When I entered my first painting class in school, do you know what my painting professor said to me? 

“Painting is dead.”

I promptly believed that asshat and went into drawing animation and computers....

If something moves you to make a mark, to push color, to pull up water in your brush and spill out your creative guts... urging you to create, and recreate, dismembers your thoughts, makes you lose time, stretches you to new limits it is alive.

Painting is ALIVE no matter what some intellectual who was left to wither on the vine thinks. 

 I believed this man for years! And he learned this from someone else. I didn’t start painting until I left school and was sanding down old sailboats on a boatyard in Provincetown.

If it quickens your pulse, it’s important, breathing, waiting for you to put it into action. This is one of my touchstone moments to “fuck it, I’m all in.” 

What stories have you broken up from the past to step into your power?

Many of us look toward the new year as an opportunity to undertake a new resolution. We’ve all heard the phrase, "New Year, New You,” which is a notion that a “new” version of you will set you on track for a greatness that has previously been beyond your reach.

While this idea can be motivational and forward moving, it also robs us of the precious opportunity to accept who we are. 

Consider that greatness is alive and vibrant within you right now.  One of the many things this past year has revealed to me is the importance of learning how to be at home inside the person I am today — in mind and body - and it’s actually an unlearning process! And a difficult one, at that. What if perfection IS hanging out in sweatpants and leaving piles of laundry on the floor while binge-watching “Survivor?"

I want to understand what the paintings are that honor the undoing process of cultural norms that shame us and separate us from each other. With remarkable regularity across human cultures, water has been used to communicate the sacred value of life; the spiritual dimension of purification, protection, and healing; and the profound meaning of suffering and redemption in human life. Water connects us to all living things. Water is essential to all living things. 

For years, I’ve had some shame about painting water because there are so many painters who already use this subject matter. So I tried to become some other kind of painter. I mean, for goodness sake, shouldn’t I find something new? New year, new me - right? I spent so much time denying what has been asking to be born in this work; using it as a crutch to decide I wasn’t a good enough painter.  But I’ve made it to the other side now! The angst of 2020 helped me figure out how to create paintings that offer a visual version of hope, healing, and transformation. It’s brought me back to accepting my inspirations. Painting images of dissolving, fissured, calm, and colorful figures in water helps me see the creative spirit threading itself through so many different pathways in order to find meaning and connection. 

This month, I am starting a new body of work that delves further into the notion of healing and holding ourselves more gently. The goal is to help bolster a visual language that speaks of self-love and internal peace. I hope this imagery helps you, the viewer, to find space for your precious and unique self inside each and every day, to find your center, and then begin to enact whatever is needed to be a co-creator in this world that is asking to be re-imagined and reborn now. 

What does it look like to engage in a lifestyle that serves our wholeness and reinforces our connection with the world? What does it look like to be in harmony with ourselves and each other? How will this work address structural racism and inequality in the world? I believe one way is by seeing and accepting who we are, consciously touching on gratitude, and surrendering into forgiveness. 

Can we evolve ourselves toward the world post-covid while working to undo structural racism? Can we do that through a gentle, patient practice?  Enduring change doesn’t happen overnight, but neither will it be helped along by tearing ourselves and others apart. 

Earlier this winter, a friend suggested I take a botanical drawing class held at the Smith College Green House. I had visited the greenhouse multiple times as a Smith undergrad (2002 - 2006), but somehow, over the decade, had forgotten this sanctuary existed.

These paintings depict a color palette that celebrates the bright and balmy reprieve of this sacred place. Winter’s dull palette is caught ablaze here. The paint strokes are immediate and bold, mirroring the great feeling of relief I had upon discovering the light within the very center of the darkness. 

The Green House at Smith College has become a space of refuge for me this winter. It gave me back what I hadn't noticed I was depriving myself of. That is the physical embodiment of a garden that is tended with patience and wisdom. Everything outside looks bleak and yet, behind closed doors, the beautiful manifestation of what it is to sit with the self and patiently grow what needs to be lovingly and carefully tended.

Go on a journey to find color in Northampton, MA. These difficult times require deep drinks of goodness and life.

Original paintings and fine art prints are now available for purchase. I'll be adding more as the days of winter give to spring to chronicle the change and growth of this lovely place. Hope you check in to see what else is coming to life in my little studio.

www.scoutcuomo.com

This commissioned painting is a gift from a husband to his wife of many decades. I have worked carefully to make a piece for them that reflects the way this person is cherished after the years the couple has spent together, the family they've made, and the life they share now. So here is Sue, sunlight kissing her back, the world of emerald and turquoise yawning out to the horizon. The ocean holding their starch white boat as it lazily toddles around the Florida Keys. Sue is sighing into the warm air.

Get in touch to make a piece of art that honors the people & places you love.

I thought I was going to give up painting.

I had a string of days after Trump was elected where I was ready to put down my dream--to stop trying so hard to prove that an artist can make a good living in the world and instead turn all my efforts towards protest and social justice. 

This election hit hard: the fight against White Nationalism has been screaming for my ardent, steadfast and deliberate attention.

It felt like my duty the second week of November to reconsider what is worth my energy and pursuit.

What a strange experience: cleaning up my space for Open Studios while MSNBC was airing polls and debates --states turning red while I was trying to organize my creative chaos and get over 40 paintings on the wall.
 

Since Nov. 9th, I know the following things to be true:

Some things about my life have changed.
Some things about my life must change.
Some things about my life won’t and shouldn’t change at all.

As I continue to paint, I keep my commitments in mind:

I am committed to unlearning oppressive behavior.
I am committed to deconstructing antiquated systems.
I am committed to the struggle against racism, sexism, and xenophobia.
I am committed to looking deeply into the needs of the small and large communities of which I am a part.
 

Dec. 16th 5 - 7:30

Final Studio Sale
Arts & Industry Building  
221 Pine St, Florence, MA 01062

Studio 412
I'm opening my studio in the Arts & Industry Building of Florence to the public one last time this year. I hope you'll come in from the dark to find some warmth & light .

While it's too late to get a special piece made in time for the coming Holiday Season, feel free to dream up ideas to re-inspire your home and life with me. We're going to need all the light and love we can get and I'd love for my work to make any part of that possible for you. 

Save 15% on fine art prints and original paintings online until Dec.10th by entering the coupon code: THANKS in checkout.

Shop Scout Cuomo Art for Holiday Gifts

Hike on up to the 4th floor and into studio #412 to find me among dozens of paintings and sculptures inspired by liberation of the human spirit and the beauty of our local environment here in New England. Then wander in wonder down to the first floor to find incredibly beautiful pottery by Molly Hatch, Tiffany Hilton, & Tandem Ceramics, beautiful banners famous throughout the world by The Secret Holiday Co and intimate drawings by Justin Brown Durand. You'll find baskets, Woodturned bowls, silkscreened apparel from Tap Root Threads and Rise & Tide. Each studio is a world of discovery. Bring your friends. Bring your family. Bring yourself. This is a weekend not to missed. 

https://www.facebook.com/events/1794633534159628/

https://www.facebook.com/events/1794633534159628/

My studio practice is seeking to collaborate to expand and grow within a community. How lucky am I that my brother, Gabe Cuomo and the Wily Breed creates profile pieces for artist, inventors, adventurers & outdoor explorers to tell their story. 

Get in touch with Gabe Cuomo

Today I the finished final glazes and touches on these two enormous paintings. It was such an incredible sense of relief and contentment to look at these two pieces and feel like I had put my best into rendering each of these over 8 months. Delicate layers of pigment were built up to create this vibrant canvas. I fear the pictures don't do it justice.  These art heirlooms are going home to Sue Jannetty on Marco Island, Florida. She had me remake family photos into luminous, color-filled 36" x 48" acrylic paintings on custom built birch canvas that are ready to hang and be enjoyed in her home for year to come.

I'm selling prints of this new painting online. All proceeds go to Standing Rock to fight the Dakota Pipeline: HERE

I'm posting a Final image of "She's got your back" for Sloan Tomlinson's Monster Art Show. This installation of many artists' inspiring works is up for your viewing enjoyment at the Mapspace in Eastworks, Easthampton. This figure I painted has found a new home, but I keep her near. She was inspired by post crossfit conversations with my sweet friend Candace. I worked for hours to see how she'd come to life, and at some point sanded it all down losing heart. 

Then, not even an hour later, I ran into the ECA art coordinater, Julie Rosier and something told me to ask her about this figure. Turns out she studied it a whole bunch. Turns out she was happy in her very busy day to contact her friend Stefini to have them send me some articles of their studies. Turns out she ended up inspiring Medusa's resurrection.

This version of Medusa is also inspired by Ruby Sales: ..."we have to begin to have a conversation that incorporates a vision of love with a vision of outrage."

http://www.onbeing.org/program/ruby-sales-where-does-it-hurt/transcript/8937

This figure is a start at that vision of outrage.

Because Julie and Stefini researched this topic for a long time, I got some more information about this figure. Medusa became a "monster" when she was punished for being raped by Poseidon. Medusa means sovereign female wisdom. She symbolizes: Connection to the earth. She destroys in order to recreate balance. She purifies. She is the ultimate truth of reality, the wholeness beyond duality. She rips away our mortal illusions. Forbidden yet liberating wisdom. The untamable forces of nature.

I think Medusa is in alignment with what someone named Perdita Finn said a few days ago in her personal facebook post in reference to Trumps comments about "pussy grabbing". Finn states that pussy grabbing is "about what human beings have been doing for too long to the earth. It's why species are going extinct every day. It's why there is almost no more top soil left on the planet. It's why the oceans are dying." 

A lot of us have been pussy grabbing. Taking what is not ours to take. I've felt it in the company of all genders. I have partaken in it, ignoring the issues thinking it would keep my sanity in line. It is not a single gender who's at fault here. And it's going to be ok. We all deserve redemption and love. The first part is stepping up to own our part.

It takes a tribe of warriors. You're my tribe. I hold this totem close. 

#pussygrabsback

A few commissions have travelled home across the United States this past month. 'Let it wash over you' was sent to Orange County to get stretched for a man who's life work is in renewable and zero impact energy use. The wave is a beautiful metaphor of nature energy, a powerful constant pulse of the ocean. 

Suzanne wanted to depict a memory of her awakening as a young woman swimming alone in Lake Tahoe. We collaborated on this swapping images for story until we came to the perfect representation of her younger self feeling the freedom of her body in the jeweled blues of this fantastic lake. Finally, when her painting was complete, I rolled up the canvas and sent it to a wonderful frame shop in Eagle, Idaho to have to stretched for its' new home. 

These paintings are available as prints in my little online store on ETSY for Scout Cuomo Studio. I'd love to collaborate with you on recreating your memories, dreams, family pictures, adventures, and visions. Get in touch. 

With evening meadows filling up with cavorting fireflies, Western MA streets thumping with summer adventure, and newsstands filling up with the latest Preview Massachusetts featuring Scout Cuomo on the cover (What!?) things are really heating up around here.

After this Spring's and showing of new work on glass and lucite in the Bodies of Light exhibit at the ECA+ Gallery, the spring led into summer picking up with 10 commissions to diligently work through.  Scout is starting to finish these larger private projects up and and the studio is  ramping up production for September shows in Western Massachusetts at the Hope & Olive in Greenfield and the Cup N' Top in Florence, MA. Scout will attend SOWA in Boston in October with a booth among hundreds of inspirational artisans and finish up the fall with Open Studios at the Arts & Industry Building located in Florence, MA November 13th & 14th. 

There's so much inspiration to be found in Western Massachusetts summers. Scout's new body of work celebrates the light sifting through cool forests, secret swim spots, puckered blue berries, jeweled dew drops in morning fields, and warm starry nights.  Many of these pieces are resin layered paintings on glass and lucite. In this process, Cuomo layers painting between candy coatings of epoxy to create a subtle three dimensional painterly surface. The effect is luminous.

Alongside the work for the new exhibit, the studio is becoming a veritable ark of blissed out birds & beasts.  Birds of various shapes and sizes are being celebrated in paintings layered on glass with handmade steel frames. 

Scout plays away on one of her many side projects, epoxy dipped papier-mâché animal heads. It's already crowded in here and it only get's more crowded by the day. Keep your eyes peeled and mantles clear because these peaceful creatures will be looking for homes before you know it!

A Brand New Site! 

What's that you say? Scout has unleashed her long awaited new site into the world!? (haha) Its true, it's gorgeous and you're here! Here you can purchase original little birds on glass with custom steel frames by Katie Richardson of Blue Barn Studios, large luminous paintings, prints, and friendly animal faces. The new website designed by the incredible Zoe Pappenheimer at Zoe Design Works features a whole enclave of new work, as well as archives, available paintings and prints, news on upcoming shows and other Scout Cuomo goings-ons. Seriously. It's worth clicking! Zoe did an incredible job!
 

Last week, after many months of building up layers upon layers of paint,  I sent this 48" x 72" painting home. It arrived first to a frame shop I found for the client in Idaho rolled safely for transport. There, they will stretch the canvas for Suzanne, who will be able to pick her painting up in a week. This image was created to relive her experience of her youth swimming in the pure, blue waters of Lake Tahoe. What a pleasure to hear how she connected to the experience of feeling liberation in the weightless place. I imagined the breaking light across her skin and helped her celebrated this moment. 

LeAnn came into the studio to pick up her paintings last week after a few months of work and conversation. She commissioned particular sizes to fit her home and based some of her vision on paintings completed in the past. Simply stated, it's such an honor to get to work with people on creating their visions. I've been working with people for years and it's very important to me to get it right. 

Commissioned Projects

When I received a call back from my pharmacist that they were unable to fill my prescription for Cetalopram until my doctor appointment March 1st I got nervous. I have struggled since my teens with chemical depression. It’s funny, because I haven’t really understood what that means for me until 15 years later… but anyway, I haven’t had my meds in two weeks so I am feeling the symptoms of anxiety and self-doubt sit more thickly in my brain. It is starting to become harder to stay alert, form words, and focus on one task at a time. I ruminate on something that happened 3 years ago and it gets in the way of the present moment. So really, when I got that information this week, I wasn’t just nervous, I sat there and cried.

I had to have realized in some way that artist have long shown to struggle with “mental illness”. Let’s all recall how we know that Van Gogh lopped off his ear… There are so many of us who have been hospitalized and felt alienated for this kind of struggle. The thing is, mental illness is much more ubiquitous than people admit.  Depression and Anxiety are more common than I full comprehend sometimes. I want to hypothesize that perhaps it’s even part of how our animal bodies and meat brains have come to adapt and grow. I wonder if in fact having these emotions provides a touch stone for the greatest movers and shakers of our time. I believe that these “brain troubles” have played a role in some of the worlds most beautiful and spectacular people and art pieces. I look around and think more of us struggle with anxiety and depression than we care to name.

This time without my meds is proving to be a place to grow understanding of the relationship between the creative process and chemical depression. I can actually see how with certain tools like, a therapist, a place to nurture my mind, and awareness of my “imbalance” at this time is connecting me more deeply with the act of making art. It also has me as distracted by every thing. I run here and there in the studio, picking up one task, then dropping it and seeing to another. But I feel compassionate toward my little body in a way that I never have before.

In the case of Depression or other chemical imbalances in the body, I have turned to Alcohol and drugs to alleviate the symptoms. Now I’m using the “I” here but this is something that hundreds of thousands of people do to cope.  Without wanting to go to far into the subject here, there are certain drugs that do help patients with depression and anxiety. But when I use any thing else, my mind is groggy and further steeped in self-loathing and uncertainty.

This time has been an instigator of a huge ah-hah moment. Suddenly I am aware of how deeply making art has served as a medicine for myself thought my life.  Art has saved me. Quietly, I have been urning to provide a place of comfort for the viewer. A place of “you too?”, “me too.” I want others to feel fully compassionate about the place they find themselves in the moment they look at the work and imagine spaciousness, the fun of color, and freedom while still being present and aware of the emotional burden of living in these bodies we have.  It’s a strange blessing, how my mind in this in-between place of no medicine and very thick awareness of how my brain gets overwhelmed is actually feeling like a blessing to me today as I paint. Last night when I got home from work exhausted, I did not think that. I thought, “I’m a freak, and a burden to others.”

One thing is for certain, my depression does not mean I give myself a free pass to act and behave however I feel because “I’m not in charge of myself.” Nope. For better or for worse, I have come to resent when people blame this and that situation for inappropriate behavior. Bad behavior and self-centeredness happen, I admit it. But today, I apologize, I accept the responsibility of my actions, and really try to do the best I can next time. Learning more about my depression and working with certain treatment tools and continuing to paint his have helped me to swallow my pride, apologize, and appreciate how much more there is to learn about self-mastery. This anxiety and tenderness has proven to be a door through which I can enter into self-awareness and ask, “Is this part of my depression? Do I need a little HALT up in here? Am I Hungry, Lonely, Tired? What can I do to compassionately alleviate my pain without alcohol? How can I ask for help with out dumping my feelings on someone and still wear my big kid pants? 

WOW, THE OPENING OF THIS SHOW COULDN’T HAVE BEEN BETTER. HERE IS MY STATEMENT OF THE SHOW AND SOME IMAGES OF THE NEW WORK.

While creating this body of work, I ran out of my prescription for anti-depressants, which I have come to rely on to regulate my experience of depression. I couldn’t get more for a month. Simply stated, without this prescription, I am easily overwhelmed and anxious. I felt my place among the generations of creators who have struggled with chemical imbalance, and feared that my disquiet would get in the way of completing this show. I discovered instead that my work has always been a medicine, and once again it offered up a perspective that I had yet to explore.

“Bodies of Light” is a logical expression of what I love about painting. It is familiar to me. Fluid, colorful, three-dimensional, evoking images of color and light. These qualities are simultaneously meditative and invigorating, representing a more fully realized vision of my experience of painting.

To create this work, I painted on glass and Lucite, enveloping pigment between layers of epoxy. This technique mimics the way traditional oil painters use glazes to permeate the paintings with more light. I have left translucent edges to create a visual floatation of the paintings, and utilized custom hangers that push the ethereal composition further, physically lifting the pieces from the wall.

Each painting undergoes phases in which pigment is embedded within the epoxy. The optical depth created by this technique invites the viewer to explore the complexity, range and interconnectedness of those layers. This is what life is. We live with, and within layers, each experience layered upon others. The creation of this work demanded that I experience my layers in a new, and profound way, and helped me to understand the creative process more deeply. The physical practice of creating these images served as a touchstone to a personal place of peace. This work is my medicine.  I hope these paintings provide a place of respite for those who come here to look at the art, as they have for me.