Dr. Harris is a (north of Boston based) neurologist turned artist who works primarily with molten wax fus-ing painting and drawing to create layered surfaces with lyrical scrawls and repetitive mark making. her creations are rich with associations to language, science, and spirituality and can be viewed locally at the Clark Gallery in Lincoln and also in a variety of other public settings.
wind up…
espresso, green juice and pilates… in that order!
other direction… and, when you need to exhale?
i meditate regularly. it helps to relax my mind, erase my to-do list and restores my focus. i also love to read. right now it’s the new jonathan franzen book, purity.
in tandem… when you are sketching or at your easel, who is there perched on your shoulder, your in-fluencers?
i am forever consuming art. and, i confess i have always been somewhat of a math and quantum physics junkie. growing up i wanted to be an astronaut! the teachings of the cornell physicist brian greene (es-pecially his book, the hidden reality) provide me this internal library. for the past year and a half espe-cially, it’s the writing and scribblings, these quantum images which have been informing my creative work. also, haruki murakami. i’m obsessed with this japanese author and find images from his dream-like novels seeping into/ influencing/ appearing in my work. not only do i reread his novels, but i listen to them in the studio and in the car!
field trip… your 5 all-time favorite places to consumer artwork?
it’s so important for me to stay informed about contemporary practices and historical precedence. tough to narrow it down, but…
top of the list has to be the anselm kiefer building at mass moca – a cavernous space holding kiefer’s weighty work, with themes of war and spiritual ruin, i find deeply moving.
the addison gallery of american art in andover – how lucky am I to have a world class museum a few blocks away!
the linde contemporary wing at the museum of fine arts. there, find me standing in front of the joan mit-chell!
the griffin museum of photography in winchester
and then there are the dream art vacations… the cy twombly gallery at the menil collection in houston, the venice biennale…
promise not to tell… when not in the studio, your best kept sanctuary for finding some bliss in the greater boston area?
just a short ride from boston… the rhode island school of design museum, where in one small room on the top floor can be found works by cy twombly, joan mitchell, and mark rothko. a few weeks ago, i sat in that room for an hour, just drinking in the beauty.
and of course my parent’s home by the sea in gloucester. there, looking at the ocean.
breaking news… something clever folks don’t know about you?
in my prior life as an actress i once appeared in the television series dallas… in a purple bikini!
parting thoughts… any wisdom to share with someone procrastinating on the verge of diving into some creative path?
dive in. for me that meant creating a studio here in my home so that i could work around my childrens’ lives. the longer that you are not working, the easier it is to continue putting things off. but, once you get into the studio, if you are truly an artist, you will just naturally focus and want to produce more and more.
