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Every year, the Oxford Gallery in Rochester, NY has an invitational show.  The theme is usually pretty generic, like “Nocturne” or “Tradition”.  It allows for a lot of artistic interpretation, while still maintaining a level of consistency.  This year’s theme is “Palimpsest”, which ought to invite a little more variation than usual.  Traditionally, a palimpsest s a manuscript page from a scroll or book from which the text has been scraped off and which can be used again.  It is an image in which another, and presumably earlier image shows through; an image which contains evidence of its own history.

Since this is a more abstract idea, I really wracked my brain to come up with something.  I could work with the theme figuratively or literally.  The possibilities were endless.

I settled on a landscape – which is very uncharacteristic of me.  But it gave me a chance to work out some ideas I’ve had about drawing on old maps and pages of books.  I’ve noticed quite a few artists working this way lately.  One of my favorites is Paula Swisher.

My piece is titled “On The Road To Rainier”.  My husband and I took a road trip out west to celebrate our honeymoon a few years ago.  One of my best memories was walking through the alpine meadows around Mt. Rainier.  I worked from a number of photos we took to get my final image.  If you look closely, you might be able to see Mt. Rainier on the map towards the upper right hand corner.  It’s a little easier to see “Washington” in the lower left hand corner.

I dropped my painting off on Saturday, and found that it was one of the smallest pieces there (11 x 14″ including the frame).  The show opens to the public Saturday April 21st and runs through Saturday June 2nd.  The opening reception for this show is Saturday May 5th 5:30-8:30 pm. For more information about this show please contact The Oxford Gallery @ 585-271-2570.