LandEscape Art Review // Special Issue | Page 104

Land scape
Gail Factor
CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW
along the Pacific coast . Later , some of these impressions , or vestiges of them , would make it to the canvas . As mentioned , her life drawings were also studies that transmuted into abstract form , signifying earth , sky and water .
Rigorous in process and structure , my mother painted almost every day of her life . The exception would be if she were travelling or when family would visit ( and in those instances her creative eye was still at work ). Her studio always had two large easels set up ; multiple canvases rested on them , poised as works in progress . Oil paints and palettes were always out on the table . She spent from two to eight hours a day in the studio , at times possibly more . She alternated between painting in silence and with music to accompany her process . Her musical selection was diverse - anything from classical Bach to Motown hits . The choice must have been informed , on any given day , by personal vagaries , but I also believe the subject matter of a painting and its personal import to her had an unconscious hand in the musical preference or silence . Wherever she lived , she had a studio on site , separate from her house . Her atelier was always a place of focus and , in a way , a spiritual space for her . This actually was palpable to anyone entering her cherished workspace .