oil painting
“It’s Only Time”
One day Jeff said, “This is gonna change your life!” and he placed in my palm a small packet of golden watch hands.
He saw me struggle with time, how time taunted me, or rather, how I allowed it to taunt me. He helped me see how to disregard it, to just let things be. I was working on reconstructing time according to my own inclinations toward it, not how it’s typically imposed on us.
I realized that I’d been collecting old clocks. I’m drawn to them – the beauty of the design, the mystery of time that they hold. I wonder what was happening when the hands stopped moving on that particular timepiece.
These concepts of reality and time, you can construct them, stretch them, mold them, into what suits you. And when someone mentions “the real world” or thinks you’re not in it, they have no clue…
Self-Portrait (Asheville)
Once I fell in love with a beautiful young man, under a blue moon. Long blond hair like silk, and bright green eyes so clear, that saw me, that understood. When he held me there was this warmth, like our hearts connected, even through skin, bones, muscle. One time I went away for the weekend to see if he’d notice I was gone.
Contemplating Scale
I’m thinking about scale. In school we’re urged to paint bigger, bolder, in order to learn confidence and freedom of expression. But then you find a scale that suits you. Not that you get stuck there, sometimes there’s an urge to paint huge, as big as your space will allow! Then sometimes you want to be quiet and paint tiny. For a while I was painting small things huge, taking a little possibly overlooked item and painting it on a scale several times larger. That was fun. Now I’m contemplating a smaller scale, painting little but significant things on canvases that are easily portable, easily collectible, not a huge commitment to display, but easily cherished. What do you think?
Replication – The Moth
I’m sitting here at Delurk, the artist-run gallery in Winston-Salem, NC working my Sunday afternoon shift. As I look at this painting of mine hanging on the off-white brick wall, bathed in warm light, I think about how it came to be.
I was at a place where I was unsure of my palette, and what textures I wanted to paint next. I was in the studio on a warm spring morning, just messing around with paint, when Jeff walked in, on his way back in from having a cigarette out on the loading doc, cradling something in his hands. He held it out to me and said, “Look what I brought you…!”
I peered into his outstretched hands. It was a moth, with soft powdery wings of various browns and beiges, slow, on the verge of death, too tired to fly away. I gasped at the beauty of it. He gingerly set it on my table next to my easel, patiently waiting while it stepped off his fingers and onto the edge of a book.
I was mesmerized; It was gorgeous! I studied the lines, the colors, the textures–warm beige fading into dark dark browns and dots of soft powdery white. I stepped up to my easel and palette and began mixing the colors I saw on the moth. I applied them to the canvas, smoothing and blending, and scraping off at times.
The next morning the moth was dead and gone when we arrived at the studio but I continued working on the painting that was inspired by this beautiful, magical creature and the wonderful man who brought it to me.
“I think it’s done,” Jeff declared a couple weeks later when I stepped back to evaluate my work.
It was May of 2012. It was the last painting I did before Jeff’s death.
That spring and summer I saw more moths than I’ve ever experienced in my life. It was like they came to visit me silently in our studio, sent there magically somehow by Jeff to let me know that everything was going to be all right.
Monkeying Around at the Greenville Museum of Art
I was delighted that one of my works was chosen for the Greenville Museum of Art Biennial Juried Exhibition. I hadn’t been there before so I didn’t know what to expect but I shipped my painting on ahead to be included in the show. The opening reception was on a Friday, of course, so I braved the tedious Friday afternoon traffic and headed over to Greenville in my little blue car.
The opening reception was great, classy, with free wine and musicians providing a jazzy backdrop for the visual art being enjoyed by the many viewers. I was proud that my work was included. And sock monkey was beaming from his place on the wall!
The Greenville Museum of Art is a great museum, located in a gorgeous classic revival home, which houses a fascinating permanent collection and interesting exhibitions. The building is as interesting to explore as the art. And I really like the curator, a fellow Guilford College alum, who does a fantastic job!
My painting also made it on the front cover of their spring newsletter!
After the reception I had a yummy dinner with friends at a great little Thai restaurant down the street and the next morning journeyed over to the Dickson Avenue Antique Market. Two stories of antique and vintage goodies kept us entertained for a while. I found some cool things which made their way into the installation of my solo show the month after (which I’ll write about next.)
And…I just discovered this video shot at the museum. Sock monkey got himself in…
Painting, preparing, maybe a little fretting…
I’m getting ready for my next solo show. Time is ticking. It’s down to the wire, as they say. I wonder what the origin of that saying is…
Oh, Thanks, Google:
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1.informalused to denote a situation whose outcome is not decided until the very last minute.“it was probable that the test of nerves would go down to the wire”
Well, it’s not exactly that. I have in my mind how the show will look and I think it will be well received. It’s just amazing how much time it takes to plan a thing– arranging and rearranging it in your head, diagrams on paper, deliberating, deciding, sourcing objects for an installation portion of the show, and trying not to be distracted by other pressing issues like searching for another rental house that fits in my budget with extra room for a studio.
The theme of this show is Clairsentience.
I love old and vintage things: treasures hunted and inherited. I wonder about how I’m drawn to them, what they mean to me, who they belonged to previously. Monumental objects that require immortalization as well as small almost incidental items that collected dust on a grandmother’s shelf for ages.
“We leave a little of ourselves in the objects that are precious to us.” I’m fascinated by how things become an extension of a person: who and what we construct a person to be from the things they leave behind. Old photos, baby shoes, toys, tools, a favorite teacup…
Clairsentience, also referred to as psychometry or psychometrics, is the ability to perceive the history of an object or person by touching it.
And I’m working to finish one additional painting for the show. A lonely little somersaulting clown. I feel like that little clown, out of control until his gears wind down, next week after a grande opening reception…
Oh, It’s U! and The Adventures of Selling Art
Oh, It’s U! oil on cavas, 18″x18″
Today is for painting. But first, a few words…
Last weekend was the Keep It Local Art Show. While peddlin’ my wares, I fell in love with a llama, met some wonderful fellow artists, visited with friends, ate some delicious chile, received lots of favorable feedback, sold some work, and donated this painting in the Art Hunt to raise money for the One Step Further food pantry. (We raised 596 pounds of food and $400 dollars!) With a canned food or cash donation you could hunt for free art and go home with something cool.
I wonder who found my painting. I wonder who’s wall it’s on now. I wonder who passed it buy cuz it was “too creepy.” One guy (who seemed creepier than my clowns!) said he saw it on the art hunt and although it was well executed, he wasn’t keen on the subject matter. Seriously? So, apparently, creepy doesn’t attract creepy, or maybe it does.
Anyway, It was great fun! I think I’ll do it again in the Spring.
The Fabulous Princess Inca, Infamous Celebrity of Oak Ridge, NC
Jack and Rosie
This is Jack and Rosie. They lost their heads and found each other.
How did they get here? Where have they been? Who loved them before? Who loved Rosie so much that she has a worn spot on the back of her head where there is no painted hair? She used to have a soft body and a chest with a noise maker that whined when you rocked her. Now she is silent, paint flaking off her pouty lips.
And Jack wonders why so many people shudder and say, “Creepy!” when they see him. He’s nice. Just look at his smile.
Clairsentience, also referred to as psychometry or psychometrics, is the ability to perceive the history of an object or person by touching it. Wouldn’t that be fun?? Maybe not…
Jack & Rose, oil on canvas, 8″x8″, contact me for pricing.
Patience and Process and Painting with Oils
They say you need patience to paint with oils. “Oh, oils are hard,” they say. “You need to use dangerous chemicals. It takes too long to dry. It’s easy to turn it all into mud.” It’s all worth it to me. I start a painting, set it aside, let it dry some, work on an alternate painting, go back to the first one…
The first time I smoothed oil paint on a canvas it felt so natural to me; Previously I had been working so hard (with various mediums, water, utensils, etc.) to make acrylic paints do what oil paints do naturally. I found a medium I truly loved to work in. It felt so good. I wondered why I waited so long to try oils. Why had I been intimidated by something new?
My abstract process consisted of layers and layers of paint mixed with various amounts of cold wax medium, adding, scraping off, revealing things beneath, getting lost in the magic that happens in texture and color interactions, light and shadow. But somewhere around the middle of a painting it would start to feel like hell. The painting would come to a stage where it just looked and felt horrible. Each time I had to remind my self “This is your process, remember? Move through it. Just keep working.” And eventually I would come out the other side feeling good about the painting, loving what was happening on the canvas.
Metaphor for life? For the inevitable darkness we need to trudge through sometimes? Maybe that’s why I’m good at this painting thing. I’m not sure where I got the courage to face the scary stuff, to know I needed to go straight through it, to confront it, to keep reaching toward the light, in order to persevere.
Seemingly Timeless Stretches
Do you ever get lost in the details, with the devil, just enjoying the view,
relishing the tiny bits that before somehow went unnoticed?
How did such wonder fail to beguile you before? A passage, a moment, a tiny arcane portion of something…
These are details from some of my paintings. An artist’s eye view. See where I get lost for seemingly timeless stretches.
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