“She’s has everything and the kitchen sink in her artwork!”

I recently heard the comment noted in the title of this post about my newly completed artwork Adaya. Yet, I don’t really have “everything and the kitchen sink,” as well as the dirty dishes, in my work. Each of the items viewed as unrelated or partially related has a personal significance to me.

Advaya, (post-publication title “Where The Sea and The Sky Meet”) 16"x20", pencil, watercolors and pastel chalk.

Susan Slocum Dyer 9/26/2026 ©

I have started a new, yet to be finished artwork. In this windowpane or paneled work there is rockfish, herring and chicory. Chicory is new to my artwork, but not to me.

Why put some of the flowers and leaves under the sea alongside fans of seaweed? I position them there as this is how I see visual memory of place; of skyscapes, seascapes and landscapes.

"I PAINT FROM REMEMBERED

LANDSCAPES THAT I CARRY WITH ME.”

Joan Mitchell

Someone might be at the ocean and suddenly declare they see a sea anemone. They will then shift that statement about what they see in front of them to a statement of recollection or association. They will add to their statement “It looks tike the windflowers in my garden or the chrysanthemums!” 

Knowing this, I skip painting the sea anemone in the underwater areas of my painting and just paint the windflowers or chrysanthemums - leaping from what is seen to what is recalled. 

I see us as one sees molecules under the microscope; dynamic systems / physical and mental organisms / landscapes which embody all that we have experienced. We look at a cloud and see our grandmother’s teapot or a unicorn just like the one on the cover of a book we had as a child. We discover what we know.

"MEMORY... IS THE DIARY THAT WE

ALL CARRY ABOUT WITH US.”

Oscar Wilde

This is also why there is a thin ribbon of color that winds through my windowpane paintings. This is the thread of my memory drawing each panel together into a singular work.

My last painting’s title Adaya is such a great term for my recent artwork. Its defining element of non-duality includes, for me, the past (memory) and the present; lifespan and the singular day / hour. 

The chicory in my yet finished work is abundant here in Oregon. I often see it alongside railway tracks and park trails when I am out walking. It is also plentiful in Juneau, Alaska where I lived for three years and Metlakatla, Alaska where I lived and taught for a year. Chicory is my botanical, travel companion and has been for years. 

The pencil sketch is above and 

below is the painting in progress.

Rockfish and herring are the same yet they’ve accompanied me as local subsistence foods, Indigenous cultural history and within those guide books you get to identify local fish both here and in Alaska. They swim through my paintings as they have through decades of my life. 

This is me also shifting the subjects of my work, adding chickory instead of Arctic poppies. I’m now looking for what I might see or discover here in the PNW that would result in not having fish in my work. Yes, I am asking that question again. 

Why ask that? My answer is that my paintings are evolutionary, like all life. If I continue to keep herring in my work, what is here that I’m not seeing or adding instead? Maybe I’ll add clouds that beckon seen fish, or flowers that echo fish forms. Yet, that isn’t what I am looking for. I don’t think I’ll know until I see it and when I do it will be an ahah moment.

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