What? Sustenance, in a few realms. Visual, as my paintings, prints and books; Spiritual, as a few exotic thought ingredients with which to cook up your own meal; Edible, as a collection of innovative food notes developed through 30 years of keeping several balls in the air at once. Some of the “balls” include keeping the artwork alive and flourishing; co-founding and operating a large organic goat farm and fromagerie; growing & storing most of the family food; setting all of that up 3 different times, twice in NY and once in Quebec; and building a fieldstone-lined passive-heating solarium addition for each of the two most recent homes.

Who?   A Wild Woman, That’s just me, after living in rural settings for too long now to go back to a world without wildness. All these paintings, observations, and recipes are my own sustenance, but they’re offered here for anyone  who may find bits of nourishment somewhere in them as well.

The artwork  consists of paintings and prints  collectively titled and exhibited as, The Remnants And Residents Of A Lost Sanctuary Of Aphrodite. This blog riffs on individual pieces, in small, digestible, possibly provocative bits. Here is my art site, with plenty more paintings and prints to explore if small is not enough.

The food notes:  Now and then the art chronicles are seasoned with a moment or spot in the nearby world outside the studio — maybe just witnessing, maybe sharing something innovative, delicious, or resource-conscious around the garden, wildcrafting, or food storage and prep.

Humans have not changed dramatically since we first appeared, and I look for threads of continuity in our needs and concerns. Leaps of evolution also occur.

I offer deeply rooted totems for these liminal times.

Though the imagery sometimes springs from documented remains, the motives underlying each painting are both current and timeless: our need for sustenance, beauty, and grace; and visions of women on their own terms.

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Laurie Goodhart received a BFA from UAlbany in 1985, after interrupting studies to spend several years making props and set dressing for children’s theatre and opera. That deep immersion in over-life-size fantasy productions continues to inform her artwork and life as she pursues the mythic and ethereal as an artist, and the fundamental earth processes as an organic farmer and artisanal cheesemaker — a path which included co-founding Nettle Meadow in New York and Domaine De Courval in Quebec. 

Formally, her artwork reflects a profound resonance with the beauty, materials, and purposes of ancient artifacts. The largest part of her oeuvre is in oil on canvas, but also includes prints, artist books, and paper mobiles.

Goodhart exhibits widely and is represented in hundreds of private collections.