Capitol Hill has been the backdrop of my life where I have lived since 1984.
The neighborhood is one of the oldest in Seattle. Often in parts of this old neighborhood of Seattle, I can easily slip into a daydream where I might be seeing the neighborhood through the eyes of its early citizens because of the history and timelessness of the landscape. Other times, I am taken back to solitary, exploratory walks of my youth. In this exercise of daydreaming, I am reminded of Marcel Proust's novel, "À la recherché du temps perdu" ("In Remembrance of Things Past") where the concept of time dissolves, and where the reconstruction of the past is relative to the present "now."
Oil paintings vignettes of Capitol Hill from my show “Sense of Place,” Sugarpill, October 2014.
One of my favorite places to visit on the “Hill” is my neighborhood park, Volunteer Park. The park was designed by the Olmsted Brothers, America's most famous landscape architects from the late 19th/early 20th century.
What I enjoy about this park is its timelessness. There are hardly any signs of the modern world in this park. Nature and the landscape dominate the experience.
Reservoir, Volunteer Park, Capitol Hill, Seattle. A study I made of the reservoir, an original feature of the Olmsted designed park. Oil on Canvas, 8x8.” 2015
Lily Pad Pond, Volunteer Park. Oil on Canvas, 8x8." 2015. This is a view of the other lily pad pond in Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill. The reservoir can be seen through the early spring greenery.
I am intentional about capturing the essence of the moment of what I see and experience. By working with color as a key component in my compositions, I seek to evoke a reflective or nostalgic mood. For example, the contrast of shapes and color that are produced by the late summer sun high in the sky, are interesting to me, and become a point of focus of a composition.
The effects of a muted grayish white of fog induces local color to appear even more vibrant, like the lush green grass of a local park. Snapshots in time set in oil on canvas.
A field of budding rhododendrons jump out in contrast to the morning fog in Volunteer Park.
“Mist.” Oil on Canvas, 8x8.” 2015
Louisa Boren Park, Oil on Canvas, 8x8.." 2015. From this viewpoint, you are looking east over Lake Washington. The Cascade Mountains are on the horizon.
It is within this timeless landscape of Capitol Hill, spanning eras and individual and collective histories, past and present, that one can be reminded that some things do not change. The decades-old parks and trees and floral tapestry, the ageless skies, that surround us and envelope us, can give us comfort through their subtle spirituality. That as long as we have the beauty of the landscape around us as an anchor, we can experience the sublime that exists in the ever-present, ever changing "now."
Mary Lamery is a lifelong resident of Seattle, Washington, USA and native of the Pacific Northwest. Lamery paints regional landscape in a manner that leans towards 19th century French Impressionism. Her landscapes invite the viewer to add to the backstory of the composition through personal identification with the paintings and story telling of the experience.