THE DANCE," acrylic, 58 by 60 inches.
Photo courtesy Suzanne Brown Gallery.
Of equal importance is the fact that this same new pigment can be applied with an acrylic base for a painting on canvas. The pigment contains film chips, finely chopped and milled down, and itproduces a luminescent, ethereal effect.
Using this medium, Roberts is achieving a new quality in the "Blanket Women." In her studio several canvases are under way, many of them commissioned pieces, and some earmarked for a gallery showing in Scottsdale, Arizona, in early 1986.
These pieces reveal the same technique that Roberts has used
for seven years, but there is an additional luminescence: many of the
broad strokes of the geometric patterns are no longer dark and opaque.
They shine with a mother-of-pearl opalescence and look almost as though
gold leaf had been applied to them.
While her "Blanket Women" comprise the majority of
her paintings, Roberts' work also includes blanketed Indian men. For the
viewer, the men and women are differentiated by the backs of the heads.
The heads of the males are defined by the suggestion of braids bound with
colored yarn that frame the head.
Many of the broad strokes of the geometric patterns shine with a mother-of-pearl
opalescence and look almost as though gold leaf had been applied to them.
do
not wear braids; their black hair simply slides down inside the blanket.
Occasionally, there is the suggestion of a profile, the flat fore- head and high cheekbones suggesting a Mayan influence. Roberts admits that this is probably accurate. "When I was illustrating Charles Gallenkamp's book Maya: Riddle and Rediscovery of a Lost Civilization, I was deeply affected by the culture of the Maya. I'm sure it appears in some of my work, albeit unconsciously; But the braids of the Indian men are (derived from a) Taos Pueblo influence. The images are a composite influence and strictly from my own imagination." Before Roberts embarked on her current series, she was painting full-figured Indian dancers as they faced the viewer. And al- ways, "then and now," landscapes. "I saw a show of Victor Higgins at the Museum of Fine Arts (in Santa Fe) recently. He was one of the members of the Taos Society of Artists, and seeing his work again has convinced me that I want-and need-to continue with the landscapes. Higgins had such a command of the use of white paint. I think seeing his work has re-stimulated me to create work with the softer colors and to experiment with white.
Regardless of the colors she uses, Roberts works with equal facility in acrylics, oils, pastels and watercolors. She attributes the skills in these multi-disciplines to her years of training with leading artists and teachers of the area.
"I was very, very lucky," she asserts. "I had
good art teachers from the time I was a child. When I was little, I had
drawing lessons from Louise Crow, and my grandmother, an artist herself,
taught me how to mix paints. Then, in high school, I was fortunate to
have JozefBakos as a teacher, and it really was he who was instrumental
in my 
had settled in Santa Fe in the 1920s.
Then, at the University of New Mexico, after I transferred there from Colorado College in Colorado Springs, I had Randall Davey as one of my teachers, as well as John Tatschl and Kenneth Adams. Adams was one of the members of the Taos Society of Artists. Elaine de Kooning, one of the early abstract expressionists, was one of my teachers at UNM. I learned so much from all of them, and everything I learned was different. Davey, for example, would talk about what it was to be an artist, on a day-to-day basis. Adams really slapped me down from time to time, and I deserved it.
I took advantage of the fact that I could accomplish more than a lot of the
other students in less time, so I got lazy. I complained to Adams that the nudes
we were drawing were boring because they would stay in the same position for
maybe six weeks. He told me, 'Well, then, it's up to you to do something creative
with them. Make them un-boring.' Elaine de Kooning let us 'play' with paint,encouraging
us to splash and drip. Each teacher contributed so much that has been valuable
in my own work. I had a good balance of both structure and freedom when
I was a student, and I would say it was Kenneth Adams who taught me discipline."
Discipline is evident throughout Roberts' well-ordered studio,and in the strict regimen she imposes upon herself. She typically begins her working day at 10 o'clock each morning, laying out the materials she will use for the day's work. She frequently works well into the night, stopping only long enough to have a bite to eat and to feed her two dogs and five cats. She explains that she prefers to work this way because of the momentum she builds.
"It's extremely hard to come back to a work-in-progress once you've stopped. If I decide that I want to have an evening off to play, see friends or go out to dinner, for example, I have to plan my schedule well ahead of time.
I don't like to lose the momentum I've established with a .painting I've been working on for 18 hours." Roberts' output is awesome. Canvases are stacked against every available surface in the studio and in her new home just across the street. She recently purchased the property because her paintings were literally "shoving her out the door" of her studio, which had also been her life-long home.
Despite her prolific yield of paintings (at least 200 a year, plus editions of serigraphs that total four or five a year), Roberts admits to an occasional "block." "Yes," she laughs, "painters get blocks just like writers do. I swear to God inspiration walks out the door and heads for the bars. I'd like to send a squad out looking for it! I just resign myself to a dry spell for awhile. I read, I do anything that is divorced from painting, really. Then, by and by, I'll start sketching again and work back into a creative state."
When she is painting, Roberts admits that her best work evolves
when she allows herself to go into what she calls a "state of grace,"
a state of being in which a creative energy takes over her consciousness.
It is a time when painter, brush and palette are as one. "It's not
a thing which is easy to explain," she admits. "If I approach
the canvas with a finished product in mind, then my work becomes too stylized,
too rigid."
In addition to the "Blanket" series and the landscapes,
Roberts has just completed a series of monotypes depicting the images that
appear on African petroglyphs and shield paintings. These were inspired
by a recent trip to Kenya where, Roberts says, there exists the same light
and color that has inspired Santa Fe and Taos artists for generations.
"1 did dozens of sketches there," She says. "When
I returned home, I chose to utilize them in monotype because that medium
gives me a freedom of interpreting the very primitive early expressions
found on the shields and petroglyphs. "
Southwest Profile