Deliberate Involute of an Abstracted Love

Janet Chaffee
Involute
2022
Ink on mylar
48 x 48 inches

Laced Armor, No. 3
2023
Ink on mylar
48 x 48 inches

My work is an intentional expression of love and respect for the natural world, the relationships that inform my life, and the interlacement between the two. I cannot be a part of one without the other, just as I cannot engage in the verbal without the visual. Creating my work involves the process of layered materials and imagery, reflecting the earth's geological formations and the intricately interwoven connections found in our communities and relationships, many of which underpin my life. Lace, Mica, Calcium Carbonate, Beeswax, Oil Paint, Art History, Rilke's poetry, and the imagery of site-specific rock formations such as the In-Ko-Pah mountain range and Continental Divide are metaphors for this practice. My fixated preoccupation with geological and lived passages, interlacements, joy, new life, endings, and grief catalyze the multiple combinations of these metaphors, resulting in an intuitive yet purposeful unwinding path into the discovery of an unexpected fullness in my personal and abstracted language, life, and love. The created works and interlacements are the visual accompaniments for my Deliberate Involute of an Abstracted Love.

Cross Section on a Curved Assumed
Encaustic, mica and oil on panel
60 x 60 inches

Deliberate Involute, No. 3
2024
Water soluble encaustic on paper
31 x 23 inches

Dear Darkening Ground
Rainer Maria Rilke

Dear darkening ground,
you've endured so patiently the walls we've built,
perhaps you'll give the cities one more hour . . .

before you become forest again, and water, and widening wilderness
in that hour of inconceivable terror
when you take back your name from all things.

Just give me a little more time!
I want to love the things
As no one has thought to love them,
Until they're worthy of you and real.

Interlacements No. 1
2021
Charcoal on paper
104 x 104 inches

Interlacements No. 2
2022
Charcoal on paper
104 x 104 inches

Deliberate Involute, No. 2
2024
Water soluble encaustic and charcoal on paper
40 x 26 inches

Involute in Charcoal
2023
Charcoal on paper
30 x 22 inches

Janet Chaffee is originally from Denver but has lived in Texas most of her life. She earned her BFA in painting from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1999 and received her MFA in painting from Texas Christian University in 2002. After graduating, she taught drawing at TCU, UTA, and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. She has shown in both individual and group exhibitions throughout the state of Texas. Recently, Janet participated in the exhibition More Than This . . . at Arts Fort Worth, as well as 150 Years/150 Artists at TCU in Fort Worth. In the fall of 2023, Janet's work was featured in the exhibition Renewal at Artspace III, Fort Worth, where she is currently represented. Janet also teaches Upper School Art at Trinity Valley School in Fort Worth and her work will be seen in She Said/He Said at Kirk Hopper Fine Art in Dallas in December 2024.

Rilke poem translation by Joanna Macy.