Cactus & Stone

Cactus & Stone pairs two paintings with strong surfaces: Prickly Pear Cactus and Sanctuary Mission Door. One is a plant in full bloom, the other an old doorway in warm sun, and both reward a close look at texture and color.

Prickly Pear Cactus sets two open blossoms in coral, orange and red at the center of the sheet. Around them, the pads are broad flat shapes in green, teal and violet, crossed by fine spines in gold and pale gray. Donna leaves patches of bright paper inside the pads, and those pale shapes read as sunlight on the waxy surface of the plant. Her own second title for the painting is La Tuna Nopales.

Sanctuary Mission Door brings the eye to a tall wooden door under an arch of small bricks. Around it, the wall is built from large rounded stones and smaller bricks in ochre, gold, rust and umber. Donna lets the color of the wall move freely, with spatters, drips and soft blooms of pigment that suggest weathered plaster and old stone.

The two paintings share a play of warm and cool. In the cactus, the warm blossoms glow against cool blue and violet shadows in the lower half of the sheet. In the doorway, warm light falls from the upper left across the arch, and the lower stones settle into a deeper amber. Each painting needs both its brightest passages and its quieter ones to reach its full effect.

Look at the edges, too. The cactus pads meet one another in clean lines, and each spine comes to a sharp point. The stones of the wall soften into the color around them, and the grain of the door is drawn in fine vertical lines.

Each subject has a place in Texas history. The prickly pear has been the state plant of Texas since 1995, and its pads are sold in grocery stores, fresh or pickled as nopalitos. Its title, Sanctuary Mission Door, names a doorway of welcome, and Donna gives it the warm colors of old stone in full sun.

Trace the outline of one cactus pad, then one stone beside the doorway. Notice where an edge is firm and where it melts into the next color. Enlarge Painting brings the spines of the cactus and the layered stone of the wall up close. The cactus also hangs in Flowers & Garden and The Shape of Growing Things, and the doorway in Texas Places.