Jordan Pittman paints through the summer in a studio that is really a garden. We spent a morning with her there, watching how the light and the plants shape the work at her bench.
Jordan starts early, before the heat, and spends the first hour looking rather than painting. She walks between the beds and notes which flowers are open, which have closed and where the shadows fall. Those notes become the colour references she works from for the rest of the day.
The studio is a wooden table under an old apple tree, with a row of jars for brushes and water. Finished plates lean against the trunk, and paint dries on the table while the leaves move. The shifts in the light keep her from getting too attached to any one result.
Painted Figure on a Turquoise Plate started with one flower head in the garden. Jordan painted the colour first, then let the shapes loosen across the glaze until the bloom became a field. The finished work keeps a hint of the original petal, which she considers the most important part of the painting.
A garden changes every week, and that change keeps a painter honest. Jordan likes to work in series of three to five pieces, so one idea can be tested in several colour keys before she moves on. The garden is where she tests the first one.
About the author. Kamila Sarsenbaeva is the Senior Curator at Focus Gallery in Almaty. She visits artists in their studios for the Art-Blog and before each exhibition.
