The Memory is Connie’s affirmations were continuous; the gentle, rhythmic nod, a soft vocal “yes”, “Mmmmhmm”, and “ah”, followed by her astute teasing-out of the color contrasts, as she revealed how they were pillars of strength and clarity for each one of us. She was always laying a path for us to know more of what we knew about our own aesthetic propensities, struggles, and joys. She would inevitably show us that how we express ourselves isn’t arbitrary or borrowed, but absolutely our own process of artmaking, She gave us color as compass, and color as map. Connie has been in my thoughts and in my work more than ever, and true to her nature, as much as I miss her, she is glowing and present, and bringing so much positivity to this delicate time. I can call her up vividly, from sensing, to reflecting, to interacting with the color pile, or that intricate felt twig or leaf, or rock, to manifesting our responses exploding with color, or whispering-subtle saturations on that white ground, on Connie’s studio floor. Connie gave us license over and over again to simply revel in felt sensory experience, and free up the work itself – allowing it to be not so much an outcome, but an artifact, of our distilled personal interactions with color and the visual world.
Kathryn de Laszlo, October, 2020
