About Mimi
ARTIST STATEMENT:
I paint to honor God’s beauty in nature, with the intention of creating images to calm the mind, soothe the soul, and inspire joy.
BIO NARRATIVE:
My earliest memory of sketching is in a cow pasture with a small group of children around age 10. I remember butterscotch candies being a part of that day. Funny what stays with us, isn’t it?
Three years later my mother placed me in a Saturday morning painting class at Moyer’s Art Gallery in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, where I continued to study privately for most of the next 25 years, until relocating to Cape Cod in 1997.
I pursued a combined art and academic curriculum in high school. While urged to pursue art in college, I made an intentional decision to do otherwise, under the mistaken assumption that work and pleasure could not exist in the same space.
I started college as an Animal Science major at the University of Delaware (back to the cow pastures) then transferred to Gettysburg College where I struggled through a Biology major (about as similar to animal science as horse shoes and running shoes.) During a one month January term I took a figure drawing course from the head of the art department, a man notorious for "no A’s" and, well, I earned an A.
Then went back to the labs, and B’s and C’s. The best moment of graduation was when I opened my final transcript and saw not a regular D, but a D+ in organic chemistry. Oh so glorious!
I'm a firm believer that God gives us signs. Clearly I was not paying attention.
Fast forward to 1995. I was offered my first painting commission, an old orchard barn in western Pennsylvania. On a beautiful day in early October, I found myself once again in a field, camera around my neck and sketchbook in hand, wearing jeans and a t-shirt and being paid to do something I loved. Said to myself, “Oh, so THIS is what work can feel like!”
ARTISTIC STYLE:
My style through the years leaned toward traditional realism, with relatively tight brushwork, mostly in studio from photographs. Until one night, frustrated with a large painting that was mis-behaving, I took a painting knife to it and started to simply smear the paint around. It was liberating. Exhilarating. And at the same time, it quieted my soul. I had created my first abstract painting, quite unintentionally.
I continued to experiment with this new method. To be honest, it scared me. I was used to starting out with a photograph, and a destination in mind. With abstracts, I would sit in front of a blank canvas having only the barest hint of an idea of where it is headed.
The abstract experience informed my landscape painting, bolstering my confidence to move away from tighter realism. In 2021, I endeavored and completed a 54 day alla prima painting project (more here: https://mimisart.com/collections/54-falmouth-beach- paintings-in-54-days-project.) A looser, more impressionistic style emerged, painted mostly with painting knife, on location, typically in thirty minutes to an hour start to finish. My one rule for the project was that the paintings would stand as completed on site, with no ‘touch ups’ in the studio, true alla prima style as I understand it.
SUMMARY
After five decades of painting, my process has become one of growing quiet, praying, listening for inspiration, choosing colors and scenes in nature with more confidence. I work predominantly with palette knife, almost exclusively in oil, though this past summer I enjoyed working quick on-site beach sketches in watercolor pencil and ink pen.
Surrender. Ask God's help. Go where I am led. Notice the mistakes. Make corrections. The story of my painting, and my life.
Thank you for reading all the way through.
Mimi
"... what makes (Mimi's) work so intriguing... realistic or abstract, her art is always personal, exquisitely presenting the ways in which she looks at the world, reveling in the miracles of God and basking in the unmatched beauty of a Cape Cod sky.” (Quoted from Artist Profile in ©Cape Cod Art magazine, 2021 Annual)
MIMI'S ART GALLERY AND STUDIO
I relocated to Cape Cod in 1997, opened my first gallery in the breezeway of my home, then a different one on Main Street in Falmouth in 2009, a smaller one in West Falmouth in 2014, finally settling into a working studio in my home in West Falmouth. It was starting to gain momentum in 2021, until my landlord decided to join the 'let's sell the Cape rental property while the market is high" trend in early 2022. I moved to the parsonage at the church where I have served as Minister of Music for 20 years. Due to occupancy restrictions I am unable to host my own gallery there, so it is time to seek representation again with established galleries throughout New England.
Previous gallery representation has included:
Louisa Gould Gallery, Martha’s Vineyard - 2018
Cortile Gallery, Provincetown - 2016 and 2017
Gallery 30, Gettysburg - 1994-2007
Solo shows:
Falmouth Community Television - 50 piece showing of all new works - the opening show in their new gallery space - 2019
The Cataumet Art Center, Bourne, Cape Cod - 2011
The Faxon Center Gallery at Falmouth Hospital - 2004 and 2014
PROFESSIONAL PRIZE:
Marion Wine and Arts Festival - July 8, 2000 - received first place cash prize for art
best depicting south coast/Cape Cod - “Beach Baby” oil painting
EDUCATION:
* Rhode Island School of Design - continuing education courses - drawing/portrait * Lutheran Theological Seminary, Gettysburg, PA - candidate, Master of Divinity, * Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, PA - B.A., Biology
* Cedar Cliff High School, Camp Hill, PA - art and college preparatory emphases, * Moyer’s Art Gallery & Studio - Jeanie Moyer, owner/teacher - ages 13-34