DC: The title of your solo exhibition is ordinary awe, and indeed, the subject of your bodies of work centers on everyday natural themes – flowers, gardens, communing with friends to make art together outdoors. Deep engagement with nature is integral to your art. Can you elaborate on the value you see in the ordinary and in the natural world?
LB: I have come to value the small, overlooked, and unnoticed. A Chicago city park can offer as many delights as a national one. It is a site for noticing nature: the unfolding of seasons, the first leaf buds, the smell of autumn, turtles sunbathing etc. And people too: folks fishing, dog walking, exercising, bird watching. In life and in art, the grand and the monumental have a gravitational pull. We want to go bigger, to acquire and experience more. We can lose sight of what is in front of us. In privileging the everyday, the ordinary, I am striving towards an alternative to this make-it-bigger-give-me-more ethic/aesthetic. I am striving – not always succeeding - by working towards being alive to the present and celebrating the small moments, interactions, and observations.
DC: In previous writings, you’ve emphasized the importance of observing nature and then adapting your means of depicting it accordingly, as well as the importance of close observation. Can you talk about your process of visual engagement? In other words, when you are sitting before scene, how do you approach looking and interpreting what you see before you?
LB: I am observing to discover. My hope is to experience and to feel, rather than to render or illustrate. I love to play on the picture plane, to pluck out, and to move around shapes and colors from the landscape. I swivel my head to see what’s over my shoulder. As time passes and conditions change, I continue to revise and add in new things. Part of the joy and pleasure of being outdoors is this multi-dimensional way of seeing. Everything is always in flux. The light shifts, the shadows vanish or deepen. I am very interested in this dynamic unfolding and try to make watercolors that respond to it.
DC: Given that the Plein Air project/Archive has been an ongoing part of your practice, can you talk a bit about the common threads linking together the specific group of paintings you’re presenting in our exhibition at Goldfinch, and how you considered the many choices involved in shaping the presentation itself?
LB: I love all my dates! Each one bursts with intimacy, feeling, and discovery. I am amazed at how these encounters forge strong emotional bonds. There are specific dates and watercolors, however, that I hoped to work with for this show. Something about these dates - the watercolors made, the locations, and particular exchanges between myself and my companion - resonate in a particular ineffable long-lasting way. Painting in the Portland Maine airport with Ariel Wood as we waited for our respective flights home from the Watershed Residency is one such date. The parameters of painting in this setting were totally new! My 2022 L.A. dates with Christy Matson in a Hahamongna park and with Tyler Vlahovich along a stretch of Arroyo Seco are two more. Christy is a longtime friend who I was so happy to spend time with and Tyler, bless him, accepted my out-of-the-blue proposition to go on a painting date. We had never met, and I am a huge admirer of his work. The two most recent paintings in the show are from my autumn 2023 painting date with Arnold Kemp in the garden behind the Garfield Park Conservatory and my 2022 date with Soumya Netrabile at the Montrose Bird Sanctuary. Although Arnold and I had met briefly at a party, this was the first time we really spent time together talking. The date seemed bathed in magic from my perspective and Soumya and I met for the first time on our date. We painted in glow of a late summer evening as the sun was setting. We have painted many many times together since!
DC: This type of meaningful human connection is clearly integral to your creative process. Your Plein Air Archive is filled with documentations of hundreds of painting dates, and you’ve mentioned how your companions’ work from these dates inspire your studio work. You’ve also noted that those painting dates feel just as much a part of the artwork as the paintings themselves. Can you talk in a bit more detail about how you bring elements of each painting date to your studio afterwards, and how that shapes the paintings you make in response to that particular day?
LB: When I am in the studio working on the painting that references a particular date, I am thinking about that person and our shared time. As the painting progresses, I often text them in-progress-photos. I know I couldn’t make the work without their work, and it feels right to share, to somehow fold them into this more private part of the making process. The paintings arise out of collages. I compose these collages from printouts of the plein air watercolors -- mine and my dates'. I often have this material sprawled out on one of my worktables. I play with the imagery in between working on already in progress paintings, combining bits and bobs from various watercolors (in print out form), sometimes using one whole image as a support for the collage.
DC: Watercolor is a medium that’s central to your artistic process, as seen in the grid of watercolor paintings on view in the exhibition. You’ve talked about trying to get other paints to conform to watercolor and behave like it, and have also mentioned that your affinity for watercolor stems in part from a desire to utilize a medium that has not been deemed serious, especially in its association with women artists. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
LB: I lost both my parents when I was in my twenties. Decades later, these profound losses play an outsized role in my desire to make invitational, beautiful, and accessible art that is generated out of connection and exchange with others. I think about my mother a lot. She was an accomplished watercolorist and my first art teacher. Perhaps then it is no surprise that I have always painted in her medium. Although it is only in the past ten years that I have come to prize watercolor, valuing it on equal footing with oil and acrylic. I can’t talk about my predilection for transparent and soak stain painting without mentioning Helen Frankenthaler. She is a primary painting influence. I was lucky to encounter her work very young and it obviously made a huge impression! I currently employ acrylic as if it were watercolor. I have a multiple motivations. I love the challenge of coaxing one medium to appear like another. Most importantly this watercolor-esque language best suits the parameters of this plein air project. I have embraced a transparent use of paint with a larger purpose, to celebrate and elevate watercolor. Let’s face it, watercolor historically has not had the best rap. I can’t help but think that is partially due to its association with dabblers and their “light” subject. I suspect when imagining such a hobby or “Sunday painters,” many picture a woman, perhaps even an older woman.
DC: You are both an artist and educator. How does teaching shape your approach to art-making?
My work with the Nathan and Kiyoko Lerner Foundation is a powerful force shaping my studio practice. Nathan and Kiyoko are known for discovering the work of Henry Darger. I was 21 when I met them. Nathan reminded me of my grandfather; we hit it off. After his death in 1997, Kiyoko established the foundation and invited me to create and run an art studio at Thresholds Chicago, which serves people managing mental health issues. This studio - on Chicago’ southside - is a level learning space, where the artists and I create side by side, learning from one another. This mode of making - a kind of parallel play - laid the foundation for the painting dates that are the heart of the plein air project.
At the start of the pandemic, the Art Institute – where I teach - closed. Thresholds no longer served its clients in person. I started offering art classes online, without institutional backing. I am now on my 15th class. I design these classes to foster community, joy in making art, and curiosity. All things that motivate and inspire me in my own practice. I have found my true voice as an educator through these offerings, helping folks – mostly women, as it happens - carve out space for a shared creative practice in their crowded lives. This scrappy way of doing things is a hallmark of my life.
