These are just a few of my new paintings in the studio, awaiting transport to Well Street Art Gallery here in Fairbanks for an exhibition with 3 outstanding artist friends--Todd Sherman, Jim Brashear, and Bonni Brooks--all of whom live on our short street. "Merlin Lane Artists" opens this Friday, September 6, from 5-8 pm at Well Street Art Gallery in Fairbanks.
Todd, Jim, and I were colleagues for many years in the University of Alaska Art Department, and Bonni, another longtime friend, is an extraordinary tapestry weaver. We all now live just a few doors apart in Taiga Woodlands, a forested subdivision in the hills overlooking Fairbanks, and we thought it would be great fun to show our very different work together.
A Few Acres of Snow ©Kesler Woodward Acrylic on Canvas 54" x 84"
At 4 1/2 feet by 7 feet, A Few Acres of Snow will be my largest painting in the exhibition. This big, celebratory scene of winter in all its glory was the centerpiece of a solo exhibition of my work in Montreal several years ago, but I have never shown it in the U.S. I am excited to have it back and to show it here. The fun title, suggested by the gallery in Montreal, is what the 18th Century French writer Voltaire called Canada in his most famous work, the novella Candide.
Mysteries ©Kesler Woodward 2024 Acrylic on Canvas 30" x 24"
Right now, summer is waning after months of continuous light in Interior Alaska, and darkness is beginning to steal back into the late hours of twilight. There is richer color in the clear evening skies, and real night is trying to slip in around the edges. I'm always intrigued by the mystery and wonder of that inexorable invasion.
Celestial ©Kesler Woodward 2024 Acrylic on Canvas 24" x 30"
The stars, which I've missed all summer, come back in September.
Snow Music ©Kesler Woodward 2024 Acrylic on Canvas 24" x 30"
And the coming snow is on my mind. I love the months of continuous summer light, but as the days get rapidly shorter, I begin to look forward to the first falling snow. It is only truly dark here for brief periods in the spring and fall. When the last snow disappears in late April or early May, and it's not yet light all night, we have darkness for a few hours each evening. Again in early autumn, when the days grow shorter and the nights longer, for a little while we have real darkness. But soon, the brilliant white snow will start to settle softly not just on the trails and forest floor, but on every twig and branch in the woods, and every bit of ambient light from the moon, the stars, or the lights of our homes is reflected and multiplied a thousandfold. It is never truly dark here in winter. In Snow Music, I'm dreaming in the fall about the colors of winter.
Merlin Birch ©Kesler Woodward 2024 Oil on Canvas 20" x 10"
And birches...always more birches...
Whether gathering wild lowbush cranberries (lingonberries) in our own wooded yard or running with friends on the endless forest trails that lead from our back door, I am surrounded by the birches I love. I can't remember a year when I haven't painted some of their portraits.
I go back and forth between painting in oils and painting in acrylics. The ethereal light of the northern sky seems to me to require the myriad thin layers of transparent acrylic I employ to try to capture some of its magic. But the bark of the birches, just as beautiful but marked by scars, peeling layers of growth, and other events in their lives, is more physical. The life of a birch is written not just in its form, but in its "skin," and celebrating that this year has seemed to me to call for the greater sensuality of oils.
Woodland Neighbors ©Kesler Woodward 2024 Oil on Canvas 24" x 30"
Twins ©Kesler Woodward 2024 Oil on Canvas 30" x 24"
