its been awhile

Since my last post, I went on vacation, and got sick and didn't spend enough time in the studio. I've got a small backlog of images to post, and debated whether I should put everything in one post or not and decided to just go ahead and do it, as I'm planning a blog announcement for later this week (stay tuned.) My artmaking is a bit all over the place. I made silhouette portraits for Mother's Day of me and my siblings, made my largest silverpoint drawing yet, and started real work on another big painting, and of course I'm still sewing nest-like shapes onto paintchips. I know I've said it before, but I'm saying it again, I missed painting big.

So, without further rambling on my part here's a sample of what I've been making in the last month or so.

Silhouettes

New Painting (work in progress)

better picture of the last finished painting, now titled "elegy: to my nana"

new silverpoint

better(?) pictures of older silverpoint

paint chips

I love the color inspiration of paint chips (i'm particularly fond of the Martha Stewart Collection at Lowe's). They're compact size, the little hints of pure hue, I've collected them for a long time. Sometimes I think every trip to the hardware store necessitates a stop by the paint department for this very reason. When I didn't have a studio this fall I found my collection and started sewing concentric circles, loosely arranged around the idea of nesting into them; a project I've continued in my new space. These tightly wound circles with a subtle texture that seem to want to be traced. For a long time I haven't known what to do with them, but now i'm starting to think i need to make more and more and more, and cover a wall in them, or place them in a long tight line down a long hall....or something. I really like the way they group together.







My studio time of late hasn't produced much worth photographing. There are lots of projects in the starting phase & a belated Mother's Day present that needs finishing. I like the work of starting things - stretching canvases, painting and sanding layers of ground - but it isn't really much to look at. And when I'm home watching the LOST finale I can sew my tiny concentric circles onto paint chips.

New Painting finished (for my Nana)

Its been a hectic month. I moved into a new apartment, entered a new decade and drove to the coast for my art opening at Coos Art Museum. It was a great turnout and a really lovely show full of 60+ talented painters from several western states. Images of the exhibition are now available online, but of course art always looks better in person.

I haven't quite decided on a title yet, but this painting is very inspired my Nana and was conceived as an elegy to her. It is my second elegy painting, the first

elegy: to the last great green mountain man was painted in 2007.

elegy to the last great green mountain man

oil on canvas

36"x48"

Its always hard for me to decide when a painting is finished, especially as reworking is such a huge part of my process. I could rework details for years, but learning when to stop is an important lesson. So I'm posting this painting with a caveat...its most likely finished (but I might make a few small changes after I let it sit a little longer)

here's a detail view:

more silverpoint

I really need to find a better way to photograph these. Suggestions anyone?

One Large and one small-ish.

large, 22x30in, Silverpoint on Watercolor Paper


small, 8x10ish, Silverpoint on Domestic Etch



detail



another detail

the evolution of a painting

A big part of my painting process is to start with the kernel of an idea, then work and rework and rework a painting, adding layers, taking shapes out, putting shapes back in until there's some semblance of a finished painting (how's that for a process, and a run-on sentence). I've been taking paintings of my latest painting, and I thought it might be interesting to show them. Its not quite finished yet, but I think its pretty close.

So here's are some before and after pictures. Feel free to leave a comment and tell me how self-indulgent I've become.

Expressions West 2009

Friday I got word that my painting what remains will be included in the juried exhibition Expressions West at the Coos Art Museum. This Annual juried competition features the works of painters from 13 western states

This is what it looks like, although its not so gray in person!
what remains is part of the larger series of narrative abstract paintings "heart loot: and other stories"
Other images from the series can be seen at my website

what remains
2008
11"x17"
oil on canvas

On exhibit April 24th - June 27th

More about the Juror
Juror: Richard V. West
Richard V. West is an art historian, curator, author, and former art museum director in a forty-year career that has spanned both coasts from Maine to Washington. He is currently Director Emeritus of the Frye Art Museum in Seattle and serves as a trustee of the Gage Academy of Art.

West has juried a wide variety of distinguished regional and national exhibitions covering all media throughout the United States. He has also actively curated a number of art exhibitions that reveal his interests in both the fine arts and popular culture – from ancient Greek art to contemporary editorial cartoons The co-author of books such as Language of the Print and Standing in the Tempest: The Painters of the Hungarian Avant-Garde, 1908-1930, Richard is currently preparing a monograph on the American painter and illustrator, Rockwell Kent.

More about Coos Art Museum
Coos Art Museum is the cornerstone of visual arts on Oregon’s Southern Coast. Through collections, exhibitions and educational programs, we are building an arts and cultural community and promoting the appreciation, understanding and expression of visual art.” Located on the scenic southern Oregon Coast Coos Art Museum is the 3rd oldest art museum in Oregon. CAM traces its roots to the Coos Artist League, active since 1950. Members of the League conducted early operations in storefront locations before moving to a Carnegie Library Building. In 1982 Coos Art Museum members, acquired and remodeled the old US Post Office building, a historical art deco structure built in 1937. The Museum has five active galleries totaling 16,000 sq feet of display space and a 540 piece Permanent Collection of mid-20th Century and contemporary American art.

silverpoint drawing & a day at the beach

It was a productive weekend. Saturday I drove to the beach and took lots of pictures of waves, and cave walls and weathered logs. Sunday i spent most of the day in the studio finishing the my second large silverpoint drawing and making good headway on a large painting. The whole experience was marred only slightly by the gash on my right index finger where a potato got away from me while making potato leek soup.

Now for the pictures (I'm having a hard time getting the silverpoint to show up bright, and am losing detail correcting in photoshop, they are much lovelier in person I think)





beach pictures: