i think i gave myself a pushpin blister....

Yikes. The good news is I have 24 more sewn paintchips to add to the collection, giving me a total of 61. I'm making good progress on that wall of paintchips, and the larger the collection grows, the more exciting it looks. Here are some pictures.

24 new sewn paintchips

24 new sewn paintchips (detail)

The beginning of a wall full of paintchips.

61 sewn paintchips arranged in a grid (view 1)

61 sewn paintchips arranged in a grid (view 2)

p.s. - My 2nd post in the past week. I've got another silverpoint drawing almost finished, so depending on my ability to get into the studio later this week, it might just be three.

things i'm looking at/listening to/thinking about

I've been thinking for awhile about posting a list of things that are inspiring me at the moment. Its a disparate group consisting of random phrases, songs, images, artists, observations, etc. This seems like as good a place as any to put that kind of list.

• Neko Case - I freaking love her voice and the fact that she now lives in Vermont with a barn full of pianos (seriously, how cool is that?) The lyrics of middle cyclone are so beautiful and vulnerable and strong at the same.

Baby, why'm I worried now,
did someone make a fool of me
'fore I could show 'em how it's done?
Can't give up actin' tough,
it's all that I'm made of.
Can't scrape together quite enough
to ride the bus to the outskirts
of the fact that I need love.

There were times that I tried,
one for every glass of water
that I spilled next to the bed,
wretching pennies in a boiling well
in a dream that it once becomes
a foundry of mute and heavy bells.
They shake me deaf and dumb
say, "Someone made a fool of me
'fore I could show 'em how it's done."

It was so clear to me
that it was almost invisible.
I lie across the path waiting,
just for a chance to be a spiderweb
trapped in your lashes.
For that, I would trade you my empire for ashes.
But I choke it back, how much I need love...

photo from this nytimes article

• Old Nautical Maps; I've always loved maps, especially old maps. Lately I've been interested in bodies of water, and nautical maps. I discovered the NOAA has a great online archive of old nautical charts/maps. I could spend hours there downloading historical maps.

• Social networking. Its a hole new world of connecting to people and its made me think a lot lately about connection, and communicating in 140 characters, and overlapping spheres. Its a part of the silverpoint drawings I'm making, and relates to what has come to feel like the overarching theme of my artmaking; the relationship of the unique to the whole.

• Paper installation work by artists like chris natrop

• soft petaled flowers like ranaculus and peonies

a cabin by the sea

tidal charts and pictures of waves and lakes and waterfalls. small houses with steep roofs. the colors of early morning. bridges that lead into distance. special edition gray paint. work in progress. making time. unexpectantly finishing a painting, past midnight on a thursday.

cabin by the sea
2009, oil on canvas

cabin by the sea,detail
2009, oil on canvas

sometimes the out-takes are the loveliest

Photographing my work last night, I came across this picture that I'm pretty sure I didn't even mean to take. Its lovely.

I've been making progress on a new painting (I think its getting close to done), and I've been thinking a lot of this piece and the last being the nexus for a new body of work, inspired by the combination of water and the built environment, and my long held desire to live in a little house near water. I've been seeking out the ocean more & more in the last few months (loving that I'm a fairly easy drive away). Walking to the slough on my lunch break, watching the Willamette every morning as I take my dog to the park. I feel a connection with water and the space around it, and keep seeing these wonderfully decrepit boats along roadways and in yards. Finding myself drawn to time ravaged buildings, 1850s anatomical drawings & maps of waterways and highways and tidal charts I don't know how to read. One of my favorite ways of creating is to fill myself up with looking and see what happens.

a house by the sea
oil on canvas
36"x40"

etsy store

I started an etsy store. Go check it out, tell me what you think and it would make my week if you bought something (no pressure, but my work is pretty awesome and less than $20)

I'll be adding more items hopefully sometime this weekend.

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.