Articles and Reviews

ARTICLES BY CONNIE SMITH SIEGEL

2004  Sensory Awareness, Creative Expression and Healing, The USA Body Psychotherapy Journal

2004  Excerpts from forthcoming book: The Natural Language of Drawing and Color, Sensory Awareness Foundation Newsletter

1998  Experiencing and Drawing Nature, Creation Magazine                                    

1987  Drawing and Color: A Language of the Natural Self, Creation Magazine

1986  The Artist as Activist, Awakening in the Nuclear Age Journal

1985  The Artist as Activist, Artists For Social Responsibility Newsletter

1983  Drawing: From Perception to Form, Lomi Journal

1973  Classes in Drawing, I & II, Sensory Awareness Bulletin

 

ARTICLES MENTIONING CONNIE SMITH SIEGEL

Nancy Cushing - MILL VALLEY RECORD, “Art Without any Mannerism,” 1987

Phyllis Brandon - INDEPENDENT JOURNAL, “Messages Put into Canvases,” 1984

Jan Markle - POINT REYES LIGHT, “Woodacre’s Siegel, Painter with a Cause,” 1984

Vicki Groninger - BOULDER DAILY CAMERA, Feature Article, Focus Section, 1982

Andre Marechal Workman - ARTWEEK, “Impressionism & Formalism Integrated,” 1981

Phyllis Brandon - INDEPENDENT JOURNAL, “Siegel’s Detail Spawns Beauty,” 1981

Thomas Albright - SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, At the Galleries Section, 1979

Alfred Frankenstein - SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, At the Galleries Section, 1977

Robert MacDonald - ARTWEEK, “The Look and Feel of Place,” 1977

Beverly Cassell - ARTWEEK, “Land, Water, Sky,” 1975

 

EXHIBITION REVIEWS

Connie Smith Siegel is an artist of marvelous serenity. She is a great technician and a major spirit. You feel at once on entering the gallery that this is not just work with paint and canvas, but genuine proof of the hope that humanity can be at peace with the world.

— Alfred Frankenstein, San Francisco Chronicle

 

Connie Smith Siegel’s exhibition is a visual treat that refreshes the spirit as well as the eye. Siegel not only enhances our appreciation of the place where we live:  she subtly, though authoritatively, makes us marvel at her ability to recreate the total feeling of place through painting beautiful surfaces.

When people in the future view Siegel’s paintings and try to understand how we saw our environment and what we felt about it, they’ll envy us.

— Robert MacDonald, Artweek

 

Siegel’s philosophy is a simple one that reminds us of the spiritual insights conveyed by a painterly sense of space. The artist is keenly aware of the tenets of the modernist tradition, and in keeping with them, her naturalism has an underlying abstract structure that strengthens the depiction of her subject matter.

— Andre Mareshal Workman, San Francisco Chronicle

 

Connie Smith Siegel is showing paintings of the landscape around Bolinus and Tomales Bay, nicely balancing stark, flat shapes with the softening effect of greyed, overcast tonalities and softly stroked oil and acrylic.

— Thomas Albright, San Francisco Chronicle

 

Connie Smith Siegel presents works which have come from concrete observation, yet at the same time demonstrate a kind of passion for shape and spatial relationships in their own right. The effect of the work goes beyond the specific and conveys a more universal, serence and spiritual prescence of nature, a presence not so much observed, but participated in.

— Beverly Cassell, Artweek

 

Connie Smith Siegel’s painting is about the beauty of unspoiled nature. Not just nature in general but specific sections of landscape which have special meaning for the artist. However the approach is pure and coming from within, uninfluenced by current or past trends in painting—universal in the strength and the power conveyed.

— Phylis Bragden, Marin Independent Journal