Joy Adams did these two drawings from memory. They are a tribute to Ducky, a goat she owned for years but had to get rid of. She called him a soulmate and says “in a former life he might have been my husband.” The drawings are featured in Rochester Contemporary’s Makers & Mentors 2020 exhibition and Joy gave an artist’s talk this afternoon along with one of her former students, Lin Price.
Born in England just after the World War her memories of the English countryside reshape what she sees from the window of her barn/studio/home in Ithaca. “There is nothing unique about lavishly prickly weeds or trees dozing off in my backyard, unless I manage to bring something new to how I see them. The challenge is to avoid the predictable because predictability is about as welcome as a cold cuppa tea.”
She told the crowd she tries to tell the truth by moving beyond looking to seeing. Mostly through direct observation. She says the soul that drawings have is the difference between looking and seeing
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