Study of Running Water

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Who hasn't been fascinated at one time or another, by running water? Here's a view of the Pootatuck River in Sandy Hook, as it runs under Church Hill Road. On a September noon, autumn leaves tumbling along in the currents, my attention was caught by a mossy triangular rock and the light glinting off the rippling surface of the water. There was so much color in the silky undulations. How safe and comfortable the green rock appeared. This is a study of the scene, preparation for a much larger painting that I intend to make.

Thinking back to the last painting "Context is Everything" I wonder where I am, in context to other painters. How do I fit into the overall picture? Artistically, am I tumbling along like a drowned leaf? Am I riding on the surface, shooting the rapids of events? Am I stuck on a cozy island not going anywhere particular?

- Nancy Boudreau

This painting is approximately 5" x 7" acrylic painting on gessoed matboard, in an 8" x 10" cream-colored mat, unframed. The title and prose that appear above are handwritten on the back of the painting. The painting is also signed and dated on the back.

Context Is Everything

Imagine yourself as a flying kindergartener, soaring over the wooded hills of northwest Connecticut. Can you see the winding roads and driveways? Can you see the trees and gardens of red and white roses? Can you see the houses, lit inside? Gleaming windows and flat screen televisions?

This is certainly not a "realistic" painting, but a few strokes and bits of color viewed in context, conveys much meaning. This morning I share with you three other views: context as it effects writers by Tina Blue, the importance of context to archeology by Kris Hirst, and context as it concerns a developer of artificial intelligence, the IdeaPivot Corporation.

Art as food for thought, what a breakfast!

- Nancy Boudreau

This painting is approximately 5" x 7" acrylic painting on gessoed matboard, in an 8" x 10" gray colored mat, unframed, shipped to you directly by the artist. The title and prose that appear above are handwritten on the back of the painting. The painting is also signed and dated on the back.

The Beholder

Using the dagger striper brush this morning, experimenting with strokes and blending unique to this particular brush shape. Thinking of friend Nick who favors subdued colors and the theories of beauty proposed by philosopher Ayn Rand versus those of Yanagi Soetsu and Okakura's "The Book of Tea."

In "Atlas Shrugged" the author's character rails against abstract art, deeming it thoughtless, hence without value, or worse, just plain bad. In philosopher Rand's scheme of things, rationality and ordered purpose are the ultimate values. Illustrating this, I painted "How We See The World" a large painting comprised of transparent rectangles, very orderly shapes, layered in such a way that they suggest an expansive landscape.

In today's painting, I defer to the ideas proposed by the Japanese philosophers, where beauty is sought in the unique and random qualities of natural expression.

Who is right? What is beautiful?

Well, wouldn't that depend on who is asking the question and how their world view is structured? Isn't this what's meant by "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"?

- Nancy Boudreau

This painting is approximately 5" x 7" acrylic painting on gessoed matboard, in an 8" x 10" gray colored mat, unframed, shipped to you directly by the artist. The title and prose that appear above are handwritten on the back of the painting. The painting is also signed and dated on the back.

The Unknown Craftsman

Sometimes one just has to lower the bar, bust loose, and follow one's whims. Two of the many reasons why: 1. For a healthy, playful release of the tension that comes with always striving to reach perfection and 2. To manifest the true heart of artistic expression in as natural a way as possible. Two books on my shelf say it all, "The Unknown Craftsman" by Soetsu Yanagi and "Shoji Hamada, A Potters Way and Work" by Susan Peterson. Read them.
- Nancy Boudreau



This painting is approximately 5" x 7" acrylic painting on gessoed matboard, in an 8" x 10" gray colored mat, unframed, shipped to you directly by the artist. The title and prose that appear above are handwritten on the back of the painting. The painting is also signed and dated on the back.

October Woodland

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Heavily overcast skies give a bluish illumination that creates no shadows, the light coming from no specific direction at any time of the day. There is no sun rise or sun set, only a general dim illumination that increases and decreases. It is the degree of dampness that effects the saturation of color. This painting is a view of the backyard woodland in New Fairfield Connecticut, a typical example of fall foliage in the northwest hills.
- Nancy Boudreau

This painting is approximately 5" x 7" acrylic painting on gessoed matboard, in an 8" x 10" cream colored mat, unframed, shipped to you directly by the artist. The title and prose that appear above are handwritten on the back of the painting. The painting is also signed and dated on the back.

First Snow

This is my view, looking out the back window of my studio into the woods of New Fairfield Connecticut. I see woodpiles and an old abandoned playhouse that is rotting, everything covered with the first snow of the season which is two months early. "Once upon a time there was a poor woodcutter. . . "
-Nancy Boudreau

This painting is approximately 5" x 7" acrylic painting on gessoed matboard, in an 8" x 10" cream colored mat, unframed, shipped to you directly by the artist. The title and prose that appear above are handwritten on the back of the painting. The painting is also signed and dated on the back.

Old Beech

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Back up on the Ives Trail in Ridgefield Connectcut, this is one of the ancient specimen trees mentioned in yesterday's painting. This copper beech's trunk reminded me of a muscular human form, light and shadows draped over it's sculptured limbs. Twining verticals of color rising up the trunk constrast nicely with the horizontals of the meadow and sunlight resting across the grass growing behind this form. Cool shade, balanced light and forms - this is a peaceful place to linger.
-Nancy Boudreau

This painting is approximately 5" x 7" acrylic painting on gessoed matboard, in an 8" x 10" cream colored mat, unframed, shipped to you directly by the artist. The title and prose that appear above are handwritten on the back of the painting. The painting is also signed and dated on the back.

Ives Trail View

On the Ives Trail in Ridgefield Connecticut, there is a field that looks toward Danbury, a framed view. Overgrown specimen trees, abandoned arbors and collapsed gazebos mark where once a hotel stood. Even the deer appreciate the place, and the field is criss-crossed with their trails and dotted with their beds.
-Nancy Boudreau

This painting is approximately 5" x 7" acrylic painting on gessoed matboard, in an 8" x 10" cream colored mat, unframed, shipped to you directly by the artist. The title and prose that appear above are handwritten on the back of the painting. The painting is also signed and dated on the back.

5am nHeresLookinAtCha

A self portrait; the double reflection as seen in the dark glass of the window and storm window by my easel at 5am on a Tuesday morning - reminds me of the sounds made by a twelve string guitar, a la Leo Kottke or Michael Gulezian. The plan today was to finish a painting in two hours - trying to gear up to the painting-a-day pace after spending the last two weeks working on a single larger canvas.

-Nancy Boudreau

This painting is approximately 5" x 7" acrylic painting on gessoed matboard, in an 8" x 10" cream colored mat, unframed, shipped to you directly by the artist. The title and prose that appear above are handwritten on the back of the painting. The painting is also signed and dated on the back.

How We See The World

There's a lot of abstraction in reality, and if enough basic abstract elements are combined, a semblance of reality can be built. This painting is created entirely of transparent rectangles of acrylic paint on a rough textured surface. The rectangles are a basic shape that remind me of many things: of the DIV tags in web pages, which are blocks of content used to build a layout; of the rectangles of kindergarten art, childrens' paintings of home, land and sky; of a philosopher's building blocks of reason, layering logic to create a world view; of the pixels in a computer monitor which in context form images. This is how we see the world, everything is in context. In this painting everything in the world is made from rectangles, everything is constrained to right angles. Such a place would seem to be awful to live in, devoid of beauty or imagination. Yet, life will burst out despite constraints, and in it's complexity, life acquires luminous depth and freedom. That is how we live, despite constraints. - Nancy Boudreau

The is an acrylic painting on stretched canvas 36" x 48" and is available directly from the artist. The above text is handwritten on the back on the canvas, in pencil, sealed for permanence. The canvas is also signed and dated by the artist.

If you are interested in this or any of the other paintings in the archive, or if you have any questions, feel free to contact me at:

nb@nboudreau.com