What I didn't know when I wrote my last post is that Lois was in the hospital. She passed away Tuesday morning, the 9th.
To what I wrote about her, and her artwork, and how she inspired me, I will add that she battled severe health problems for many years. She had debilitating rheumatoid arthritis that was disintegrtating every joint in her body. She had operation after operation, and it was a miracle that she could stand, let alone walk, let alone work so hard at making paintings.
Her immune system was so delicate that it was an infection, minor to most of us, that began the cascade of her organs being finally overwhelmed.
She painted in a large studio two floors above me. Knowing that she was up there every day, and possibly late at night, obsessively making her marks on a canvas, and knowing that she had been doing this for thirty years seemed to me to give a soul and moral direction to this building where several other artists live and/or work.
Several summers ago when I was on the roof garden learning to paint, she stopped to demonstrate a brushstroke. I had been used to making strokes on whole walls and rooms. She showed me how to slow down, and scale down, very small. How to make minute, very soft brustrokes in the oil paint that created a shimmering blended surface. It was a Zen like focus, paying incredible attention to small, small things, that startled me and showed me an intensity that I will always remember and try to emulate.
Thank you to Lois for being passionate and serious about making art.
See
http://www.fosterwhite.com for more information.
"The Big Bang"Juan Alonso, 2007ink, graphite / Claybord, unframed: 30 x 30"
