Secretive, curated by New York City painter and filmmaker Annette Cyr, provides an inside look at the creative process and what artists themselves value most in their works. Cyr asks, "Why do we paint what we paint? (or sculpt or make prints of what we choose?) How is it something intrigues us? Often it is something as simple as a waters edge, a dying tulip, wind in those trees over there. However inexplicable, what we choose is always absolutely compelling to us. We have a connection to it, a desire for it - to look at it, to catch it, to use it, to absorb it, ultimately to recreate it as our own." Secretive is a visual response to that question. Each artist presents a work featuring an image, a motif with which he or she has that special, simultaneously irrational and indelible connection. To view works by specific artists, visit these websites: JEAN BLACKBURN ANNETTE CYR SUSANNA COFFEY, tivordenagy.com CARLA GANNIS RYK EKEDAL NANCY FRIESE, peppergalleryboston.com ELLINORE HOLLINSHEAD GRIER TORRENCE PAULA HEISEN The touchstone for the theme of Secretive resides in Secretive Heart, by poet, Jane Hirshfield, in which the poet tracks the journey that the heart makes. At the end of an analogous journey, the visual artist discovers his or her compelling image. Secretive Heart What's this? This is an old toolshed. No, this is a great past love. Yehuda Amichai Heart falters, stops before a Chinese cauldron still good for boiling water. it is one of a dozen or more, it is merely iron, it is merely old, there is much else to see. The few raised marks on its belly are useful to almost no one. Heart looks at it a long time. What do you see? I ask again, but it does not answer. Jane Hirshfield from Lives of the Heart 1997 HarperCollins