© 2023 Kathryn Freeman Studios

art

"The Collector", oil on panel, 26" x 32"

This is a portrait I just completed for the New York collector Neale Albert and his lovely wife Margaret. He asked to be painted in his library with some of his favorite pieces. He has an astounding collection of paintings, porcelain, English brass, miniature Shakespeare books, and a beautiful replica of the new Globe Theater made by Tim Gosling. He is also known for commissioning unusual  (and challenging) projects from artists, cabinet makers, and book binders. His collection will eventually go to Yale University and there will be an exhibition at Yale next spring of his miniature Shakespeare collection called  "The poet of them all": William Shakespeare and miniature designer bindings from the collection of Neale and Margaret Albert.  They have decided to show this portrait as part of the exhibition. 
A few interesting things about the painting: There are paintings by George Deem, Robert Kulicke and Nell Blaine among others. Neale and Margaret own another small apartment two floors above their  apartment on Park Avenue, which opens on to a roof garden, that overlooks the city. They call this apartment and garden "The Morgan Cottage" and refer to it as their summer home. So to include it in the painting we brought it down to the 6th floor and opened the library to it (in the painting). Neale and Margaret are also represented in the garden, enjoying a peaceful glass of wine above the chaos of the city.  Also included in the painting are many objects they cherish from their personal life histories. I have known Neale for a long time and I did another painting for him years ago of his favorite London pub. It was an honor to do this portrait for them and it gave me a deep appreciation for their lives and the kind of focus, passion and perseverance it takes to form a collection over a lifetime. And I admire their generosity in giving the collection to Yale where it will be appreciated by many-forever.


"Lake House, After the Storm"

I just recently completed a painting titled "Lake House, After the Storm".
It is a long canvas, 30 x 66 inches, oil on linen. I love working on this format as it lends itself to narrative and enables me to create a sequence of  events that tells what the beginning of the story is, (even if the catalyst for the narrative is outside the picture plane), what is happening in the picture plane, and what is likely to happen outside the picture plane on the other side.  The idea for this painting grew out of other images that I have been working on in the past few years - the floating room paintings like "Water Music" and "The Attraction of Fishing" as well as "Moon River" where the water is slowly wending its way into the interior.

"Water Music" 
"The Attraction of Fishing"
  
"Moon River"

I composed "Lakehouse"  using a series of arches to emphasize the right to left movement as well as to isolate the series of vignettes and images. I liked the idea of painting a room and then "flooding" it by glazing color over the floor plane.  I have always been fascinated by images of flooded rooms after natural disasters and how a room seems familiar but at the same time is rather disorienting.

The kernel of the idea for "Lake House" came to me one day when I was walking my dogs in a fundraiser for Best Friends Animal Society with Lucky Dog Rescue. For part of the walk I strolled beside a young man who told me that he first got into animal rescue after Hurricane Katrina. He was working for a company in the south, so he went to New Orleans to help. His job was to paddle around the flooded homes and pick up animals that were stranded. He said it was a very moving experience and he has been involved in animal rescue ever since. The image stayed in my head and even though I know his experience didn't look anything like this painting, the image was inspired by his story.

I tried to make the interior in this painting some what timeless with the classical columns and arches, and the fresco on the exterior wall. I wanted it to create an association for the viewer of ruins or a once beautiful place that is being threatened or destroyed, so the title "Lake House, After the Storm" is meant to evoke an association of the threat of global warming on our environment.

Here are some images of the process:

Graphite study for composition and light

Underpainting in grisaille on gessoed linen

First glaze or "imprimatura"  over the underpainting

Image where some of the interior and the floor plane are in


The finished painting
 (click on it to enlarge the image)






Goodnight Moon Limited Edition Prints


Goodnight Moon
Giclee Prints available from now until December 10th
24" x 24" 
signed, limited edition
printed on archival watercolor paper


I have had so many requests for prints of Goodnight Moon (must be the title!), I have decided to do a limited edition that will be available leading up to the holidays. The price is $375 plus $15 for shipping. (if you are nearby I will  deliver it to you!)
Email me by December 10th if you would like to order one, and I can get it to you by Christmas.

For the Love of Dogs

As a compassionate lover of dogs and as an advocate of animal rescue I am constantly seeing animals who are saved by rescue organizations that are in heartbreaking physical condition from neglect and abuse and in dire need of veterinary care. Every time I see one, I want to respond with a donation to help the organization to save the dog. A couple years ago I decided that I would start doing portraits of dogs and that each time I did a portrait I would make a donation for a specific dog in need that had captured my heart.

Recently the timing of this was like clockwork. A dear friend asked me to paint a beautiful spaniel named Milo. It was to be a thank you gift for her close friends who live in Italy. Milo has the most glorious life a dog could imagine in a beautiful place, going out on boats regularly and playing on the beach. His owners love him deeply and take very good care of him. His coat shines, he is athletic and healthy and has a huge smile. It was a joy to paint such a happy dog and it was also a joy to paint his surroundings of blue sky and cobalt water with the Capri Faraglioni behind him on the horizon.  Just after I painted this little portrait, I heard about another dog- Griffin, who had just been rescued by Second Chance Rescue in NYC. When Griffin was found he was so emaciated he couldn't raise his head. He needed immediate and intensive vet care and Second Chance set up a fund for him- which I was able to contribute to because of the portrait of Milo. Two dogs worlds apart in their life situation and their health, but I truly believe that animals share souls and in some strange way Milo and Griffin's souls will always be connected.




Forest Nocturne



Forest Nocturne

I am easily disoriented by
by the shortening days
as winter’s breath creeps up
and darkness looms.
But I forget,
and take a walk
that is a little too long
for the allotted daylight.
As the sun begins to settle
behind the trees
and the shadows lengthen
into nothingness,
I feel a presence in the woods.
The warm earth cools
and the rising mist
veils the rock masses
and fallen trees.
And the audience begins to assemble
in their usual places
for the evening concert.
I am the uninvited guest.
So I hasten my pace

towards home.

When the Size of a Painting and the Size of a Wall don't Match Up

Sometimes it happens...A person falls in love with a painting they see in an exhibit. They take down the dimensions at the gallery, then go home and measure their wall, and they come to the conclusion that it doesn't quite fit.  In some cases the wall is expansive and the painting is just not quite large enough to engage the space. And in some cases the painting is too big or not the right proportions.  In the past year I have had two clients who originally saw one of my paintings in the gallery, but then asked me to do a similar piece for them, custom designed for a particular location in their home. I love to do this as it allows me to get to know them, and see the environment where the painting will go. It also gives me the opportunity to make the painting more personal.

I painted Oliver's Dream last fall after visiting the client in Hobe Sound, Florida over the summer. They live very near the ocean but do not have a view, so she asked that the painting open the space with a view of the water, and she also wanted to bring some of their tropical surroundings into the room. I used a palette that related to the interior while introducing some new colors such as the vibrant clementine wall.  I  painted a tile floor and worked with multiple point perspective with the eye level on the eye level of someone standing in the room to give depth and a feeling that one could walk right into the painting. I also incorporated some architectural elements from the room, such as the large Palladian windows, and symmetry.

My client asked that their adorable King Charles spaniel named Oliver be the main character in the painting, so he sits rather royally in the arm chair on the left, making eye contact with the viewer.  He loves to chase salamanders so there are salamanders of various colors hidden in the flora of the fabrics as well as on the glass table top and in the flowering vines. The client had especially liked my mermaid paintings so we placed a mermaid sitting on the windowsill, playing the flute for Oliver and the various seabirds. There is also a painting within the painting of her grandchildren, and the couple dancing below the palm trees by the water represents her three happily married sons.

Cello and Painting

Several years ago, I was listening to NPR and I discovered the music of the cellist Zoe Keating. I have never been the same since. Her cello has inspired many the the paintings in my recent show at the Jane Haslem Gallery and has fueled my creativity in general. I put it on in my studio and it makes my mind more fluid and lets emotion rise to the surface. Here are three of the paintings that are directly related to songs from her album "Into the Trees". And here is a link to her website. 
Thank you Zoe.
http://www.zoekeating.com/






Into the Trees


This is a painting I just finished titled "Into the Trees". It is oil on linen, 36" x  48". It will be exhibited at the Jane Haslem Gallery during February and March. There will be a Valentine's Day opening from 5:30-7:30 pm, so come and bring someone you love (spouse, partner, child, significant other, granny or grampa)
There will be a lot of drawings and  paintings, including "Stories from the Woods" and a number of "Love Letters".

Mrs. Paisley's Night Up


I love this poem by India DeCarmine and it inspired me to do this painting.  In the painting Mrs. Paisley takes a break about half way up, to catch her breath and gaze at the moon. The painting is oil on canvas 36" x 36".

The Gift: Wherein Mrs. Paisley
Rights One Wrong of Her Misspent Youth

When Mrs. Paisley was a child
She wasn’t what you would call wild.
She never deigned to skin her knee,
Bake with mud or climb a tree.
In short, for all of her young age
(when beastly girls were all the rage),
her main aim was taking care
not to disarrange her hair.

Mrs. Paisley eyes an elm,
hitherto within the realm
of things she’d not meant to ascend.
Yet lately she’s discerned a trend
whereby categories shift.
With fine, long limbs, this tree’s a gift.

Mrs. Paisley’s not elastic,
and the angle is quite drastic
of that first limb. While she heaves
her butt up towards  the new spring leaves,
she thinks of neighbors with a view
and hopes they’ve better things to do.

She strains, she gains the branch, how sweet
to feel its curve beneath her feet.
Yet soon she knows that sweeter still
is the second branch; a thrill
attends each branch in turn. Her knee
is skinned as she goes up the tree,
but Mrs. Paisley doesn’t stop
until she’s reached the tippy top.

Here she grins and looks around.
How pleasant to have left the ground. 







Rabbit Summer

"Rabbit Summer" is the third of my three moon paintings composed on a square. The moon in this one has just gone down and the sun is just rising. The woman gardener on the yellow striped sofa tried to stay awake to keep the intrepid rabbits from eating her vegetable garden. But she dozed off....not even her faithful dog knows how to handle the situation. The painting was inspired by my own gardening challenges this summer when a bumper crop of rabbits sprung up in our neighborhood and devoured all our lettuce, radicchio and green beans. Fortunately the tomatoes were spared.
"Rabbit Summer" is oil on linen, 48" x 48".