Lauren Edmond paintings

Since so many people enjoyed my Howlin’ Trees…

They’re emerging from the vault to haunt & howl at Planet One for the next few weeks.

There will also be new NIGHT paintings of Tompkins Square park.

Boo!

Planet One
Halloween eve, Friday October 30, 2009 from 5:30-8PM
76 E 7 St (between 1st &2nd Sts) NYC
212 475-0112 (planet one); 212 979-1996 (lauren’s cell)

The old trees of the parks continue to dwindle, they fall and leave;-) Some have fallen due to disease, others to storms, others just to old age. This ancient tree stands on the corner of 7th Street and Avenue B, across from St Brigid.

Here’s Howlin’ Tree

St Brigid is an 1850s Irish famine church saved from destruction by the people of the East Village in 2007. Ochre yellow, it sits on the southeast corner of Tompkins Square. When it was scheduled to be torn down, the people took action. What finally saved the church was an anonymous donor. Renovation is supposed to begin, meanwhile it is still closed, and still standing!

The night had me enchanted! Walking through Tompkins Square can feel like walking through a forest, a journey that takes you through the maze of paths and howlin’ trees, and finally back out onto the city streets. But when you resurface, you have the distinct impression you’ve been someplace else.

This night scene is the view (southwest) from the dog run in Tompkins Square, with the Crescent Moon rising.

Fall night in Tompkins Square is magical. Changes happen you aren’t fully aware are happening! You walk into the park in one mood, and come out in another place. This is the middle of the park, those old tree limbs have seen a lot of history.

Hope you can come to the show! There’s a magical transformation that happens when they’re printed in high resolution on beautiful cotton rag– and framed! And hanging in a gallery;-)

The show will be on view starting Friday, October 30 for a few weeks only!
Please email me to receive an invitations

Enjoy the colors!
Lauren

website: http://www.laurenedmond.com/
gallery: http://www.laurenedmond.com/gallery.html

There’s an interesting ‘salon’ style show hanging at the Tompkins Square Library called MENAGERIE: Creative ExPression of the Lower East Side 2009. It was curated by Shell Sheddy and will be hanging through October 30.

With 40 prolific artists participating, there is art everywhere! And– there are scheduled performance, poetry, and films every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. Info will be on facebook.

Here are my 3 paintings in MENGERIE: Creative ExPressions of the Lower East Side 2009

Carolyn and the Artistas liked my 3 Howlin’ Trees and asked for one more. Now there are 4 hanging in the gallery at Theater for the New City. The show runs through September 30. The reception is September 9 from 5:30-8pm. It’s festive!

Here’s the 4th in the series of Howlin’ Trees.

Here’s an invitation to the 2009 HOWL show

After much thought… and encouragement from Carolyn Ratcliffe, I decided to participate in the 2009 HOWL show with the Artistas. I’ve lost count of how many shows we’ve done over the past 5 years, so check my website! for the list.

I was asked for 3 paintings. After the show was hung, I was asked for a 4th painting, now hanging in the gallery!

Next decision — what to show? So I read Howl by Allen Ginsberg and decided on 3 paintings of the East Village that evoke the poetry and wild side that is still sometimes present, but mostly fading into the mists. Reading Ginsberg’s words from 1956, they are still as risque and cutting as they were back in the 50s. Perhaps we have come full circle, down into the maze of urban bohemian “angelheaded hipsters” “smoking in the supernatural darkness of coldwater flats” “contemplating jazz” and back to a society entrenched in it’s values, pretending nothing’s wrong. Business as usual. No global warming here! No threat of swine flu. We don’t even need health care. Let’s go shopping!

Thinking about Ginsberg’s words, I thought these paintings of Howlin’ Trees were the best choices from my work to describe the colors and shapes that HOWL evokes. (i changed the order so you can see them all!)

This one of the few remaining elder trees of the Tompkins Square. In the 5 years I’ve been painting the park, these few ancient trees have dwindled. Some have fallen due to disease, others to storms. This old tree stands on the corner of 7th Street and Avenue B, across from St Brigid. Here’s Howlin’ Tree

St Brigid is an 1850s Irish famine church saved from destruction by the people of the East Village in 2007. Ochre yellow, it sits on the southeast corner of Tompkins Square. When it was scheduled to be torn down, the people took action. What finally saved the church was an anonymous donor. Renovation is supposed to begin, meanwhile it is still closed, and still standing!

The night had me enchanted! Walking through Tompkins Square can feel like walking through a forest, a journey that takes you through the maze of paths and howlin’ trees, and finally back out onto the city streets. But when you resurface, you have the distinct impression you’ve been someplace else.

This night scene is the view (southwest) from the dog run in Tompkins Square, with the Crescent Moon rising.

Fall night in Tompkins Square is magical. Changes happen you aren’t fully aware are happening! You walk into the park in one mood, and come out in another place. This is the middle of the park, those old tree limbs have seen a lot of history.

Hope you can come to the show! There’s a magical transformation that happens when they’re printed in high resolution on beautiful cotton rag– and framed! And hanging in a gallery;-)

The show will be on view starting Saturday night, August 28. It continues through September 30.
You can email me and get an invitation or just pick one up here!

IT is the 40th anniversary of “Woodstock.”

This painting is the Woodstock Green. The actual town of Woodstock, Ulster County, NY as it looks today. Woodstock has become iconic. Yet it is still a town in the Catskill Mountains, it is not in Bethel where the festival happened. Even though the actual festival didn’t happen IN Woodstock, it was the spirit of Woodstock that created the festival and made it the big event it was. And continues to be.

The Woodstock Nation still gathers in the town green in Woodstock. Kids and adults! There’s a sign on the dinner window “Hippies Welcome”. There are drum circles in the Village Green on holidays, music, events, lots of fun continues to happen in Woodstock! What makes Woodstock so special is its continued sense of COMMUNITY. And an underlying devotion to the arts. Woodstock was founded as an artist colony around 1902. It continues to be a destination for artists and tourists. For the locals, there are land grants where you can walk for miles. And they’re very friendly, even dog friendly, provided your dogs are friendly! Mine are socialized, living between NYC and Woodstock. Here’s the “Woodstock Town Green” on a hot summer morning. The big tree is gone, as are Jim Power’s sculptures in front of Pondicherry (update: he and his dog have been sleeping on the street on my block in NYC:-(, and the owner of Pondicherry was one of the judges who told me they don’t accept computer-generated work. Attempts to explain were considered “too intense”. Time moves on, meanwhile, here’s the Woodstock Green at 8am in July, 2008.

We consume a considerable amount of squash. So it’s not really surprising that a squash is growing out of our compost in the backyard. Yet, it is a miracle! I had wanted to make a vegetable bed in the backyard, but just didn’t have the time or resources to make it happen. And, I was busy planting paintings in the East Village this spring. A friend even gave me a packet of squash seeds. Miraculously, the squash that is growing is the same variety as the packet of seeds she gave me, though I never planted them! Yet, they are growing. Here’s the first in a series of growing squash.

Most of the day lilies in the Catskill/Hudson Valley region are orange tiger lilies. They grow wild everywhere, along all the roads, along stream beds and in flower beds. There are a few on this property, we affectionately call Lil Blue, and if Lil Blue was my house, I’d plant a whole lot more. The contrast of the orange against all the green is exciting. There’s a spray of red lilies in a flower bed in the backyard, dark velvety red, that really pops out. I prefer the orange, but these red lilies look like pieces of red velvet fluttering over the flower bed.

Here’s a big red lily, painted right from the backyard of ‘Lil Blue!

Sometimes people wonder why painters choose to paint nature. It’s always there, you can just look if you want to! Yet, nature changes. It is always changing as seasons and light changes, daily, weekly, seasonally, yearly, over decades… And entering nature through a painting can change the way you experience nature. For many of my neighbors, walking in Tompkins Square Park now feels like walking in one of my paintings. It always has that effect for me, as the painter. So i was surprised that transferred to others. But that is what a painting does, it asks you to enter and explore. It takes you somewhere, which can even be your own backyard!

The Red Lilies are done for this year. The last big storm wiped out the last of them and there are no more buds. Yet, here is a 2009 red lily;-)

my work goes through many phases. sometimes less is enough. and just seeing the paintings in all their forms can be fun.

so in that spirit, here’s the 6th BC Botanical garden in the spring of 2009. perhaps a work in progress, perhaps it is done!

the 6BC Botanical Garden is, of course, located on 6th Street between Avenues B&C, in the East Village, or Loisaida, or in the atlas, Tompkins Square, NY. The garden itself is a work of art, and the result of the work of many gardeners. Unlike the other community gardens where each gardener has their own plot, 6BC is one garden that all gardeners share. Here’s another painting from 6BC, in September of 2006,

This painting is part of the show currently hanging at Planet One Cafe. More on that show soon!

Just moved my art blog to wordpress. Just because it lets you do more things and it’s more fun to use. My goal— to post more paintings!!!

This painting is really part of my Woodstock-Saugerties series (2007-2009). The view is between the 2 towns, on the overpass of the NYS Thruway you get a good view of Overlook Mountain, which rises north of Woodstock. There is about 10 miles and a vast difference between Woodstock and Saugerties. They are as different as red and blue American, which i see as red/orange and blue/green America.

This painting is from a very hot summer day. The highlights were shimmering. I got up early to do the laundry in Saugerties. And by 9 am, it was already a scorcher! Here’s “Hot road on a summer morning” from 2008

For me, the interesting thing about this view is not only the way the mountain looks, and I hope to make more paintings of this view in all kinds of weather conditions. It looks like Shangri-La with the mist rising above. And it is Shangri-La. A mythical place that is part real, part illusion. But the interest for me is the crossroad in this painting. Which way to go? Get on the thruway and zip down to NYC. Or stay on rte 212 and be in the center of Woodstock in 10 minutes. Which way to go?! And there’s a gas station, implied on the left, so you have the fuel to go where you choose. And you know one thing. It’s 9 am, and it’s already 85 degrees. Your choice!