Nancy Gardner. Artist Statement

2007

In my work I have tried to bring together the things I value in life.  The touch of the hand, rich color and pattern, natural forms, designed objects.  It occurred to me that paintings represent a sort of enhanced reality, a moment when life is operating on all cylinders and that I wanted to bring that heightened sense to the table of everyday life. Maybe you could reach into a painting and take a piece of it and then build a still life in your house. So each piece is a pot and a piece of a painting. I wanted to be just the tiniest corner of a Matisse painting, and that seems preposterous-could you mention yourself in the same sentence?
But that’s it really. It’s been this dogged determination of that small but persistent idea that I have been following. And every 200th pot or so it happens.