MOLLY MUGLER, a recovering lawyer
My Work: My work tends to focus on natural elements and man made objects that are well suited to their space. I paint what is immediately around me. Most my paintings in the past several years are of subject matter within a few miles of my home in Cushing. I am drawn to Maine's unique coastal scenes, transitions of light and shadow and negative space. While watercolors have been my primary medium (I love the translucency and unpredictability), I also work in oils (rich color, glazed layers for depth) and other mediums (always experimenting).
My Art Background: I have been painting off and on for 40+ years. While I am primarily self-taught, I have benefited extensively from mentors in Maine and Massachusetts along the way. I have taken workshops in Ireland, France, Massachusetts and Maine with well known artists near and far.
How It Began: Most children are artists. Most adolescents are not. Fewer adults consider themselves artists although many find their way back to art in retirement. I belong to that happy sliver of population that never lost a fascination for rendering. And so I have rendered steadily through the years. Painting has been a creative respite and source of quiet reflection through decades of raising children, practicing law, providing elder care and trying to eradicate the biggest dust bunnies and tallest weeds. It has tapped my underutilized right brain and given me quiet satisfaction. Recently retired, with children grown and gone and elder care no longer needed, I am able to focus more on my art. I have developed technique over the decades as my objectives have shifted and matured. Originally I wanted to capture what I saw; now I try to capture what I feel. And still the dust bunnies accumulate and the weeds grow.
What Speaks to Me: Every painting starts with a spark. It can be random - a frisson caused by a shadow, a line, a color, a sensation, an idea, that resonates with me. Sunsets and flowers, though beautiful, don't do it for me. But the black-green shadows of a stand of spruce, a backlit ochre meadow, the texture of a glacial boulder, or the reflected sunlight on exposed roots - these may cause a spark that grabs me. It then grows outward to be expressed with lines, dabs of color, highlights and shadows, value shifts and texture. My expressions are not always successful. But, at the time, they seem imperative, commanding my attention and action before the spark fades. And I have let too many sparks fade already.
Where to Find my Work: ou can see more of my work at Instagram (#mollymuglerart) or at Art Space Gallery which represents me in Rockland, Maine.
My Work: My work tends to focus on natural elements and man made objects that are well suited to their space. I paint what is immediately around me. Most my paintings in the past several years are of subject matter within a few miles of my home in Cushing. I am drawn to Maine's unique coastal scenes, transitions of light and shadow and negative space. While watercolors have been my primary medium (I love the translucency and unpredictability), I also work in oils (rich color, glazed layers for depth) and other mediums (always experimenting).
My Art Background: I have been painting off and on for 40+ years. While I am primarily self-taught, I have benefited extensively from mentors in Maine and Massachusetts along the way. I have taken workshops in Ireland, France, Massachusetts and Maine with well known artists near and far.
How It Began: Most children are artists. Most adolescents are not. Fewer adults consider themselves artists although many find their way back to art in retirement. I belong to that happy sliver of population that never lost a fascination for rendering. And so I have rendered steadily through the years. Painting has been a creative respite and source of quiet reflection through decades of raising children, practicing law, providing elder care and trying to eradicate the biggest dust bunnies and tallest weeds. It has tapped my underutilized right brain and given me quiet satisfaction. Recently retired, with children grown and gone and elder care no longer needed, I am able to focus more on my art. I have developed technique over the decades as my objectives have shifted and matured. Originally I wanted to capture what I saw; now I try to capture what I feel. And still the dust bunnies accumulate and the weeds grow.
What Speaks to Me: Every painting starts with a spark. It can be random - a frisson caused by a shadow, a line, a color, a sensation, an idea, that resonates with me. Sunsets and flowers, though beautiful, don't do it for me. But the black-green shadows of a stand of spruce, a backlit ochre meadow, the texture of a glacial boulder, or the reflected sunlight on exposed roots - these may cause a spark that grabs me. It then grows outward to be expressed with lines, dabs of color, highlights and shadows, value shifts and texture. My expressions are not always successful. But, at the time, they seem imperative, commanding my attention and action before the spark fades. And I have let too many sparks fade already.
Where to Find my Work: ou can see more of my work at Instagram (#mollymuglerart) or at Art Space Gallery which represents me in Rockland, Maine.