An artist living both in Austin and Santa Fe, Patti Troth Black has been a dear friend of ACG for years, and has always been deeply appreciative of our work in the Lullaby Project. A few years back, she created a collection of paintings in honor of our work with mothers. At the Austin Tango! concert on March 2nd, an exhibit of her work was on display in the lobby before the Bandini-Chiacchiaretta Duo took the stage. We’re so fortunate to have spoken with her recently about her artwork, her inspiration, and why she is so moved by the Lullaby Project.


Patti was born in the “wild and rugged beauty” of West Texas. Always in love with nature and possessing an innate aesthetic vision,  she has three degrees in subjects unrelated to art: a double major in English and Classics, a Master’s of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, and an almost-completed Master’s from the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest. An ongoing shoulder injury prevented her from completing the seminary degree, but she was still able to paint and write poetry.

“I have no training in art. I’ve simply been drawing and painting since I was five, and I’m in love with it.”

Her artwork, ranging from prints to paintings to panels of gouache-painted photos, often depicts natural elements breathed to life with vibrant, intricate patterns.

“I am particularly drawn to rich floral and nature motifs on hand-painted furniture, which weave their way into all my tiny detail work. I use a lot of iridescent gold to represent touches of sunlight. Very often hidden in those patterns will be trees, leaves, tiny birds, all kinds of things that make up the concrete reality of life. That is the fabric upon which I build the final impression.”

“It’s usually something very close to my heart – I love nature, birds, trees, and light – so those motifs repeat over and over again; they inspire everything.”

Her admiration of the Lullaby Project, the program that pairs expectant or new mothers with artists to write a lullaby together, stems from memories of her childhood. Because of events beyond her control growing up, she recognizes the intense bond music can form between a parent and child.

“I was the first child, and my mother wasn’t well – she didn’t want me when I was born. My father would come home and find me unchanged and unfed, and he would clean me up and feed me, and then he’d sing to me in both Spanish and English with his guitar. I think he saved my life.”

“My first language was music; I thought music was language. I was singing the songs with my father before I could even talk.  In very difficult times of my life, if I can get a song going in my head, it takes me back to that place of a really gentle, sincere feeling of safety, warmth, and nourishment.”

Over the past five years or so, her artistic vision has shifted focus toward photography. After falling in love with a 120 film camera she purchased from a friend, she began to print the photographs on heavy German etching paper. She was seeing certain aspects of the photographs stand out, and she wanted to paint directly on the photos.

“I don’t plan things out ahead of time. I can see it in my mind’s eye, but everything tells me what it wants to be.”

She’s been working for the past seven months on shadow, light, and reflection. The focus of these works is not on the objects themselves, but on their reflections. Similarly to noticing things within photographs that she would highlight through painting, Patti began to see elements leaping out of the reflections, and felt the need to bring them to life.

“There’s a photo I did in Santa Fe – light there is different than light here – and I’m holding in my hand a dark, almost sapphire blue bowl. It was so opaque that the reflection didn’t show the blue. But it did get brilliant little suggestions of aqua and turquoise that presented an aura around the scalloped edge of the bulb. As I began to look at it, I saw a tree holding up a city, and it made me think of Austin. The title is ‘Nature’s Graciousness,’ and it’s about the value of our oaks. No matter how much the city gets built and built, there are still oak trees everywhere. Sometimes they struggle up through things, but they’re still there.”

Lullaby, 2014 (first Lullaby Project painting)

Patti’s work is an ode to nature and the soul. She believes us all to be incredibly fortunate to live within nature’s embrace, and her work draws inspiration from the everyday beauty of her world.

“The earth is our mother: it nurtures us constantly, not only with its beauty, but with the fact that trees and plants exhale pure oxygen. In a city, the trees are constantly counteracting all the carbon dioxide from cars. Our spirits are immensely enriched by the birds. Right now, we have black-belly whistling ducks that come to my feeding area in the backyard – this is the third year in a row they’ve come back – and it’s so fun watching the ducks padding around on their duck feet in the backyard eating birdseed.”

Her favorite piece among those she’s gathered for the exhibit on March 2nd depicts a mother and child. There’s a tree growing alongside them, a tiny city down on the right-hand corner, and two birds carrying in a guitar.

“That, to me, says it all.”