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Whooping Crane

A 2019 New York Times article on global avian decline inspired me to paint a series of endangered birds to raise awareness about their vulnerability. The element and leggy Whooping Crane was an easy choice to kick off this series of paintings. There are several vulnerable and endangered crane species. To learn more, visit InternationalCrane.org.

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Regular studio happenings, new pattern designs and gardening at 8K.

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Mar 29

Well, the vernal equinox came and went. It is still winter here and was -2 yesterday morning. I’m on day 88 of my daily color journal and like any body of work, it keeps evolving and the ideas are multiplying and I have a show in mind.

We are headed into warmer temperatures and shifting colors. It is always beautiful here, even during the shoulder seasons. Amazing passage by Robert McFarlane on Barry Lopez’s work via @orion_magazine:

“A keynote—a grace note, really—of Barry’s vast and varied body of work concerns the need to speak with precision about the places you inhabit and that inhabit you. To be able to disaggregate and denote the elements of your home ground is not to practice an Adamic, possessive form of naming, but rather to sharpen perception—and to begin to honor the immense complexities, human and more-than-human, of a given landscape and its communities. Good place-language, well used, opens onto mystery, grows knowledge, and summons wonder. And in the absence of an exact and detail-giving lexis, the living world can blur into a generalized wash of green, becoming an easily disposable backdrop. Certainly, the nuances observed by specialized vocabularies of place-perception are evaporating from common usage, burnt off by capital, apathy, and virtualization. The terrain beyond the city fringe has become progressively more understood in terms of large generic units (field, hill, valley, wood) and as such, more exploitable. Landscape has become blandscape, ripe for rezoning. We are increasingly blasé about place, in the sense that Georg Simmel used the term in his 1903 essay “The Metropolis and Mental Life,” to mean “indifferent to the distinction between things.”

Mar 24

Cottonwood buds and blue sky. Daily color journal.

Mar 23

The snow keeps coming and our bird feeders resemble a rave at a popular nightclub. Hundreds of birds swarm the bird feeders from dawn to dusk and I never tire of watching the different species, personalities and colors. I was watching a purple finch from the studio deck and took note of how extensive its feather color range is. This daily color journal is making me realize what I previously took for granted and what a gift looking is.

PS: It says house finch and I have yet to correct it to purple finch.

Mar 20

Another from my Poetry in Motion series inspired by TS Elliot’s Four Quartets — “The Past has another pattern and ceases to be a sequence.”

I found a vintage Mexican calendar in a flea market and held onto it for years knowing it would slot into place sometime, somewhere. I placed “la revolucionaria” over a built up surface which I collaged, then sanded back down again several times until I got the perfect texture. I love that she accessorizes with bandoliers AND hair ribbons.

I have had a few inquiries about this series but I haven’t posted them on my website yet. We are in the process of a new website overhaul so we are waiting to upload newer work.

These are for sale, just DM us or email studio@isacatto.com for details.

Mar 13

Inspiration 🌷Painting 🌷Pattern. This weekend I was at a lovely family wedding sporting several of my hummingbird scarves and I always get asked about the process from inspiration to inception. So I decided to throw together the transition on video.
I never get tired of watching hummingbirds so I decided to keep them afloat in one of our signature patterns — the flowerkisser comes in gray, red and yellow.

Mar 8

Some of you who follow me know that I am documenting the daily color in my Colorado landscape on stories. This is one.

A few of you have asked for the inspiration along with the color study, but this was a bit grisly for show and tell.

“Our” resident lion has been busy of late. I stumbled on the remains of one cow elk in the wilds behind our house. The lion had stashed her body, then dragged it into an open meadow. I approached the carcass with care and only after the lion was done (binoculars are key in this kind of timing, though the lion only dined out of my view.) I then waited for the rest of the cleanup crew of coyotes, eagles, fox, vultures and magpies to arrive before making a closer inspection.

I was struck by how many shades of red and pink still clung to the stripped skeleton and how vivid the colors were against the snow and hide. And how something so macabre could deliver fresh inspiration. I hope this cow’s end came swiftly.

I have yet to see a lion but always see the evidence of their presence on the game trails I walk on,. When my dogs stop and don’t push forward, I follow their lead. Philosophically I appreciate any reminder to be humble, but I am not sure my heart and adrenals do.

Am contemplating on what to do with some of my favorite studies into notebooks, bigger paintings, maybe textiles. Any other ideas?

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