Randi Stein : Stories in Paint and Paper

I began to draw at the age of forty-two, after a life-altering encounter with a book entitled “The Zen of Seeing”, by Dutch-American artist Fredrick Franck. My first drawing in 1990 was of a #2 pencil. It took me an exhausting two hours to draw. But what that first drawing taught me was that I already had most of the tools I needed to investigate the visual world and— perhaps– even the stories that lay behind the forms and colors I was observing. And indeed, it was the stories of people’s lives that most interested me at that time. So I began with portraiture. People came into the studio that I had rented in a small town in southern New Hampshire, and we talked while I drew;  the charcoal and pastels that I held in my hand gradually became friends, and helped me to invite and tell the story I was seeing. Some of these first paintings were exhibited and sold; two are in this show.

During this pandemic year, when social distancing made studio visits and portraiture sittings impossible, I found myself going back to some old drawings, tearing and cutting and re-arranging the pieces into new stories— often including words and images from my religious tradition, which has been such a help in keeping me spiritually in balance. This year has turned many people’s worlds upside down. It seems appropriate to be telling new stories, and discovering what was perhaps absent from my sight thirty years ago.