“Landscape,” by Gillian Pederson Krag, 2007, oil on canvas, 17 x 18. Private collection

Gillian Pederson-Krag wrote a revealing essay for this new book that includes color reproductions of more than 70 of her paintings and 30 of her etchings. “I go out searching for something to paint and I always have the notion that I will surprise myself and find something completely new,” she says. “To a certain extent this is what happens, but the reality is that I am actually only seeing what I already have some kind of idea and feeling about. Acknowledging this and really reflecting on the ‘landscape’ that we carry around with us in our memory and imagination allows us to see a richer world when we look outside.”

“Seascape,” by Gillian Pederson Krag, 1993, oil on canvas, 16 x 18. Private collection

Gillian Pederson Krag. Paintings and Etchings 1970-2011: Reflections on Painting, With an Introduction by Tom Maderos (Larson Publications, Burdett, New York, 2011, http://larsonpublications.com; available by contacting the artist: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) offers a opportunity to consider how an artist can begin with direct observations of nature in a drawing or painting and then “work on it in the studio until the image has some kind of meaning aside from its identity as literal description.” She begins the book by discussing the value of drawing and writes that “at first glance the goal of reporting the facts doesn’t appear to be very entertaining. Some people fear a loss of their sense of individuality, but for some reason, I have found it a wonderful, exhilarating experience. ... It is an experience of simply allowing myself to receive the sense impressions of what is out there without a lot of editorializing, like taking a vacation from myself.”

Pederson-Krag then jumps into a discussion of color, the aspect of painting for which she is widely regarded as a master. “Color requires an emotional engagement; drawing can be understood but color must be felt. And while it is possible to be motivated to learn to draw from a sense of duty or responsibility, color is only available to those who manage, in one way of another, to love it and approach it with their feelings.”

“Still Life,” by Gillian Pederson Krag, 2007, oil on canvas, 15 x 17. Collection P.L. Porter

And when reviewing the ways that she came to understand the emotional aspects of color, Pederson-Krag said she set a challenge for herself to paint one painting every day during the month she spent at an artists’ colony. “It is not my temperament to paint fast, but speeding things up helped me enormously to discover a way to approach the work with my feelings rather than think my way through the process. It seems to me that there are many ways to get into color, of which painting quickly is only one of them, but as an introduction to this aspect of the craft, it has worked well.”

“Still Life,” by Gillian Pederson Krag, 2007, oil on canvas, 18 x 17. Collection Michael and Harriet Eisman, Lodi, NY

In the final section of text written by the artist, Pederson-Krag speculates on the purpose of art. “Art makes life bearable. It isn’t a luxury. Like our capacity for understanding and our experience of love, it is a vitally important part of life ... Insofar as we struggle with feelings of the fear of loss, to that extent do we need something to dramatize to us, over and over, that there exists in us something that is boundary-less, impersonal and invincible. An essentially, this is what we touch in the experience of being moved.”