continues in this fashion until the entire surface is covered, which
can take several days. She revisits the painting each day, adjust-
ing color and value relationships as they respond to diff erent light
conditions. At times she feels a painting can become boring and
predictable during the process of working, which leads her to
scrape it down and start over. She fi nds each stage diffi cult and
failure frequent. “It can take weeks for me to see what’s before
my eyes,” says Kehoe. “My failure rate for one-session paintings
is about 95 percent.” Particularly frustrating for Kehoe is the fact
that the process is not predictably linear. A recent 6x6 self-por-
trait took her fi ve months to complete; the results of her eff orts,
however, are rewarding.
NO EARTH COLORS OR BLACK Kehoe does not use
earth colors or black. When she gives a slide talk, she begins
with an amusing animation of a hapless artist asking no one in
particular, as she lays out her palette, what harm a little yellow
ochre could possibly do. A bolt of lightning, which reduces the
artist to a burnt cinder, answers her question. No earth colors!
Th e point is that attitudes on the part of contemporary art-
ists diff er from those of their Renaissance counterparts, who
thought of color mostly in terms of light and shade. Artists after
the mid-19th cen-
tury were aware
of simultaneous
contrast—the
phenomenon that
a color’s appear-
ance is aff ected
by the color next
to it. Rather than
simply adding
black and white, the Impressionists built a system more likely to
depend on creating mixtures across the color wheel in order to
darken values and modify chroma.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this attitude
toward color dovetailed with a new appreciation of bringing out
the abstract qualities of a form rather than simply fulfi lling the
obligation to depict a subject. Perhaps this approach grew out of
a jealousy toward other areas of art, such as music, which are not
obliged to create an illusion. Color might be appreciated for its
own sake and not just as a way to “decorate” form. Colors in dif-
ferent parts of a painting might, in addition to depicting objects,
relate to one another in the way movements of a sonata do.
STILL LIFE: ARRANGEMENTS OF FORM AND COLOR
Kehoe’s paintings refl ect these attitudes toward color and abstract
form perfectly. Zero G (page 39), a still life from “Radical
Attention,” is a good example. We could think of this piece as
a fugue or jazz composition made up of circles and spheres of
diff ering scales. Th e forms can be diffi cult to decipher: A yellow
dish glove, suspended from the top of the composition, hangs
above a folded white cloth, a sleigh bell and a bunch of yellow
plastic grapes resting on a refl ective surface. In the top left
quadrant we fi nd a pinecone, a purple ball and a polka dot pattern
“IT CAN TAKE
WEEKS FOR ME
TO SEE WHAT’S
BEFORE MY
EYES.” CATHERINE KEHOE
Black Pond Studio One year ago
Kehoe moved to 40 acres of forest, meadow
and wetlands in southeastern Mass.,
between Boston and Providence, R.I. There,
in a newly constructed, solar-powered barn/
studio named Black Pond Studio, she
teaches classes with Nancy McCarthy and a
variety of guest artists.
Kehoe teaches from a conviction that
mastery of fundamentals in painting has
inherent value regardless of the ultimate
path the artist takes. Her thought is that,
without the fundamentals, an artists’ options
are limited to what they aren’t able to do. For
more information about Black Pond Studio,
go to blackpondstudio.com.
TOP: Black Pond Studio’s windows provide ample
natural light, augmented with indoor studio light.
Rooftop solar panels provide electrical power.ABOVE: Outside the door of Black Pond Studio is
a spring-fed pond.MATERIALS
SURFACE: panel or Art Boards Archival Oil
Primed Linen Artist PanelsOILS: Williamsburg, Winsor & Newton and
Gamblin (no earth colors or black)BRUSHES: Utrecht or Blick kolinsky sable
brightsMEDIUM: 4-to-1 mixture of Gamblin Gamsol and
stand oil or linseed oil TEXT CONTINUED ON PAGE 4240 artistsmagazine.com
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