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Whitney Peckman
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The act of creating comes as a result of the creator opening the self. When we do this we allow for the unexpected, the spontaneous, the immediate and unadorned to enter, and the restrained, fearful and rehearsed to fall away. To live the artist’s life, one’s greatest struggle is not the medium, nor the workspace nor the income. Rather it is the effort required to open one’s self to the unconscious vision. But the reward is so great, engendering such excitement and surrender that we feel lost, as without our lover, when not engaged in the expression of that vision.
About the Gourds...
After twenty-five years of weaving tapestries I discovered the delight and spontaneity of working with the sculptural shapes of large gourds. I filled my studio with dozens and dozens of these creatures, each, in my eye, already evolved into wild poppies, dragonflies zipping through iris, lilies climbing up and over the gourd walls. Then Japanese figures showed up, and nudes, and beetles, and on and on. At first the pieces were simple, but as I experimented, I found that the more opportunity I had to carve and cut away and paint, the more involved I became in each piece until they “finished themselves”. I thought, in the beginning, that I would exhaust this enthusiasm, but here I am many years later, still captivated by what I see in them and by the joy in bringing each piece to fruition as art.
poppies gourd.
About the paintings…
After weaving tapestries for three decades the need to make a change was very great. For sometime I had felt compelled to express the creative voice in a more spontaneous, intuitive way. Clearing both mental and physical space by selling every last vestige of my weaving life threw me into a period of intense creative energy. The next six months of experimental work with mixed materials – paint, pencil, handmade paper, photography, etc. - was in itself generative as the materials both mixed with and resisted one another. Gradually the frenzy of excitement evolved into an opening exercise for this new voice. Beginning with color and mass, which is exactly opposite of beginning tapestry work, I layer transparent colors and forms until something comes breathing forth. Just when I am about to throw up my hands in despair, I try one more layer, and there it is! The spark of image or nuance of memory comes forth. What remains is for me to embellish or surround, isolate or emphasize until the visual music is full. Working in this way allows me to experience the opening of my inner self and to move within that limitless space of possibility.
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