Lawrence Carroll

Tom
1985-86 oil, canvas, wood, wax, staples
 13" x 10.5" x 6" 

Untitled
 1985 oil,, wax, canvas on wood
18" x 10" 

Penance
1987-88   oil, wax, canvas, staples on wood 
 9" x 9" x 7.6"

I was painting thin pieces of paper with black house paint that I would place on the white canvas.  I used staples because it allowed me to remove the painted lines and shapes if I was not satisfied, altering the composition as needed.

Breathing In
1988 89 oil, wax and paper collage on canvas on wood
  12" x  11" x 10"

Yes, like Matisse at the end of his beautiful life.  This was before I started cutting my paintings apart and using wax and other things.  

I was looking at Donald Judd. I was interested in the way that his wall and floor sculptures would come out of the wall and into the space.

Dependence
1990   oil wax, staples, canvas, wood
33" x 15" x 10"

This physical relationship between the work and the viewer started to influence how I started to think about my painting.

It slowed down the viewer.

Heaven Picasso 
1994-95 oil wax house paint newspaper, canvas on wood
55" x 42" x 3"

You could not see the painting entirely in one view.  

You could not grasp it.

Untitled
2017 oil, wax, staples, canvas on wood
19" x 1/2" x 11"

It added psychology to looking.  It opened up a world to me.

I looked at Carl Andre too - How and where to place the painting and how the placement changes the psychology of an entire room.

I felt I had everything.

installation at museo vincenzo vela in 2017

I thought of the canvas as a skin and wax as an ointment

and that there was a body of memory under the skin where things were buried for years and then for some reason they reappeared.

Lawrence Carroll 
I Have Longed to Move Away  works 1985-2017
edited by Gianna A. Mina

I started to think about cutting a painting completely apart.

And then about the futility of trying to put something that was once whole back together again, exposing all its imperfections. 

There was the revelation.   Painting does not have to be perfect

untitled  2017 
house paint and wax on canvas
19" x 19" 16"

Paintings can be flawed and vulnerable and imperfect and human.

Maybe my paintings are about my broken life.

untitled
2016 - 17  stain, house paint, wood pieces, canvas on wood 
67.7" x 108" x 1.5"

And that I'm trying to piece my life back together.

At certain times in your life, things appear.  Things come.

You look back on your life and examine it.

Last night I thought of different possibilities of what some of my paintings could be about and it shook me.

untitled 
stain, house paint, wood pieces, canvas on wood
118" x 75" x 1.5"

It's impossible for me to always know and understand exactly what I'm doing.

I need time and distance.

The gift that I have been given is to be able to explore these things and to give comfort to myself in knowing that I have a place to express things that some people may bury inside themselves and carry away with them all through their lives.

untitled 
oil, wax, house paint ,staples, canvas on wood
114" x 85" x 4" 

I like the idea that the painting can convey some of life's weight.

We all carry the weight of an imperfect life, some far greater than others.

Lawrence Carroll
I Have Longed To Move Away
Installation in Museo Vincenzo Vela, Switzerland

So what do you expose?  You have to risk.   You can't hide.   Lawrence Carroll  1954 - 2019

All text is from a Lawrence Carroll's interview with Barbara Catoir, entitled "Carry On the Light" .  

It is in the catalogue of the exhibition  I Have Longed to Move Away which was curated by Roberto Borghi for the Museo Vincenzo Vela in Switzerland during the spring of 2017.

Patti Roberts Pizzuto

Last Days Before Dying, 2007, acrylic, ink,embroidery, hand made paper

Patti Roberts Pizzuto uses an earthy combination of acrylic, embroidery stitches and hand made paper to create poetic works that ponder the big questions about life's meaning. All images in this post are from an article about the artist by Lynn Cornelius Jablonski I found in Fiberarts, April May 2008. Waiting Vessel, 2007, acrylic, collage, beads, embroidery, handmade paper

Her imagery is empty space in combination with one or two common objects such as a bowl, bed or boat and the texture of hand stitching. The recent work shown in this article had either the form of a primitive house shape or a simple rectangle. For me, the house shape is evocative of our personal longing for the simple quietness of childhood, and I would bet that Patti Roberts Pizzuto has read The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard. The artist says that the house image symbolizes comfort family, sense of self and belonging. Finding Home, 2006, acrylic, beeswax, embroidery, handmade paper

The artist worked in the library of an art and design college in Flordia for 25 years, and it was the art books she handled every day that were her inspiration (and I would guess, her education). A recent move to South Dakota in 2005 changed her palette, and fostered an interest in her own family history and the history of mid Western United States. Dance of Chance, 2007, acrylic, ink, collage, beads, handmade paper

Objects that are from our daily lives act like witnesses in her work. They are like things that occur in our dreams, meaningful and with narrative. She rarely depicts figures, but when she does they wear medieval dress.
Each Leaf a Universe, Each Night a Dream, 2007, acrylic, embroidery, collage, handmade paper

Natural items like seeds, flowers and leaves occur. The seeds are symbols of possibility, of birth, renwal and even death. She contemplates the sacred and the mundane at the same time. Existential work. Quiet Compositions.

Patti Robertsw Pizzuto has her own web site - you need Adobe flash to view it, and so I was not able to visit it. Still on dial up here on Manitoulin Island, Canada.