Out of Fashion

“Fashion is for fools. Quality is always in”

Mrs. Eudora W. Barnstable in Goodnight, Mr. Wodehouse by F. Sullivan

This is a favorite quote from a book I read a year or two ago. It’s issued from an aging woman--a matriarch in her small, midwestern community--who is very confidently out of fashion. Her snobbish attitude towards something that’s so pervasive in our culture is delightfully contrarian. It also rings truer than ever in a time when goods are mass produced, consumed, and disposable.

My most recent group of paintings is based on my love for quality over the latest trend but also the intersection of the natural and manufactured elements that we encounter in our spaces. A log cabin built in the 1950s, an original bottle of Johnson baby shampoo beneath a glimmering shift of sunlight, a breeze passing through a window fan from the 80s and so on. Our spaces are filled with these contradictions and imperfections, yet create a space of harmony.

I enjoy exploring this intersection of manmade objects and nature and how we create our own little worlds within a much larger, more dominant, natural world. There is nothing that can be created, fashionable or not, that will eclipse the feeling of a warm breeze on one’s skin or a slice of sunlight slipping through a window. Nature will always be “in”. There is a timelessness and quality in nature that can’t be rivaled.

This series is comprised of works that convey spaces that are personally resonant to me. They evoke for me a keen sense of nostalgia, a love for place. My hope is that through art--through their representation--that they may emanate this familiarity and resonance for others, as well.