LIBBY HOAGLAND
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Musings

Lots of time passes from the beginning of a painting through its development and sometimes many transformations, and this time gives me ample opportunity to ponder the subject and mood of each painting. The Musings section of my website contains some of my ponderings about a painting as well as some little ah-ha moments.

The Portals Tapestries

Many of the best artworks I have made started with a happy accident. The entire Tapestries series started one day when my art group—Art Safari—decided to work big. Really big. We had been inspired by...

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Early One Morning

In the summer of 2021 I was having a good time making rubbings of the texture of the ground on some old painter’s drop cloths I found balled up in a corner of our garage....

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Musing about River Naiads

These three river naiads are making their ways around obstacles in the river of life with its unexpected twists and turns, but nevertheless swimming on. When displayed together, these images convey the full impact of...

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Do You Like Butter?

I have been reading a lot about the utter catastrophe that our unfettered and reckless use of herbicides and pesticides has wrought. To take just one example, the practice of using Monsanto’s Round-up to rid...

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An Eco-Spiritual Madonna for Our Times

In the last two years, I have noticed that simple scenes of women intertwined with plants, animals or other earthly symbols are appearing in my work more frequently. I now understand this new work to...

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Musings about Woman with Raven

This painting changed many times throughout the course of being created. I didn’t know what was going on until the end. The woman is a keen witness to the activities on earth. She can see...

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Musings about One Way to Ride

I fell in love with horses early. When I was eight years old my father finally arranged for me to have riding lessons with Señor Martinez, the riding instructor at a college nearby. Unlike other...

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Musings about Basket of Eggs

This painting was the first of a long series of images that featured women carrying baskets or nests filled with eggs. Eggs represent new life. Each egg requires a certain amount of time necessary to...

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Paintings

Musings about Laundry Day

No doubt I was doing a lot of laundry at this time and seeking a way to find more meaning in it. This image is another visual meditation on the beauty of fabrics— the materials...

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Musings about The Cook

While visiting a Zapotec village in the mountains of Oaxaca, I met a woman named Yolanda who did most of the food preparation for the families there. She cooked over a stone slab heated by...

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Musings about Birdbirds

Ghandi advised us to “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” This woman is wearing a nest on her head and providing safe shelter for these bluebirds. She is being the habitat...

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Icons for a Sustainable World

There are many narratives we can tell to explain the nature of the world. We are all familiar with the Darwinian explanations of the world in terms of competition and survival of the fittest. This...

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Inspiration

Musings about Offering

The idea of hybrid species really intrigues me, especially imaginary hybrids from different biological kingdoms. What would a creature who is part-plant and part-woman look like? And what special attributes would she have? This girl...

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Paintings

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