Rebecca Wetzel Wagstaff

My paintings are kind of self-portraits in still-life. I don’t look for things to paint, but rather paint what becomes, usually over time, compelling and necessary for me to paint. I paint pottery I own and have lived with, “treasures” my daughters bring to me, fruit from my backyard (and my childhood), flowers, assorted weeds that grow in my yard, and objects I have picked up while walking out in the hills.

Though my paintings are often formal in composition, and imply geometry, I don’t calculate my compositions, but paint intuitively. The elements in each painting are symbolic for me. Basically, I paint my life. Or, in other words, the elements of my life reappear as elements in my paintings, and those elements, which often happen to have universal symbolic meaning always have personal symbolic meaning.