Artists write statements about particular work or shows to provide context, backstories and sometimes a little bit of insight into their process. I admit to wrestling with this one a bit. The work in this show, while abstract, feels personal in a way that many previous paintings or projects are not. The hope is that personal details connect viewers to something larger and more universal.
“Weirder, Wilder, Witchier”
Last summer, I proposed making a large-scale accordion book for a new library. The large hinged wood panels would expand on ideas I’d been playing with on a smaller scale for several years. My proposal — to combine visual elements inspired by prairie plants and landscapes with text from written works by Great Plains authors — was rejected, but I held onto the idea and considered it from other angles.
I’ve been making small accordion books filled paintings and collages. One series is called “Incantations without words.” Each page reads like a visual spell, wish or poem. I’ve always felt connected to nature’s rhythms, and that connection has deepened by hosting more native plants and animals in my small urban yard. I read stories about ancient women’s knowledge and rituals. And when I make these small art books as meditations, I can contemplate multiple connections.
I’ve scaled up those ideas, raising my visual voice with the linked panels. As I worked on layering the pigments, composing shapes and sculpting texture, the ideas bubbling up were looser, less literary, less literal and much weirder, wilder, and witchier than those presented in last summer’s proposal.
The pieces on view reflect my current state of mind — references to prairie, to seasonal cycles, to finding direction and purpose, to defining and referencing sources of power and deciding about how best to move through days ahead. These pieces are filled with personal symbols, colors that I find restful and reassuring. Sunflower seeds become marks of India ink; feeling a little lost has me appreciating the visual reference of a compass and helps me remember the internal one that can guide me. Circles or rings refer to the moon, the earth, seasons, travel and returns home. Cairns of imaginary rocks represent people and places I love. And each page or panel includes the vibrations of my wishes for peace, harmony, protection and justice — wishes whispered, sung or shouted as I paint.
It’s all storytelling of a kind, an effort to connect with others and to share something of myself that might last.
“In Senegal, the polite expression for saying someone died is to say his or her library has burned,” writes Susan Orlean in The Library Book. “When I first heard the phrase, I didn’t understand it, but over time I came to realize it was perfect. Our minds and souls contain volumes inscribed by our experiences and emotions; each individual’s consciousness is a collection of memories we’ve cataloged and stored inside us, a private library of a life lived. It is something that no one else can entirely share, one that burns down and disappears when we die. But if you can take something from that internal collection and share it — with one person or with the larger world, on the page or in a story recited — it takes on a life of its own.”
Enjoy exploring part of my library.
Lori Elliott-Bartle, Omaha, Nebraska, October 2025
