Fairy House Plus Box Art Equals...Sculptural Painting?

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Five Cherries
varnished manzanita branches, oil on wood.
About uh...18" high? The boxes are 4 or 5" square (I'm too lazy to go to the studio the measure the darn thang right now. Ive been moving concrete blocks all morning in an attempt to create a patio out of recycled materials.... not to mention scouring the neighborhood for our lost chicken, who I found and lured home with bits of Challah bread.)
Definitely spring inspired. Its so colorful and happy I might shock people. After Beware of God I was feeling the need for more obvious color.

I need to reshoot this side view- funny angles- they hang straight of course and the painting can hang on the wall or sit with a weight in it.


close up of one side. How the heck do I photograph this painting? Its 19plus sided!! Video perhaps. I envy the days before tech took over the business of art, when Gallery curators and buyers had to come and see ones work. The audience was smaller, I suppose, but the artists didn't have to spend hours of good painting time taking digital images and uploading them and photo-shopping this and that and web site maintenance. What a headache!

At any rate the piece is based on a poem I wrote when preggers. I wrote the three stanzas on the bottom of each box and the extra bit of the last part on the side of the box (you can kinda see it in the side view). I feel rather self-conscious about displaying a poem publicly. I'm still torn as to whether I shouldn't paint it out, but I bravely record it here.




And he'll chase the fat yellow finches from the cherry tree
catch them by their golden wings
as they fall into winter.


and next...once again which direction to go in? 3D rep of 4D with painted parts...or reg. ole paintings geared for the steampunk show based on epiphanies and children in trees? Or more branches shooting out and around? I try to limit myself and look what happens!! Too many ideas! tell me what to do kind reader, do tell? And what do you think of this latest 'branching out'?

the Shelf of the Forgotten and the Pedestal of My Best Creations

Pull up a chair kind reader! I improved upon the painting that heads this blog. That dates it as well, at least somewhat. I love this chair. I want it for my home. But at least it resides here on Outside Inside House. I painted the sides different as well- with nice furniture and lamps. Still haven't put the glass in- but I shall! Goodness I do like sanding. The most fabulous surfaces, the most remarkable abstract art are these walls in foreign countries- peeling and painted and sanded and chipping and painted again. So lovely.

Its quite possible that my work as an artist has saved me the silent discomfort of preferring or loving one of my sons more than the other. Sometimes when I finish a painting I feel so very fond of it. In fact I feel this way with most of my new born images. But over a few months, or sadly, even a few days, the joy of creating that new picture usually fades to a happy familiarity or possibly a disgruntled disappointment (Do you feel this way when you create? I know many artists who never like their finished art). For myriad reasons a few painting never loose their charm to me- I remain in awe that the emerged from my fingers. In fact these works make me feel more of a portal as though 'I' wasn't part of the equation or even the catalyst- the art came from elsewhere, from the Jungian waters of the group subconsciousness or some force, but definitely not me.

But my sons, though a gift, never end up on the shelf of the familiar and forgotten, nor on the pedestal of my best creations, and so are never one more loved than the other. They will always be my best creations but there is no way I can critique a creation that belongs so entirely to itself.

a Little Peek, a Little Tongue and Cheek

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European Knockers
13"x6"

It's really hard to imagine what I was thinking when I carried a almost solid metal door knocker back from a trip to Florence, Italy. But goodness the knockers on doors across Italy are magnificent. I photographed a few of them, naked women hanging out of the mouths of dogs and catorted faces. And of course there is the silly lewd humor of "nice knockers" which ran rampant as my good friend Annetta and I walked all about (often lost). So this piece, which is going into a SF erotic art show on January 29th, is quite tongue and cheek. It is lite on the inside so you, the viewer, can actually, voyeuristic-ally, peek in and see this:

And then open the box to reveal a painted collage of all the boobs of famous paintings from European history (or at least a good deal of them).



and the classic geranium, bringing green and spots of color to balconies across Europe, winds over the sides of the piece.


Normans Uncle recently suggested I should take up painting porn to make money. Not exactly the most compatible line of work with being a Mommy. I'd have to throw covers over my unfinished, and done pieces, not to mention I'd be blushing all the time.
Still, I hope, painting nudes (which I still often do), at least my boys won't have a airbrushed magazine idea of what a woman looks like, and they will, hopefully, be able to look at a nude painting as viewers of beauty and the body as a vehicle for an idea, seeing beyond the nipples.

Will Work For Peanuts or Not? A Self Portrait

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My Goodness it's been ages (ten years?) since I made a self portrait. I think I drew a mustache on the last one and called it Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. ha ha. At any rate. I like this one better. It falls into both my miniature series and my box series (you see I'm forcing myself to limit the series I'm working on- to focus in on two directions. But not prone to leave anything out I sneakily combined some existing directions- don't tell anyone, okay?). Actually it is bigger as well- paint box sized, you know, not exactly miniature.

Its my grandmothers old painting box. And myself as steady Elephant- working for peanuts and wondering which direction to pursue. Should I paint Chinese clouds-cartoon elements in the realistic world- just as we often act like cartoon characters/2D animations in the everyday? Will this bring me my prosperity, my peanut rain? Or? And yes, I do often feel I'm painting with my nose for how clumsy my art can be.

If a fortune teller who was known for truthful telling read our cards and told you would would not succeed as an artist (or whatever it is you, my open minded reader, are working so hard on in life), would you continue to do it? What if she said you would eventually get by financially and emotionally on this path but never be entirely content and stuck with the choice for life? What if the alternative would mean you would have to change a lot and still would not guarantee you happiness and/or success? What would you choose?
Would you continue on your path even if you would never rise past average?
Seriously, I want to know. so please comment.


And in case you were saying to yourself, 'Hey! I thought this blog was about painting while parenting!' I'll have you know I typed this blog all one handed while my other hand has slowly fallen asleep cradling a deeply sleeping almost 3 year old boy. We steal our moments. Or we just get really good at multi-tasking.

Kindergarten and Beyond the Used Car Fiasco and a New Box

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My goodness, this feels like my old attempts at keeping a journal when I was a child. Almost every entry started with 'well, I haven't written in a long time...'. But I swear this time is an anomaly. I've been dealing with the great used car search (three potential cars didn't even pass their diagnostic tests). I totaled my old wagon and had only a couple weeks to find a new one. I now know a great deal about used wagons of all makes, as well as newer small SUV types (feel free to pick my brain if you need to). Suffice to say I didn't get a speck of painting in. So you can imagine my JOY at finally getting to not only paint again but with Benjamin starting kindergarten getting to paint 3 days and 2 evenings a week!! I might try to find some solid paying sort of work one morning a week (to pay for my CAR payments- my increasingly badly adult and complex existence in America that consists of buying things then insuring those things. House and Cars and Health and etc etc and with ALL of that I still think its sad I didn't save enough so I could go out and get a big screen TV. Yeash. Hook line and sinker capitalist. And wasn't I clever to go to ART school? So I could make buckets of money after graduation? There really must be a better way!)
ahem.
As I was saying. Benjamin started kindergarden. See the days stretching out as his body stretches up and his mind expands to encompass so much information and to develope and determine who he is and who he will be. His first step on a long path to himself. Here he is starting out! Day 1 of a possible 3,600+.


I'm almost done with that last painting- "Rower", though it needs to sit and think about itself a bit. Meanwhile on to a new hanging box painting. A peek into the process. I am really not careful enough with measuring- my craft lacks. But the box comes together after some tops and bottoms and a lot of sanding. How modern these cubical box paintings for small spaces. How modular. Its so Dwell Magazine.

Squirrel, Squirrel, Squirrel, Squirrel

Another doosie of an art reproduction nightmare! This little box hangs from the rafters or sits on four little acorn feet. It's from my box series but another experiment (Ha HA my brother, there is secretly more than one mad scientist in the family). Theres a little antique key sealed up inside. One of those 'just for fun' kinda pieces. If I'm painting something less than serious does it mean I'm not a serious artist? get real. That's one voice anyway. There's other annoying little voices in my head that say silly things like "you'd never see THAT at MOMA". Of course, that in itself may be a reason to paint it. The four views, like my other pieces of this ilk represent different realities. One is the 'paper tiger' or Oragami reality, one realist, one carved, and one cartoon (my most lived in reality?). And of course, I have to wonder if I'm painting partly cartoon images because I've been influenced by living with little kids or if I would have gone that way anyway. Suffice to say, this is one of Benjamin's and Phineas's favorites currently still in my studio.

Inside-Out House

I want to create more of these house themed “night-light” paintings (theres a light inside that lights up just the bird at night-check out the second photo). They are rather challenging to reproduce two dimensionally though (art reproduction is my nemesis- so here I am, throwing everything onto a 2D blog surface-great-just great). It’s fun to paint this way but it takes more time-is it worth it-all the cutting and gluing to make an art piece that has multiple levels? And is this type of box art all that interesting? It is a good challenge making the inside work with the outside. Am I just trying to create something new and original when all art has already been explored? Do I really believe that there isn’t anything new? And does it really matter either way?

Well…better to just PAINT than to sit about smashing oneself in the head with a critical hammer. Bam bam bam. And better to paint than to blog. Blog blog blog. Actually I need to go pick up the boys from their once a week 3 hour daycare. Artist stepping down, Mom stepping up.