The Visual Field is a Container, 60 x 108 inches (triptych), acrylic & mixed media on panel, ©2016 Deidre Adams

I just finished another painting in my Metaphors & Mysteries series. These works will be part of an upcoming solo show at Point Gallery, Denver, opening Aug. 5. The series is based on concepts detailed in “Metaphors We Live By,” by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. (See other works in the series here and here.)

The title for this painting comes from Chapter 12, “How Is Our Conceptual System Grounded?” – page 58:

… We experience ourselves as entities, separate from the rest of the world – as containers with an inside and an outside. We also experience things external to us as entities – often also as containers with insides and outsides. … We experience many things, through sight and touch, as having distinct boundaries, and, when things have no distinct boundaries, we often project boundaries upon them – conceptualizing them as entities and often as containers (for example, forests, clearings, clouds, etc.)

As in the case of orientational metaphors, basic ontological metaphors are grounded by virtue of systematic correlates within our experience. As we saw, for example, the metaphor THE VISUAL FIELD IS A CONTAINER is founded in the correlation between what we see and a bounded physical space.

If you become aware of the painting as an object, you can think of it as being rather like a window, which is a boundary within your visual field. In most but not all paintings, there is an implied continuation of the visual field which you can’t see but may imagine.

I started this painting in late 2015, so I finished it in less than a year – pretty fast for me! Here are some in-progress views:

January 2016

May 2016

June 2016

And some detail shots of the finished painting.

Last night was the opening reception for Colorado Women in Abstraction, an exhibition of  “the work of women artists who have been influential in the abstract movement in Colorado” at the Center for Visual Art in Denver, Colorado. I’m so honored and grateful to have been included in this exhibition, along with the work of many women whose work I admire greatly. My heartfelt thanks go to Guest Curator Michael Paglia, (art critic for Denver Westword newspaper, art ltd magazine, and author of books Colorado Abstract and Texas Abstract), Cecily Cullen, Managing Director and Curator of the Center For Visual Art in Denver, and the many other people who mounted the exhibit and did countless other things behind the scenes. Thanks also to friends & family who came out to support me.

It was so great to see old friends and meet new ones. Here are a few of the artists I was able to snag for portraits beside their work. Unfortunately, there wasn’t time to meet all of the wonderful artists. I also didn’t think to get a listing of all the artwork titles, but I hope to rectify that matter before too long.

Jane Guthridge

Sabin Aell 

 Skyler McGee

Carlene Francis

Deidre Adams

 Margaret Pettee Olsen

Teresa Booth Brown

Tonia Bonnell

Amy Metier

Wendi Harford

We had a huge turnout for the opening. It was a wonderful evening! A few more scenes from the opening:

Cecily Cullen introducing Michael Paglia

Hugh Grant, Founding Director and Curator for the Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art