Pierre Bonnard, a luminary of the late 19th and early 20th century art world, was deeply captivated by the aesthetics of Japonism, the Western fascination with Japanese art and culture. While many of his contemporaries explored the bold, graphic aspects of Japanese prints, Bonnard absorbed a more nuanced, intimate understanding of the style, weaving it seamlessly into his own unique artistic vision. His paintings and prints reveal a delicate dance with Japanese aesthetics, marked by specific and recurring elements.

Leslie Parke Sketchbooks from 1979 - 1986

I grew up with this Lalique vase in the entryway to our home. It was one of several pieces that my Grandmother bought in Paris in June of 1929. I know this because my father told me. The time of the purchase seemed significant as it was only a few months before THE CRASH. Later I discovered a receipt, which seems to be about the delivery of several other Lalique items — an ashtray, a box, and a perfume bottle — to her room at Hotel Crillon.

I’ve been dealing with having an artist website since the days of dial-up. No matter how beautiful your site is, or how much work you have done on it, no one is going to see it if you don’t pay attention to how you website is found and recommended in the search engines. This part of my job makes my eyes bleed, but I have finally decided to tackle the nemesis of SEO.

This is what I have learned so far.

Hilma af Klint and Wassily Kandinsky, two influential artists of the early 20th century, shared a profound interest in the spiritual and abstract realms of art. While their paths diverged in many ways, their work was deeply intertwined by their explorations of spirituality, physics, and music.

The nature/nurture question has been applied to artists at least as often as it has to athletes. And the verdict is still out. While I am distantly related to Stefan Lochner, a Northern European Gothic painter, his genes did not make an appearance in any of the intervening generations.  As for nurture, there are some things in my background that, while not predictive, at least didn’t halt my development as an artist.

In 1981 I worked on a documentary with Michael Marton on the not-yet Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, Henry Brant. Marton’s approach to documentary filmmaking was to embed us with his subjects for a long period. This documentary coincided with when I was working on the drawings featured here, which ultimately led to a collaboration between Henry and me on a piece he did for the Holland Festival called Inside Track.

Here is a story I wrote at the time about just how embedded things could get.

I aspire to being anal compulsive, but I have to hire-out. I create chaos when I work. Things are moved and abandoned on the floor.  Since I dip my hands into the paint as I work, I'll pull multiple gloves off and leave them on my paint table. But I like to have everything in order when I start. Paints lined up by color. Brushes by size and type. A place for everything and everything in its place. It's largely because once I am completely engaged in painting, the last thing I want to do is stop and look for a tool or find out I don't have the paint that I need.

My surgery took six hours. The narcotics kept me comfortable, and the hallucinations were entertaining. At one point I imagined the pillows under my arms were jewel-encrusted, and that they were also paintings that I was working on. And they were coming out so well. (Yes, that was the drugs talking.)

In 2018, I developed bilateral trigger thumbs, which meant I could not tie my shoes, write my name, or hold a brush, much less paint. I wanted to keep painting while contemplating the possibility of surgery, but with both hands in metal braces, I had to devise a new way to work.

Kyoto is an ancient city in Japan that is home to several important Buddhist monasteries. On a rainy day ,I was walking through the grounds on one such monastery. Cherry blossoms had fallen on the sidewalk and were held in place by the moisture of the rain. I photographed the pattern it created. Then years later as I worked on this painting it reminded me of that moment, and, in fact, of that whole extraordinary day.

While in Paris, Dégas' close friend Giovanni Boldini painted a still life on a canvas that measured 47 1/4 inches high by 15 1/4 inches wide.

O'Keeffe left New York to take up residence first on Ghost Ranch and then in Albiquiu, New Mexico.