INFORMAL KAHLO

I love the sketchy informality and private quality of Frida Kahlo's diary, now published and available for purchase as a work of art/anthropology.

Words, images, layers, script. This seemingly intuitive process. This all relates to my process/ interests.

BLUE-GREEN ALOE

Big changes in color have made this work much more interesting I think. Working to get away from my primary color scheme with this bright blue-green. Acrylic, Gouache & ink.

ADJUSTMENTS

Tinkering with small adjustments in these three,  gold writing, gold power and red text, in that order.

NOSTALGIA

Artist’s Statement revised.

My images are personal reflections, drawn impulsively like a nervous tick. Figures, objects, and strings of text all speak to existential quandaries---What does any of this mean and how should I feel about it? My process is additive and generally focused on observation, layering, obscuring and re-finding line. Through these steps, I work to make the subjects uniquely mine.

In this most recent series, I've created a set of objects as a way to think about nostalgia: the feeling of rediscovering an intense long-lost feeling, like finding a box of old journals inan attic. As soon as you recognize them, even before you read the first lines, you are already pulled in. I'm interested in this emotional deja vu, its way of assigning value to the past, because of it's relationship to what it means to be a person.

GLAZE

Glazing semi translucent layers of acrylic over work to create cohesiveness and complicate color appeals. However, in this experiment, I realized my ink is not water soluble, and so after my smearing, I ended up here. 

PRIMARY PATTERN

Jasper John, Map, 1961

Aaron Siskind, New York, 1951

LAYERS

Layers of gouache and Ink over acrylic. I wonder if the layers underneath inform the later piece.

THE SLANT

Ink & gouache on acrylic.

PLAYING WITH PATTERN

Experimenting with Pattern in this piece where I combined the cassette and feather. It is not yet finished. 

DRIP-DROP

Thinking about the new (to me) idea of dripping and moving water based media around the page, the movement and spontaneity of it, made me think of Pollack, of course. 

Oil, enamel, and aluminum paint on canvas

WHITE ON WHITE REDUX

At our Zed-Critique, Aggie commented on being drawing to the 'mystery' of the small study on the top, that is wasn't on first glance obvious what the object was. I liked that idea, and hope to retain it in the bigger painting (and in other explorations).

WHITE ON NAVY V. NAVY ON WHITE

Here too,I looked to an early 'study for inspiration.
I'm interested in how the white background drips into the red object.

WHEN AN ALOE PLANT IS NOT AN ALOE PLANT

Here is my larger (yet unfinished?) version of this painting. A meditation on the tendrils of my aloe plant. I like how, in the second version, the drippiness echoes the contours on the drawing.

VISITING AGGIE ZED

Three things I like about Artist Aggie Zed, after visiting with her in her studio space last evening.

1.  Humored Elegance 
Zed's dripping drawings and airy sculptures are lovely without taking themselves very seriously, which is pretty lovely.

2. Embracing quirky materials.
I dig how Zed had an almost superstitious irreverence for her materials, her 'Sloppy brushes' and 'all wrong paper' lent personality to her work. 

3. Hard work without pretentiousness.
Zed described herself as 'a machine', working full days at art the way others do at retail, or in an office. Still she was remarkably without airs. She was just doing her thing. 


Thanks to Amie Oliver for facilitating this lovely evening.

THREE ARTIST WHO USE GOLD

Three very different artist who use gold as a ground. What does it do in each work? How do the later works reference the earlier ones?

From top to bottom: Leonardo Davinci's Madonna and Child, 16th century-ish. Gustave Klimt,Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I 20th century. And last but not least, Tenyouya Hasashi, 21st century,

Japan.

GILDED

This painting represents the most dramatic change.I like the way the Gold acrylic  allowed for scratching through (2 layers were necessary), drawing and writing into the background. Does/can this image still relate to the group as part of a series?

TAKE TWO

Added in gold lettering, capitals felt right this time. Randomly worse picture quality below. I'm wondering how, and if all of these images will go together,and what imagery, material, & technique will link the series. 

COLLAGE

Wanted an element of red. Experimented with collaging it in. Painted Arches with gel medium.

WHITE ON WHITE

Added white on white words on this one--hmm?

CLOSE

Enjoyed this interview on Fresh Air with Chuck Close where he talks about grids, among other things. One thing I remember, Close says that he is basically a sloppy, disorganized, maybe lazy human being, and so, by employing the grid in his giant methodical paintings, he could go against his own nature and forge something elegant and new. (I'm paraphrasing big time, but you get the idea.)

WHAT BASQUIAT'S WORDS DO

Thinking about what words do in art, I come back to Jean-Michel Basquiat. I'm drawn to how his words are texture, and also emotion, I feel no need to read or decipher them to understand them.

Top: Bird on Money

Bottom: The Daros Suite of Thirty-Two Drawnings,

(acrylic, charcoal, crayon, pastel, pencil)

RELUCTANT MANIFESTO

My images are personal reflections drawn impulsively, like a nervous tick or doodling in the margin. I make this work mostly for myself. 

Subjects include figures, objects, and text which speak to personal quandaries and emotional soft spots. The  process is  additive and generally focused on drawing, bookmaking, and water-based media.  Observation, abstraction, layering, obscuring, and re-finding line are important aspects.

At the moment I'm interested in drawing antiquated  man-made objects and sequencing them through time, as a way to think about narrative and in particular, nostalgia: the feeling of rediscovering an intense long-lost earlier feeling. Layering, flip books, gifs, circular animation, and series are all possible expressions of this idea.

*old photo of us, by Aaron Farrington, I think* 

DRIPS

Experimenting with drips, edges borders. In the second image,
I randomly made a white work area that became the field of the tape. Neither image is complete.

FEATHERS TWO WAYS

Feathers two ways, in progress. Thinking about relative size, on picture plane.

WHAT WILL/CAN TEXT DO IN THESE IMAGES:

• size of text, 
• color of text (light on dark, dark on light) 
• on object only, behind object, woven
• scrapped in, drawn atop
• etc.

THINK BIG(GER)

Starting my big(ger) paintings: 11 X 14.

Arches cold press 140lb with blue and red (and gold) acrylic grounds. What next?

FLIP BOOK TUTORIAL

How to create your own flip book video, very basic tutorial.

FLIP BOOK EXAMPLE

Found this Flip book and PLAN at The Design Place. I like how it incorporates text. How to plan my own sequence of  images?

FEATHERS

Still interested in feathers as an image: old feather (above) and new(below).