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familiarity, in Novaks paintings, brings a feeling of home. You can’t place her mountains exactly — Is that Jenkins or Red Oak? — but you know you’ve seen them before.
Novak didn’t intend instant and sure recognition. While her paintings are representational, they are not absolute representations.
Her mountains are hard to identify for two reasons, as she explained.
“Number one, you have to adjust the picture to itself. I’m not an illustrator. I’m not a photographer. I’m creating a whole new thing.”
As an example, Doubletop stands pristine and untouched by the hand of man, the little houses that dot its slopes brushed away, the picture adjusted to itself.
“The most difficult part is taking things out,” Novak noted. “It takes courage to eliminate but you get strength that way.”
The second reason that identification of her mountains is difficult is “the artist doesn’t pass on an experience. The artist passes on a feeling that comes from an experience.”
“From time to time” now, she teaches “when I can get students,” said Novak, smiling. “I don’t advertise. I’m not the kind of teacher who goes step by step through how to paint. I like people who want to come and work, to be critiqued, to be helped,” she explained. Now that she’s completed her three-year Blue Ridge project, she’ll leave the mountains and pastels behind.
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