Lost in the Paint- Artist as Collector

Delaware based artist Carol Balick is this guest blogger for the Artist as Collector Series.

Wedding Gifts
Oil on canvas
30" x 34"
©ElizabethGeiger
Collection of Carol Balick

On a cool autumn evening several years ago, I picnicked in the woods near Staunton Virginia with my friend, Cleveland Morris and his friends, Phillip and Elizabeth Geiger, both artists. The food was delicious and so was the conversation.  Phillip was getting ready for a show at Tiborg De Nagy in New York and Elizabeth was getting ready for a show in Lexington, Virginia. At that time, I had not seen the work of either artist but as we spoke, I began to image their paintings. 

The following year, I received a note from Elizabeth inviting me to the opening of her show at Gross McLeaf Gallery in Philadelphia.  By the time my husband and I arrived, her show was almost sold out. We were thrilled that she had done so well and not disappointed that there were so few pieces left.  We hadn’t come to buy, only to look. 

As we walked through the gallery, I kept coming back to “Wedding Gifts.” Moving away, it would draw me back again and again. It was as if I needed to make sure that everything was still on the canvas – that the cloth with everything on it hadn’t slid off the table. I loved the richness of the paint, the humor of this still life, things tilted and placed at precarious angles and the tension and sense of apprehension it created. We couldn’t leave without it. 

Each morning when I come into my kitchen, I look at our beautiful painting, relieved that the blue cloth, the milky compote filled with fruit, the loaf of bread haven’t slid to the floor. I feel the energy, the life force this still life pours into the room. And then I get lost in the paint. 

Carol Balick is a a plein-air painter, she loves the waterways and farmlands of Delaware and the immense landscapes of the southwest, but paints where ever she travels. She is also on the art committee of the Siegel JCC ArtSpace in Wilmington, DE>