INTRODUCTION

This website is a guide to the paintings and other artwork that I have produced over the last 55 years.  The work included in the site begins in 1966 when I was a graduate student at the Yale School Art and continues to the present. Since 1972, I have lived and worked in my loft on Greene Street in SoHo, New York City, where I have produced hundreds of paintings and other artwork some of which is presented here. The ideas that I explore in my paintings are progressive, one group of work leading to another, and I have written about the journey in a limited way throughout the site. Some work and text appear in more than one section. In this part of the site, I present my early artwork, in chronological order, starting in 1966.

EARLY HISTORY

1966 - 2003

I began making things when I was very young and began painting as a young teenager. Eventually, I would incorporate approaches to making things together with my ideas about painting. It was during my time in graduate school that I began my journey. Essentially, my roots go back to Abstract Expressionism and Action Painting and I begin with these works.

Process has always been a central focus in my work. I am interested in the way I make the painting, how the elements of the painting interact with each other, and how parts of the painting are hidden and revealed. I am continually manipulating different elements in each work to produce a unique visual statement that reflects the language I have developed over many years. The underlying structure of the grid has defined the parameters of much my work after I moved away from action painting that I explored in my earliest work. The paintings become confrontational with a strong physical presence as they move outward from the picture plane of the canvas. The surfaces are rich with color and texture and often appear to be carved like a bas-relief, with repetition, symmetry and pattern contributing to their vibrating energy as the paintings assert themselves off the wall.

SHAPES AND MARKS

I have always wanted my paintings to have movement.  I like to feel the energy.  This derives from an early influence of the work of Phoebe Hellman, my first real painting teacher. I have always admired Hellman’s work. From the time I was a teenager, I studied with her in her Manhattan studio, along with a few other friends, all of whom are artists today. Phoebe Hellman introduced me to abstraction and and non-objective painting along with the work of many of the great artists of the 50’s and 60’s.  The following paintings draw on her inspiration and my momentary flirtation with shapes and symbols.  .

DRIPPING, SCRIBBLING AND MARK MAKING

In 1967 I married Robert Schecter, also an artist. After leaving Yale, we moved to a large loft on Greene Street in SoHo. The loft was big enough for both of us to have separate studios. When I started painting in this loft, my work began to change and shapes and mark making began to dominate the paintings.  Eventually the shapes disappeared, and my paintings consisted of marks, scribbling, and drips, reflecting my rejection of making traditional space. These were the last paintings I was to make using oil paint.  My attitude toward art making began to evolve and I sought a different experience in painting.  I no longer wanted to make performance-based art.  I was interested in making something that was based on a system and had a logical beginning and end.  Influenced by my interest in knitting, crochet, and bargello, I began to use acrylic paint and my painting process changed forever.  Unlike oil paint, acrylic paint dries in layers and this quality had many advantages for me. Eventually, horizontal and vertical bands appeared, and the grid became my underlying organizational tool.

1975.  TRANSITION.  

I stopped drawing. I stopped making space. Only the action of painting mattered. Using tape, I blocked out areas of the ground. I created colored bands and I dripped paint on them.. After removing the tape, the layers that were hidden were revealed. This part of the process always has an element of surprise which I enjoy very much and continues until the present. I begin to consciously work in layers. Acrylic paint, which dries quickly, becomes the perfect medium as I begin to work with hiding and revealing areas of the canvas.