Argentina and Chile

The special charms of Argentina and Chile drew us back to visit a second time. The cities we visited once, we wanted to see again. Santiago, Chile and Buenos Aires, Argentina are worth exploring over and over. We also visited El Calafate, Bariloche, Ushuaia, and Iguassu Falls in Argentina and Punta Arenas, Valparaisa and Vina del Mar in Chile. Patagonia is the southern part of South America and includes both countries. The glaciers, forests, lakes, animals and flora are incredible.

These two images express all the exitement, charm, life, scenery, smells and tastes of Argentina and Chile. Mountain Sparkle (bottom) and Green and Yellow (top) capture the zest, movement and verve which I feel in the area. Both are archival pigment prints.

Dragonback Lines

The course I took at the Barnes Foundation discussed the four plastic means: color, line, light, and space. I feel the color is a special gift to the world from the Creator. After all, it would still be a beautiful and awesome world in black and white, right? Line always intrigued me. I have been attracted to line in nature as well as in art and adore Toulouse-Lautrec for his dynamic fluid lines. The Barnes has one of his works with a women's neck that I would stare at for hours.

Traveling in China, I saw the Dragon's Backbone terraced rice fields in the country side and was fascinated by the pattern and shape of the lines in landscape. The first work I posted on this blog on Friday- Dragonback Lines 3- is a mixed media piece inspired by such a landscape.

Here I have shared a photograph of the actual terraced rice fields and another interpretation of it titled Landscape Lines 4, a monotype.

Beijing Sunrise

When I was very little, digging in the yard, my mother told us we were digging to China! Then there was a song about a slow boat to China. When I was 12 years old, I read The Good Earth and wanted to visit China. It sounded different, interesting, exotic.

More than 50 years later, I live that travel dream and visited China. After a long flight, we arrive in Beijing and finally are relaxed and in a very comfortable bed. My husband is soon snoring and I am tired and ready for sleep but I am wide awake!! I watch the darkness outside the window curtains slowly turn into the sunrise pink light. As I am lying there, I see it as a metaphor for the changes in China from the darkness of exclusion to the light of inclusion, of letting the west in, of letting the people have more freedom, of opening up the Middle Kingdom to other influences.

This experience was the influence for several pieces I did when I got back from this extraordinary trip.The two above are Beijing Dawn (bottom) and Beijing Morning, mixed media.