Kathleen McCloud – Nightlight

$4,000

SKU: 33640

Artwork Description

Kathleen McCloud – Nightlight

Dimensions: 29.5 x 23 x 1.5″ framed / 27.5 x 21″ paper
Year: 2024
Medium: monotype and woodcut on mulberry paper

My fabric and paper constructions, collages and paintings are open-ended narratives where current events, history, mythology and place converge.

During a water rights-themed residency at the Santa Fe Art Institute, I focused on the lower Santa Fe River which flows by my home in La Cieneguilla, southwest of Santa Fe. Agua es Vida—water is life—is a popular saying here. It was then that I realized that the river, cottonwood trees and the layered history of the place I call home is a microcosm of the beauty and complexity of life on planet earth at this time.

Under the influence of the pandemic solitude, pondering the night sky, I felt a social connection, knowing that others were sharing the experience. Perhaps we were closer than we had ever been to a global village. In response, my art making shifted from protest and protection to points of connection: the earth, sky, water and a focus on healing the disconnect that keeps us moving toward climate catastrophe. The shades of dipped and dyed indigo from the plants I grew in the garden over many years were balm for my nervous system and became source material for art making. Since then, IMixed Media have added hardy regional plants to the dye pot as a way of connecting with the environment that nourishes me on so many levels.

I continue to work with what is rooted, what is uncertain, patterns of connection and the chaos that accompanies change. Working closely with the seasons restores me to the web of life and cycles back out into the world in the form of mixed-media artworks that are informed by, as well as celebrate, the earth.