I currently have a thorn installation, River of Solace, River of Hope,on view at the Nerman Musem of Contemporary Art. It will be up until January 28, 2018 as part of the exhibition, Ephemera.
Here are a couple of images, shot by photographer, EG Schempf, of the piece:
The installation is about 44’ long. It crawls along two walls and wraps around a corner. It is made of thorns from the honey locust tree, painted with oils. It is the first time that I have used oil paint on these thorns and I found the way that I could rub the paint into the thorns and the depth and variation of color to be very rewarding. The piece is a general reference to the power of art and the power of nature to offer inspiration, renewal and a kind of secular spirituality in these troubled times.
I have a couple of detail images in the strong light of my studio before I installed it at the museum :
Here is another detail taken in the more muted light of the museum gallery shortly after installation. One of these is the same thorn, I think. I respond to the gesture and the elegance of these forms.
A friend asked how I had determined the color palette for this work and I couldn’t come up with a specific response immediately. I had selected some markers to make a drawing and I knew that I wanted them in rather muted tones.
This is an image of a wall in my studio that shows the working palettes and the rags that I used to rub the oil paint into the thorns as I worked…
Another detail of the final piece:
A few weeks later, I was cleaning out some bark in the garage. There was a piece of bark, about 5-6 feet, from a honey locust tree that I had brought home and left in the garage for about six months, just because it was so lovely with lichen growing on it. I had parked next to it every day for months, and finally realized that I wasn’t going to do anything with it, so I took it out to the green recycling trash. However, I kept a small section and took it back to my studio.
At that point, I realized where the color palette had come from,
Oh.
SUSAN WHITE 