Gail Spaien
Crossing two generations, Gail Spaien was born at the tail end of the Baby Boomer decades, raised by parents who grew up in the 50’s.They taught her to value humility, hard work, creativity, family and domestic perfection. In contrast, the Hippies of the 60’s and 70’s valued love, nature and tolerance. They questioned authority and redefined perfection as freedom, peace, flower power, inclusion, social liberalism and a focus on self. Both generations reached for idealist paradigms in different ways and shaped Spaien’s ongoing inquiry into ideas about place, utopia and how to give form, through painting, to life’s poetry and contradiction.