Trees Like These.
A summer series about the messiness of memory & all the trees I've loved.
Jump to:
• Intro.
• Curiously.
• Homesickness, what is that?
• Quicksilver.
• All the trees I’ve loved.
• Summer elixir.
• Fleeting moments & mundane spaces.
• Fireflies, as always.
• Next up -
• A note on works for sale.
• Post Script.
• Related newsletters.
It’s hard to know where home is
when you live an itinerant life. (Geographically, at least. I think ‘home’ can easily be found in those with whom love flows. In moments that bring uninhibited joy.)
Being often a stranger in strange lands, usually I find home within. But sometimes I do get attached to places - anywhere I leave a part of myself.
Curiously,
trees and water have been defining elements of my comfort wherever I roam, key to my sense of belonging.
I’m generally immune to feelings of homesickness,
but this year it hit in a peculiar way, there was a shift. I’m still sorting out what it means. Here’s a bit of what that looks like:
Memories, I find, are like quicksilver.
In the Hermes sense.
They can be tricky.
They float somewhere at an unseen distance, in a state of flux where mischief can act upon them, call upon them, recast their appearance, their tenor.
This season, mine were tinged with an aching sweetness.
Translating these rememberings into paint feels like messing with time. It brings them near once more, but - true for both paintings and memories - it’s never the real thing, just a diverting stand-in. An alternate telling, at best.
Read about my thoughts on reality in art here.
These past few years, palm trees have cut silhouettes outside my windows.
And, though they have me firmly in their sway, I still don’t know them like I do the trees back east.
The ones I climbed compulsively, dangerously high. The one’s whose rough bark scraped my skin as I tested each branch to bear my weight.
I longed to be near them.
& so this was my summer elixir -
The untraceable sound of a cricket, fading light beaming between branches, trees grown so much taller than when I first met them, familiar fences to lean on and quietly listen, pulling onions and gathering tomatoes, a pushy, churning, late August wave.
Fleeting moments & mundane spaces.
(Generally considered mundane, I don’t believe them to be.) These are things that collect in my memory and eventually appear on my canvases.
It begins and ends with fireflies.
I’m convinced they’re the spell that calls forth the realm of memory. Or, at least they invoke my daydreaming. They’re the precursor each time I notice myself looking back - what lulled me into this summer’s fever dream.
I answered their beckoning, travelled home, and sought them out at that very precise moment when darkness settles in a thin fog just above the grass.
Seeing that first flash will never be any less of a thrill.
Though,
those sultry evenings now turned crisp, I’m excited for what lies ahead. If this summer was a hazy state of half-conscious remembering, fall is a clear-eyed rush towards the multitude of things & ideas I love to delirious excess - and I’m in a mad dash painting all I can manage.
Follow along to see what winter brings.
x Lauren
Next newsletter -
I share all about my studio ‘supports’ (I’ll explain what I mean in said post) that I use to keep my practice rolling forward smoothly. Refer a friend if you’d like access to my Monthly Monday series!
A note on works for sale:
I don’t often let go of many original paintings (apart from commissions), but I will be releasing a few either by the end of the year or early next. I will announce when and how you can collect them via my Monthly Monday newsletter & in direct communications to collectors who have inquired.
There are some paintings I can’t let go of as I’ve submitted them to future shows. I don’t know when those will come available.
I do have a shop of prints, it will be updated soon with a new round from this summer series. Please message me if there’s a specific painting you’d like to see made available as a print.
Post script -
This isn’t my entire Summer 2023 series. It’d have been too much to share them all in this newsletter. Be sure to follow me on Instagram to never miss a painting.
Looking for more? Here are few newsletters that might interest you:
• Speaking of fireflies, this might be my favorite painting I’ve ever done. For good reason.
• A favorite: this newsletter discusses what I adore about painting as well as a list of some beloved artists and their works that knock me sideways.
• Small is seriously underrated. Read about what I call “Jewel Box Paintings” here.
If you like what you read here, invite friends! Let’s all chat art forever and ever.
Welcome to my Third Thursday newsletter! Where I share my latest artworks, highlighted works from my archive, the process of how I create, announcements for the sale of original pieces, and print releases.
If you’d like to support my career by becoming a paid subscriber, I have a Monthly Monday newsletter with discussion topics covering in-depth knowledge of a working artist, background stories to go along with my pieces, detailed material suggestions, first refusal for original pieces and limited edition prints, and talk of art heroes who shape my ideas about painting - to name a few. On these newsletters I’ll also take topic suggestions for future Monday newsletters.
©Lauren Elyse S., 2023. All rights reserved.
This newsletter is not to be reproduced in whole without specific written permission. Sharing of small excerpts permitted with credit and links back. Thank you.