Horizon With Yellow Hue III

Horizon with Yellow Hue, 36x60 inches, acrylic and mixed media on canvas - this work was created with layers and layers of paint applied with a rubber brush and a little bit of fine pumice powder to make it sandable - and I sanded and sanded and sanded. It is a meditative process - like most, if not all of my work, and it takes a really long time! Which I enjoy, and I hope you enjoy too.

This particular painting was initially and in part inspired by miles of undeveloped beach in Mexico where I spent a day with friends, lounging, talking, playing, and eating fresh pizza built of bricks and clay. We were just north of Sayulita, Nayarit which is north of Puerto Vallarta. It was one of those amazing days that remain etched in memory indelibly - every face, everyone I met I recall completely.

Evanescence - a gradual fading away...

Evanescence, 30x40 inches, acrylic on canvas

Evanescence means: a gradual disappearance or fading away. Interestingly, the adjective evanescent comes from latin with the e meaning out, and vanescere - meaning vanish, from vanus meaning empty or insubstantial which is also the root of the word vain!

So cool. Evanescent is related to vanish is related to vain. This painting has nothing to do with vanity, but rather with the fading away as in a memory of an experience. I had no idea that vain meant empty, but now the word has such a deeper meaning than “having or showing an excessively high opinion of one's appearance, abilities, or worth” - it literally comes from the word for empty.

For reference I use the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology which is far more comprehensive than anything I can find online - in case you wanted to know.

It is Written

It is Written, acrylic and mixed media on canvas (36x60 inches) is a painting from a series of works called the Tablet Series and evokes imagery of architectural plans, schematics, diagrams, and a dense layered visual space where there is a lot going on, but the over feeling is of peace and calm.

It’s one of my favorite works from the series because of how it seems to move from simplicity to complexity and back again. It is a joy to look at and to be with.

I build up the surface of the canvas with a pattern of lines made with masking tape, and then as with other works in this series, I cover up the thick grey lines with white paint, let it dry and then sand it down to reveal the thick brush strokes of grey lines and they sharp outline from the masking tape. I continue to bury them in paint, and sand them out, and layer shapes and drawings over them until the final image reveals itself. It is an intuitive process, and often changes direction throughout the making of it. I never know exactly where it will end up, and I love that the most - I love to be surprised. Life throws us some surprises for sure - but most of the time we have our predictable routines - we know what to expect from friends and family and so it is appealing to engage with something like an artwork that seems to have an unpredictable form even though as the maker of the thing - I have complete control over it. Perhaps our control - in life, and in our respective work is illusory.

Soirée - Gala Series Painting

Since 2018 I have been exploring a series of celebratory paintings that I try to imbue with positive vibes, hopeful energy and an atmosphere of fun and happiness. This is meant to be an outlook choice - like, no matter what. There are always as many reasons to smile as there are reasons to despair. I believe this so much so that it is an important part of my work. When I was five years old I realized that some day, maybe 90 years from then, I would cease to exist. I was filled with dread, and with sadness that all this amazingness would soon end. I planned to live to surpass one hundred years, and still it seemed then, and seems now to be right around the corner. I feel that I want to slow down time, and relish each day, and each moment, and each amazing person in my life.

I try to live into the thoughts and expectations that I had then as a five year old. I try to feel, at the end of each day, that I did something that mattered, or that was a triumph, or that was inspiring, or that I learned something. I reflect on each day and appreciate something that happened - something I did that was inspiring, and of course, I have to make lists of the things that I want to accomplish otherwise I will idle the day away with work, with painting (even that can be idle) or with too much distractions, and not enough walks with friends, and good conversation. Even as an introvert - while I am perfectly happy with a cat on my lap and difficult crossword puzzle - I am energized by being with my friends and with people that I appreciate or love.

It is that spirit that I tried to embody with this painting - this feeling of appreciation and of love and of celebration - the music is just right, the pool is warm, and the martini is mixed to perfection - it is a fine Soirée - even if it is all just a vision in my head, and I am only dreaming while struggling with a crossword and a warm little cat trying to get comfortable on the lap of my linen pants that I wear everyday throughout the pandemic.

Cardboard Collages

For a special project I used cardboard cut outs that I had worked on with oil pastels to create composition possibilities. The cardboard cut outs look almost better than the paintings themselves. These mixed media compositions would become an entire series onto themselves, and offer a hint to what I might pursue in the future. Because my paintings seems to prioritize figures on a background - collaging of pieces onto a background seems to make sense. They have such great energy, feel spontaneous and have a rich dynamic surface. To create them I would throw them onto paper on the floor from far away and let them randomly fall where they may rather than carefully place them intentionally. One can tell, of course, that some elements such as the blue wavy bits have been set where they are. I had to add some order to the chaos so that they would feel balanced. The process opened me up to different compositional arrangements.

I was inspired by the work of John Cage and other artists that introduce randomness and chance into their work.

Back on the Market

This painting from 2007 is one of four paintings that have come back on the market from a collector who has downsized. It is for sale, and each of the four paintings is 36 x 36 inches.

It’s a real treat for those collectors who feel as if they missed out on collecting works from this series back in 2007. There was so much freedom in these works then! That was what I wanted to express - was freedom, and passion and joy and all those things. It is as if the works expressed the feeling of making them. The act of painting was joyful and freeing and spontaneous. The works are unplanned except for the condition of a frame, a rather atmospheric space inside the “window” and some action and drama in that space; created at first with drawn lines of paint from a Elmer’s Glue bottle and held pencil-like in my right hand and executed in a few seconds - in a burst of controlled - patterned perhaps - release of energy.

I once jokingly/seriously asked a friend of her work: “Is your work all as sexual as it looks?”
She replied, “even more so”

I might say the same, and I might not. The less said the better. I prefer to allow the work to be open to interpretation to anyone with enough interest to consider it.

Here are the other three:

Night of Impact Gala

from: https://www.prairiecarefund.org/5th-anniversary-night-of-impact-gala.html

The Prairie Care Child and Family Fund does great work, and deserves to be supported. Anyone can join the fun on February 13th and bid on many amazing auction items including this 8x10 inch landscape of mine:

This is a study for another work depicting the Hills of the Passion River at La Breña, 8x10 inches, acrylic on canvas

Their Mission:

PrairieCare Child & Family Fund's mission is to support mental health initiatives in education through grants & advocacy. In May, PrairieCare Child & Family Fund, which launched in March 2016, awarded $185,000 in grant funding to TEN Minnesota school districts & non-profits to support mental health education and training to those who support or provide educational services to youth. Since 2016, a total of $545,000 has been awarded to TWENTY-SEVEN school districts throughout the state!

Please join us in supporting
PrairieCare Child & Family Fund at the 5th Anniversary Night of Impact Virtual Gala
​
Saturday, February 13th 2021 at 6:00pm CST

Horizon with Gold

This little painting - about 10 x 24 inches is made of acrylic paint on canvas with gold paint for the water - it shimmers in the light like gold leaf. The process for painting little works like this is with a rubber squeegee that I use to pull the paint across the surface of the painting. I add fine pumice powder to layers of clear medium and in between painted layers so that I can sand the surface of the painting with waterproof sandpaper to maintain a smooth surface. The process is important and meditative.

The process was inspired by doing plaster repairs in an old house. I was using sanding in other works - such as in this video for Twin Cities Public Television

Horizon with Blue #2

Horizon with Blue #2 is a multi-layered painting made entirely of acrylic paint and a little finely ground pumice added into it to make it sandable. The surface of the painting is a smooth matte finish that is achieved by sanding each layer as it is laid down and dried. It is applied with a rubbery plastic squeegee that allows me to apply a thick and evenly distributed layer of paint. It offers such satisfaction to paint. It is a meditative sort of practice - one that is important to me in each kind of painting. It is important to find that meditative jam - that groove that I can get into and loose my self in the painting, or an audiobook by Malcolm Gladwell, Tim Ferris, or of course, Joyce.

I was inspired to paint this series of landscapes after a cross-country trip where my sister and I moved my father from where we grew up near Detroit to his new home in Denver. I took a lot of photos out of the window and wanted to capture, in a painting, the horizontal movement of traveling cross-country.

From Jack Kerouac’s On the Road - ““Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.” ...

Architectural Painting with Literary References

This painting entitled Signs on a White Field is about many things at the same time. In this work I am combining several things together: using masking tape and paint to create lines, painting over those lines, and then sanding them down, graphite drawing, ink drawing with a small brush and then on top of that more lines of paint made with masking tape. The ink drawings are made from patterns of mark making that I have been practicing over many years. It is a sort of meditative practice and the marks are meant to depict movement. The graphite lines are referencing architectural drawing, and I use them in an intuitive way to interact with the pattern of sanded lines beneath them. The sanded lines were created using a symmetric pattern that I came up with in a spontaneous way.

Many layers of intuitive mark-making with the hope of making some new meaning out of the combination of each. The architectural and the free flowing organic in the same space create a balance of tension.

The title is a line from Joyce’s Ulysses. After listening to it as an audio-book I gained a great appreciation for it, and felt like I was able to penetrate its deep layers of meaning. James Joyce did wonderful things with language, and I appreciate the stream of consciousness of the characters. Ulysses reads as if one is reading the thoughts inside the character’s mind. Many layers of meaning - in the painting above, and the passage below are not always connected, but seem to make sense.

The line Signs on a white field (which references writing on paper) occurs in the third episode of the book - Proteus, where one of the main characters is walking along the beach. I have included the entire paragraph below for your reading and discovering:

“His shadow lay over the rocks as he bent, ending. Why not endless till the farthest star? Darkly they are there behind this light, darkness shining in the brightness, delta of Cassiopeia, worlds. Me sits there with his augur's rod of ash, in borrowed sandals, by day beside a livid sea, unbeheld, in violet night walking beneath a reign of uncouth stars. I throw this ended shadow from me, manshape ineluctable, call it back. Endless, would it be mine, form of my form? Who watches me here? Who ever anywhere will read these written words? Signs on a white field. Somewhere to someone in your flutiest voice. The good bishop of Cloyne took the veil of the temple out of his shovel hat: veil of space with coloured emblems hatched on its field. Hold hard. Coloured on a flat: yes, that's right. Flat I see, then think distance, near, far, flat I see, east, back. Ah, see now! Falls back suddenly, frozen in stereoscope. Click does the trick. You find my words dark. Darkness is in our souls do you not think? Flutier. Our souls, shamewounded by our sins, cling to us yet more, a woman to her lover clinging, the more the more.