compositional possibilities. Just sketching and working with the photo of the canal clarified my feelings about what I was seeing, before ever starting to paint. Canal View ended up being a very quick ink and watercolor study that captured the chaos I saw.
For a slideshow, please see below.
Flowers Still Bloom
An unexpected beauty was seeing the flowers that continued to bloom in the piles of debris and ripped up landscapes. Birds still flocked, sang and built their nests. Butterflies continued to migrate. They all felt like little miracles and I had to stop work in awe. I started Flowers Still Bloom with a photo of my neighbor’s house. Cropping, rotating, and putting this photo in grayscale freed me from the sense of a grounded house or traditional garden. The chaos in the finished work reflects the chaos of the demolished home, but the colors intentionally defy any sense of gloom. Flowers still bloom and life goes on.
For a slideshow, please see below.
Pier Pressure
Seeing Pine Island’s iconic fishing pier demolished by the wrath of the sea was in direct conflict with the sense of calm I felt. The gently lapping harbor water surrounding the pier was in direct contrast to the visual destruction. I intended to show that contrast, but first, there was fun to be had with my line drawing. Focusing in on the end of the pier for one set of ink lines, I overlapped and offset another set of lines, picking up on any angles, shapes, curves, or patterns that interested me. It felt like contour drawing which is always fun. The first photo below — Pier pressure, start — shows the first layer of my watercolor painting, which was negatively painted around random shapes. Some of those shapes remained white while others allowed me to put in a medium value, saturated green. A minimum use of dark values completed a loose, grid format composition. The large areas were intentionally left more calm as a contrast to the dynamic movement in line and small shapes in the finished work below.
For a slideshow, please see below.
Crushed
There is endless potential for new abstract designs from scenes of crushed debris on the curbside, like my original photo of Crushed below. The electronic manipulation of photos is a fun skill-building exercise in itself. My cropped photo was the beginning of my painting but, as often happens, the piece went in a direction of its own. Intuitive painting was the new plan of action. Each new decision was based on what happened before, until the final development of the finished work below.
For a slideshow, please see below.
In the future, I might take my experience, photos, and small works for inspiration and work larger paintings — or not. Since I am satisfied with the expressiveness and variety of my finished works — 22 in all — maybe I’ll simply close the (sketch)book on this particular chapter of painting.
I believe that art can heal on different levels. Painting my post-hurricane experience helped me get beyond the loss and see the positive. So much humanity was wonderfully expressed by people helping people and the rapid progress of community clean-up. The miracles of nature’s reclamation of what is hers is life-affirming. All this and more was very meaningful to me. It was a source of inspiration and gave me energy to paint, but it’s also a reminder that artists find inspiration and design possibilities everywhere: city streets, a walk in nature, our home habitat or travels afar. We are fortunate to have art in our lives, in its many forms. It affords us a meaningful way to process our experiences and feelings by fully engaging our head, our heart, and our hands.
More Works
See below for a slideshow of 4 other finished small works, each 8”x8”, in watercolor, gouache, ink pen, and graphite.
