The Artwork Of Mildred Lachman-Chapin *

I consider that my work as an artist has to do with expressing the ineffable in a way that reaches people. This may have to do with viewers' unspoken yearnings, ideas about the beautiful, or with other spiritual, religious or intellectual ideas that can not adequately be put into words. My hope is to engender images, feelings or thoughts in the viewer that will either confirm some of these unspoken feelings or suggest new ways of seeing what they already know.

Lachman-Chapin has been painting since 1960, exhibiting in Europe and in many venues in the US. She has studied with numerous masters in painting and print-making.

Focusing on a subject that intrigues her, she produces a body of work over a period of a year or more. Beginning with her first series, Trees of Rome, exhibited in Rome in 1960, some of her more recent bodies of works are: Networks, exhibited in Paris and Washington, D.C., 1965 - 1969; Visages, exhibited in Chicago, Illinois, 1988 - '90; Sisters-in-Spirit, exhibited in Chicago, Illinois, 1995; Pairs, exhibited in Chicago, Illinois, and in Cottonwood, Sedona, Flagstaff, and Surprize, Arizona, 1998 - '99; Time, Light, Stillness, exhibited in Sedona and Flagstaff, Arizona, 2000 - '01; and the current work entitled Calligraphic Impulses, exhibited in Sedona and Tucson, Arizona.

She works primarily with oils on canvas, but has produced a number of monotypes. Some of these are reproduced in the book of her paintings and poetry entitled Reverberations: Mothers and Daughters. She has recently begun working in encaustics as well.

She has lived abroad for ten years, studying and exhibiting in each place where she lived: Rome, Paris, Ankara.

Her other art related career has been in art therapy. She has practiced, taught, and contributed much writing in the field. Her most recent teaching and training of graduate students was at the Art Institute of Chicago. She was elected an Honorary Life Member of the national organization in 2001.