The place where I am most comfortable in my drawings and paintings, is standing right on the threshold between abstraction and reality. I am interested in distilling the subjective world into color form and light and seeing how brain responds, and how the visual language of my art “reads.” I often paint recognizable shapes and forms, and sometimes very realistic images that hint at a narrative. But it is the colors, forms, and overall mark-making that call to me. There is an ebb and flow in my painting process. I begin by rapidly applying subtle color variations of paint, responding to the paint itself more than rigidly adhering to my preconceived plan. I pour translucent washes, smear thicker layers of viscose paint, scrape lines into the surface, and dab and poke at the surface with rags. When I finally pause, I realize my hands are covered with colors, my palette is a mess, rags and paper towels litter the surfaces where opened tubes and jars of paint are scattered in chaos. This is when I need to sit with the work. To be with it, live with it, to listen to what it is saying. I find the “disrupted” reality of realism mixed with abstraction offers me new ways of responding to emotions and ideas. I tip the balance between abstraction and reality back and forth as a tool to enter into a new emotional place.
Heather Stivison: Restoring her Story
The work is a drawing of my mother in her WWII R.A.F. Bomber Command uniform. The pages are from ‘The Settlement Cookbook’ she was given to teach her how to be a ‘good American housewife’ upon arriving in the U.S. A drawing of her military logo and an old-fashioned stocking clip float beside her, no longer used. Painted red stitches hold these in place.. The work is a drawing of my mother in her R.A.F. uniform from when she served in Bomber Command during WWII. The base of the work are eight pages from ‘The Settlement Cookbook’ she was given to teach her how to be a ‘good American housewife’ when she came to the U.S. A drawing of her military logo and an old-fashioned stocking clip float beside her, no longer connected to her life. Painted red stitches–women’s work–hold hold them in place.
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