March 10 - April 10, 2021

Zoom Opening Reception and Artist Talk: Wednesday, March 10, 5pm

Pillow Book: Pages from a Pandemic by Dana Brotman (virtual solo exhibit)

It has been almost exactly a year since we closed Touchstone Gallery in response to the spread of the virus. At the beginning of March 2020, I hung two shows there side by side: mine and that of my dear friend and mentor Steve Alderton who had died suddenly just six months earlier. Of course, these two shows never opened.
For several months, I uncharacteristically stopped painting. Then, in October, I came across the empty guest books from the show and started to fill them with small paintings, fleeting thoughts, and dreams. I had not thought about showing this work, as I was more aware of trying to fill the book’s blank pages with whatever I was thinking and seeing. When it came time to consider showing my work, I thought of The Pillow Book. The Pillow Book was a collection of inner thoughts and feelings about everyday life in Japan written around the year 1000 by Sei Shonagon, a court lady to the empress. I have entitled my show, Pillow Book: Pages from a Pandemic, as a nod to this earlier collection of musings that reflect a time in history.

Jolie