Artist Statement:
WATER
"I heard today for the first time the river in the tree." - Emily Dickinson
Betsy Wolfston exhibits her first new work, after a 4-year pause due to her cancer diagnosis. In 2024 she took an online class that combined art with Buddhist teachings called Self Creating - Self Surrendering, and one of the first assignments was to create a visual representation of one's own art practice as a river. The direction of her latest work emerged from this experience.
Wolfston is best known as a ceramicist, but her current state of health called for materials that allowed ease and accessibility. She chose to work in watercolor and graphite on Clayboard and these intricate pieces took on a life of their own. The process embraced both allowing and receiving, matching exactly the state of mind the artist cultivated while living with her cancer.
Her imagery is reminiscent of complex symbiotic relationships between earth and water - arteries and veins of liquid traveling and communicating without end - as found in mycorrhizal systems or a virga rain in the desert that evaporates before touching the ground. Water finds direction and elusive existence in the cross section of flow.
The most prominent element is the paint itself, carried by water, creating translucent colors that wash, flow, spread and bleed randomly. The pale colors emote light, and the hand drawn graphite adds a sense of humor and tenderness. Wolfston brings the viewer in contact with the vastness of interdependence, impermanence and mystery. She offers the idea that there is no need to reach for meaning beyond what is visible. Her work also conveys an unfolding approach to time, without hurry or expectation, as she illuminates a quote by Arlene Shechet: "Whatever time I have is exactly the time I need."