One of Lois Templeton's Greatest Fans
“Well, you can't, really. The Studio Book rewards with a cache of little wonders like fishes trekking home with you inside a box, biscuits in a basket, jewels on a tray. These wonders resemble - or rather, prefigure, I tell myself - the artist herself. The book's idea was born a treasure, and Lois guides it through the thicket to secure a useful, persuasive, pervasive, native manual of work and dreams, light and its concomitants, diligence (that is to say, humitity) and its suzerainty. It's a damn beautiful book, every page used up and nothing wasted, its smallness huge and thoughtful, free, gutsy, never tricky; it admits no comparisons, indeed, ends up neither wishing nor inviting anything but its own promise and an open-hearted reader. Okay, even if the reader doesn't start off with heart opened, he will end up with it not only opened but open-ended in a transfixion of the most amenable dimensions. There are many genial, and not a few generously great aspects of Templeton's art, but none greater than this: study the art of Lois Templeton, from the great canvases to the 'dinkies', and YOU WILL FIND NO CUNNING. Breathe that in reader. You'll find no sarcasm, complaint, indifference, world- weariness, not a speck - all of which is to say you have located the bones and feathers, the silhouette, the manifestly whole transmission of centuries of Western art from the heart of a once-Midwestern woman deep into your own probably beleagured one. After that, you can stand up and fly. It's true, I've known Lois Templeton for more than thirty years, across miles ephemeral and trials that turn you homeward, against time, whose rough habits of diminution will burnish and furnish differing paths. Now, past the mid-point, I am clean to avow that I've not forsaken the kindness and trust she gave quickly, suddenly, knowingly to one who had known little enough of either - not only forsaken it, but kept it close between my selves like a talisman, a treasure. So look toward awakening. Get this marvelous little book, go to Lois Templeton's beautiful website to find abundantly not only her remarkable paintings, but a rich and cozy chapter of the infinite possibilities of being human. Thank you, friend; may you paint for another thousand years. In the presence of your work, I'm chagrined to call myself an artist, of any kind.”
- Jason Anderson (Monterey, CA)