By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Carrie Day has put her pandemic time to good use.
With shows canceled, and with it decreased demand for her pottery, which is esteemed by collectors nationally, Day has been focusing on painting.
The results are now on display at the Hudson Gallery in Sylvania, in her first solo show of paintings, “Sitting Too Close.” An opening reception will be held Friday, June 4 from 6-8 p.m. at the gallery, 5645 Main St. The reception is taking place during the First Friday Red Bird Art Walk. The show runs through June 26.
Unlike her pottery which features the character Critter and her sayings scrawled on them, the paintings are abstract. Critter, a representation of Day as a child, does appear faintly in one, and the name is evident on another.
Still the anarchic spirit that animates Critter, Day’s childhood nickname, is ever present in the paintings.
[[READ RELATED STORY: Carrie Day gives voice to her inner Critter with clay and paint]
Day starts them by scribbling on her canvas. The paintings are conceived in this “fresh, innocent way” and then shaped using sophisticated design concepts.
Stepping back, the artist studies the scrawling shapes, and in those finds the elements she wants to develop. Some rise to prominence, others are obscured, like a buried memory.
“The design grows,” she said. “I just pick out shapes, pick out colors, pick out movement.”
As she works the memories from her gritty free range childhood in Fostoria and thoughts about her life now as an artist, wife and mother emerge. “Everything about me are in those.” The cryptic titles – “Pixels,” “Seeing Through,” “Mexican Beach,” “How Do You Know?” – come to her after she’s finished a painting.
“Pixels” relates to the title of the show. As a child she liked to sit smack dab in front of the TV where the picture became pixilated. “I’d get yelled at that I was sitting too close,” she recalls.
“Sitting Too Close” takes on more resonance in a time of social distancing.
The largest painting, “Pretend Playing House,” reflects her time playing with her cousin Andi. “She was my best friend,” Day said. “All we did was pretend play.”
The colors – vivid pinks, yellows, blues – are the color scheme for the 1980s and early 1990s when she was growing up.
The colors are similar to those Day uses in her pottery. Both the paintings and pots explore similar emotional territory.
But the pottery comes together through a technical process with defined steps.
The painting flows, Day said. “You keep working and working and ideas come out fast. … You can paint and lose time and think about everything in your life.”
They represent different ways of thinking, she said. She loves both.
Creating ceramics has become more difficult because of the pain in her hands brought on by rheumatoid arthritis. She still creates pots as needed, and last summer said she would find it hard if she had to abandon the medium altogether.
Most of the paintings in the show were completed in the past six months.
“I have been pretty much painting like crazy,” she said, especially once the exhibit was scheduled.
The idea for the show was suggested by Scott Hudson, who owns the gallery with his wife, Barbara Hudson. Day, who lives in Bowling Green, had brought a couple paintings down to show them. The Hudsons were impressed enough to ask for more.
“I’ve been wanting to have a show in a nice gallery,” Day said. “I’m trying to move in the direction of painting, and this gives me confidence.”
