Upper Lake >> Just after moving to Lake County, Denise Rushing thought there was a rattlesnake in her garage. For half the day she listened to the sound of rattling before deciding it was time to investigate. When she stepped into the garage and opened the shaking box, she found something far more harmless than a poisonous snake: a hummingbird trapped in a web.
Ever so carefully Rushing freed the delicate bird, but it was too exhausted to fly away. Rushing fixed up sugar water and cared for the bird while it sat in her palm, resting. After ten minutes, it took off. For days afterward, the bird came back to visit.
The experience affected Rushing so much, she painted it. But it wasn’t exactly intentional. She was working on a piece about feeling different when the hummingbird just emerged. She ended up painting three more pieces centered around the bird. “That series was inspired by that transcendent experience with that creature, but it also had other meaning for me obviously,” she said.
Much of her work, which hangs on the walls of the Lake County Wine Studio in Upper Lake until the end of the month, is personal in nature, like the hummingbird paintings. There are pieces that address climate change and environmental destruction, some tackle Rushing’s time on the Board of Supervisors and others she painted to help her cope with the loss of her two sisters. “I find that painting is a form of self expression, it’s a way to process difficult emotions,” she explained. “Whenever I do it I end up transforming whatever is going on into something new.”
Rushing isn’t only a painter, though. She also works in ceramics, writes both books and poetry and experiments with Earthen Construction — the adobe clay allows for artistic elements to actually be imbedded in the construction itself. Each medium gives Rushing the space to express herself in a different way. Sometimes, her emotions can’t be adequately captured by ceramics, so she turns to writing. “One of the things I enjoy doing is experimenting,” Rushing said. “For me creativity is about self expression and expressing what I see going on in the world and what’s going on inside me. Sometimes clay is the best way to do that, sometimes it’s painting, sometimes it’s writing.”
When her sisters passed away, the only thing she could do to process the grief was pick up a brush. “It required getting into something that was very visceral and painting can do that,” said Rushing. “Some of those paintings at the Wine Studio are processing those loses and emerging in a new place.”
A series of paintings called “Reclaiming Tuesday” is all about Rushing’s life after leaving the BOS. While she was working in public service she spent every Tuesday in meetings. Once she was no longer on the board, she dedicated her Tuesdays to creation. The series is all about playing, freedom and experiencing the moment.
She never goes into a piece with a message in mind. Instead, she contemplates the painting after she’s finished, discerning her mindset while she was working. If Rushing tries to paint a specific message, the art usually doesn’t turn out quite right.
Rushing has been painting since she was a child, first discovering the medium in grade school. She didn’t study art per se, but her college pursuits brought out the artist in her anyway. First she studied engineering at Stanford and graduated with a degree in environmental engineering. Then she headed to graduate school Holy Names University, where she received a Masters of Arts in Culture and Spirituality.
There, students were required to create art in order to process what they were learning. “The premise is that there are aspects to our psyche and ourselves that we don’t access just by thinking,” Rushing said. That’s where art, spirituality and movement came in.
The program effectively rekindled Rushing’s love of painting.
Rushing’s work will be on display at the Lake County Wine Studio until the end of August. The studio is located at 9505 Main St. in Upper Lake and is open from 1-7 p.m. Saturday-Monday and Thursday, and 1-8 p.m. Friday.
Jennifer Gruenke can be reached at 900-2019.
