Letting Go of the Original Vision

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4'X2' Letting Go

The balloons were tied to my clothes line for a week. I took so many photos of them out in the sun I near on got sun stroke. From sun stroke to brush stroke. Sounds like the title of an article in Weekend Artists magazine. Originally and until a couple days ago the balloons were multi-colored. I just couldn't balance all that brightness. Finally I realized they needed to be all white to blend with the sky and I had to let go of that original vision. But what a fabulous example of how layering can really add dimension and enhance the finished piece. I think if there hadn't been a bright orange, celadon blue, and grass green balloon in the mix it never would have glowed like this final painting.


I've never painted clouds before (or balloons) on such a scale and it was quite challenging and fun. I held Benjamins hand in the air and sketched it directly onto the painting. His little fingers flexed and rolled and straightened alien long but the final, I think, worked out so all is well. Thank goodness the boys don't mind being free models. (okay perhaps there was a promise of ice cream).

Life Isn't Fair

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Well, the tempest of creative energy that hit me finally moved away to more temperate studios. I have nothing to show from the last week save two alllmost finished pieces and a few not so finished ones. Why these waves of energy? I know women who have four children and throw enormous block parties and go dancing on the weekend and sleep six hours or less a night, and don't tire or get sick. I shit you not. How the hell do they do it? Why are they so blessed with energizer bunny like attributes while I come to the end of the roller coaster ride and crash for two weeks? And of course it's these crazy frenatic ladies who bear eighty children and populate the planet with MORE perma-charged children, and I am left in their wake.

I always over-do it. Then I burn out. Then my annoying chronic condition flares up and my body says, "laundry? hell no! Painting? uh-uh. Sit on the couch and stare out the window while small children climb mount Mommy, puncturing your ribs with their pointy apendages? You bet!". So while the desire to paint is making my brain spin I have to still my self. (my more zen like, less gripey self might say something meaningful like- these periods of so called calm are when I imagine up my next series of paintings, when my creative self refreshes, but Im not feeling so pleasent as all that right now).

And people say- ohhh- young children are just so wearing-just wait until they are in school. My mother is one such person who says this. But at my age she raised my brother and I while working on her PhD disertation while taking care of a ranch full of animals while working a part time job while cooking and housekeeping for my rather traditional father. Of course NOW she can't babysit Phineas and Benjamin for more than two hours without collapsing, exhausted, and rushing home. So I guess she just delayed burn out. Maybe the mom of four, who, by the way, is also a part time nurse (yeash) will also burn out someday. And why does frenetic nurse lady get the parents who can't WAIT to take the grandkids for a weekend, hell a whole week!

It's just not fair. I really hate it when life isn't fair. It really gets my goat.

Persimmon Thief and the August 1st Show as well as Grumbling About Art Reproduction

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Sometimes the influences of having lived in Taiwan, not to mention having had an interest in Asian art from the time I was about ten years old, comes through quite obviously. This painting, Persimmon Thief, was first drawn in with Chinese ink and brush so that, when I carved the branch out, I retained the feel of those brush lines I so love. Of course, it's tall vertical shape is like a scroll as well. Painted about a year ago (unlike all the other just finished pieces in this blog) it hangs in my husbands Edward Jones office where his clients say they feel like the raccoon, getting away with their higher percentages and dividends and whatnot's, i.e. their share of the financial pie.

Oh but I do so despise (I know that's a strong word but it is such a frustration) art reproduction. This painting is taller than myself and I am forced to tile together almost seven separate photos to create one. Each photos light is slightly different as the camera adjusts itself and by the time I've fiddled the thing into existence it is never quite what is on the wood. This piece is not so 'minty' colored. And it is so hard to view it so small. sigh. grumble grumble.

A few of my paintings (and likely this one) will be hanging what I hope to be a fabulous show August 1st in Healdsburg at the Palette Gallery (who's name may change very soon- Ill keep ya posted). A group show, we have all done labels for EricKent wines, a really fabulous and unusually artist-friendly label. EricKent will be pouring excellent wine as you peruse the wonderful art. Please join us! And check out Eric Kent Wines homepage to see all their fabulous artists and wines!

Studio Contour, Sharing a Studio With Children

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Someone recently asked me, incredulously, how I can share my studio with my kids. Okay, okay, so its not really ideal. Generally either I'm helping them with a project or listening to their sleeping sighs through a monitor, or berating them for trying to sneak into the Mommy area once again. And the shared floor space is always a mess of small toys missing small parts, strings, a few washers strung with wires and bungee cords into what Ben has deemed his latest teleportation device, picture books, screw drivers and half dismantled electronics, as well as glasses of murkey paint water, and lately a scary tin can half filled with desicated black olives.

As you may guess, gentle reader, this is not an easy enviornment to paint in, and Im certain passers by get to hear through the thin metal barrier of the garage door the earful I lay on the boys for their mess. Or perhaps they overhear my sad attempts at bribery- a fruit leather treat in exchange for cleanliness.

On the other hand how wonderful it is to flee to this space at nap time or in the evening and know I can rejoin the family as needed without driving across town. And how wonderful to see their creations emerge and line up for display as mine do. And if a small boy, sleepy, comes and finds me still painting, time can be bought to finish using up my mixed color while said child creates another deluge of mess on the other side of my dog gate barrier.

I tried to capture the chaos with my camera but the photo was just that- chaos, and imposible to read. So I tried a contour drawing instead. A single line threaded around haphazardly seemed more sucessful. Thanks to my friend who suggested contour, I shall try to draw other artists studios this way when I interview them. You can make out their table and supplies, my dog gate covered half down with a a tarp and my easles and sewing/small painting desk, as well as the edge of my round table that sits closer to the garage door. I edited out the clutter.

I'm frustrated not to be painting much this week but Im fighting some fatigue causing chronic malaise and must also do other things like shower invites for a deserving friend and wretched laundry. I can't wait to show you my Quail General or the large piece on the easle, which is trying my patience.

And Yet Another Miniature, Jackal, and A Sappy Bit on Being a Parent and an Artist

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Jackal
6"X8"

Being an artist and a parent means updating my blog by pressing as softly on the keyboard keys as possible while they sleep in bed behind me.
Being an artist and a parent means occasionally destroying my brush by forgetting to clean it because I had to RUN from my painting to attend to some duty like scraped knee kissing and sibling or cat claw removal.
Being an artist and a parent means letting go of keeping floors clean and laundry folded.
Being an artist and a parent means making sure the caps on the varnish, painting mediums, and acetate containers are screwed down really tight.
Being an artist and a parent means enclosing the studio behind a dog security gate/fence while my kids run amuk in the rest of my studio like chickens with their heads cut off and somehow miraculously still concentrating on painting.
Being an artist and a parent means always having an ear leaning away from the project.
Being an artist and a parent means finding a way to let them participate and create their own always amazing (to me) art.
Being an artist and a parent means sometimes putting down the child to take up the brush, and sometimes putting down the paintbrush to hug the child.

Ibis, Another Miniature Painting, and the Possibility of Interviews

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Ibis 6"X 4"


Just a quick post today. I don't usually post on the weekend (you know, in the TWO big weeks I've been blogging so far!) but I am trying to write at least three week day posts a week and last week was a bit post slim.

All this blogging about myself feels so narcissistic, and anyway, how much can I personally write about being both parent and artist? So I am compiling a list of interview questions for parents who make art at home while they also don the mantle of parent. It may take some time to actually finish these lists and pin down interview times so please, kind reader, bear with me and all this me-me-me-writing until then. I promise the interviews will be worth waiting for!

My miniatures aren't all that miniature, just so you know. Ibis was actually the first one, and a bit rough, but also the smallest (by a couple inches). I added the curtain last night, which helped ground the bird. And Jackel is done as of last night as well, but too wet to photograph.

Printing Lace Shadows and Inheritences

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Lace Shadows
4'X2'



One month after I jetted off to Taiwan to see what was up with that guy Norman and I, my step father passed away. I didn't have enough money to fly back to the states and my mom told me not to try to return so I didn't. But a year later, when I did manage to get back she had gotten rid off just about everything that my stepdad had owned. Actually-everything. I had nothing to remember him by and being the sadly materialistic person that I am I was quite distraught.

But then, about a year ago I started collecting old crocheted bits of lace from craigslist, garage sales and flea markets. I mentioned this in passing to my mother. It turned out my step dad actually knew how to make lace and my mom still had one of his pieces, albeit a bit ripped. I sewed the lace onto a pillow, embroidering what lines were missing. The other pieces of lace I have found are either speckling my house like the freckles on my hands or being used in a new series of paintings I am working on. I actually roll oil paint onto the lace and print it, wood cut style onto my paintings, and then carve around them a bit. It's fun. I sold the first one, "Stork", already, done in my favorite long vertical, about 6 feet tall.

I just finished Lace Shadows, but instead of leaving only the color of the unfinished wood cuts I stained the wood lamp black in the shadowy cuts and rolled the lighter hue over to catch the edges. I am currently working on a sky themed piece to balance all the dark shadow.