Beyond The Crevice In Our Understanding

This is a painfully inadequate photo taken on my iPad of a new abstract painting I've done (I couldn't fit it onto my scanner) as a homework assignment for my new online class with Karine Swenson, a marvelous painter. It's called, Abstraction: Diving Deeper. It's not the first abstract I did for this course, but it's the one I'm satisfied with....a bit. It incorporates my familiar pigment spills with acrylic painting on watercolor paper, with texture created from Golden Molding Paste.  The molding paste was then painted over, and sanded back, to interesting effect, I think.  I've had mixed reactions from fellow students. What do you think, should I move on to canvas or board from paper?  It would solve some of the wrinkle problems, maybe.  

Segmented Nocturnal Tuliary

I know, what the heck is that?  Not sure.  The critters sneak onto my work through the cracks in my imagination.  They start as the involuntary images that pop briefly into view when my eyes are closed in bed at night, waiting for sleep.  The next thing I know, they've slithered onto my paintings, making themselves comfortably at home. This one is iridescent, catching the light on it's armor.  Let's hope it doesn't eat paper.

Communion In The Hall Of The Ancestors

Yes, it's been a bit since I've posted on my blog.  No excuse, just distracted, I guess.  I've been enjoying a class taught by Richard Jesse Watson on sculpting with found objects. It turns out that my lovely Skratch clay works very well for such things, and when I'm finished with my driftwood/kiln brick/Skratch sculpture made in class, I will post it.

Meanwhile....Still playing with my leftover sheets of Pigment Spill experiments, and suddenly "saw" the images and story in this one, after months of not knowing what the heck it could be. I have a cousin who has shared a magnificent tiger painting he did on Facebook, its power and elegance blow me away.  Maybe this isn't magnificent tiger stuff, but it tickled me to play with it.  I love doodling over stuff that's already there!  

Crumbling Fortresses

Now and again I stumble over a box of things I haven't yet tossed out or sorted that my deceased husband, Neil, had collected, many of which were of paperwork or photos that had been part of his life before we met in 1984.  He was an avid photographer, so there were (maybe literally) tons of prints I have already sorted and recycled or filed.  

Earlier this year I found a box full of photos Neil had shot when he was working as a government contractor in Washington D.C., on one of his many trips to Europe during the '70s. What a treasure trove!  They were in color, and he had shot scenes in a city in Spain (not sure which, it didn't say anything other than "Spain"), some children holding a puppy, and some gorgeous architectural shots in London. I've had them stacked on the corner of my drafting table since I found them, hoping they would spark the Muse. 

A few weeks ago I was looking to play with a little collage, and began staining and tearing bits of thin Japanese paper and deli paper.  I took out a sheet of Stonehenge Kraft toned paper as a background, and sorted through my stack of Neil's photos. There was one he had taken on a beach near ROTA Spain.  Apparently there are (were?) bunkers from WWII scattered here and there along the shoreline, crumbling from the shifting sand, he was fascinated with.  

My heart had been saddened that very evening after reading about the state of military affairs in the world lately, and our role as a country within that arena.  I'd gotten myself pretty depressed.  But interestingly, the beach scene in Neil's photo seemed soothing, calming.  I could see clearly how the struggle of man through history to build fortresses and armaments against others of his kind (and I do use the gender pronoun purposefully) is gradually crumbled and disassembled by Nature gently, over the course of countless tides. Somehow, I felt this was a gentle message from Neil, who'd spent most of his career as a contractor in the Military Industrial Complex. "Don't worry," he seemed to say, "even at the time I photographed this, I knew this war stuff meant nothing, and the sands of time will crumble it away again."

In the photo, the footprints are of a single Human, which turn and come back on themselves (were they Neil's?).  In the painting and collage I created (above), the prints are a pair, and go on toward the horizon. The scraps of Japanese paper and torn deli paper are the bunker, as well as the cliffs that meet the beach.  Painted with gouache and love. 

A Fave Place To Imbibe

I am appalled at how little I've posted on my blog lately!  I feel so neglectful.  The stories and images are a comfort, as well as providing me a trail of breadcrumbs I can use to trace my way home when I get too far extended in my life.  When I'm lost out on the desert of "normal" reality, and have lost my creative compass coordinates!  

Jim and I spent some time a couple days ago visiting our younger daughter's jewelry display at the show on Bainbridge Island she was participating in.  Speaking of Divine Creativity! We met our other daughter there, who had come over from Seattle.  We left Crystal to her show, and the three of us travelled to Poulsbo to enjoy some Spanish Tapas at Paella Bar.  The atmosphere, food and wine are superb.  I especially recommend the bacon wrapped, goat cheese-filled dates!  Wow. 

It's amazing how much richer the participatory experience is at any location or event when I sketch it! 

(And in answer to the question of many who have seen my sketchbook, no, I do not do the entire sketch while sitting at the location.  I will get the basic rough ink drawing in, do some random patches of color here and there to remind myself, as well as lots of squinting and memorization of shadow angles, items on tables or displays or walls, and finish the sketch at home later)

Treehouse On Masa Paper

As a kid, most of my non-school and non-snow days were spent in trees.  TreeZone seemed a natural place for my sister and I to hang out, and as time went on, I think it was clear to our dad it might be safer if there was an actual supporting floor under us when we were up there. That didn't stop me from tightrope walking on long, swaying branches that bridged My Tree and the garage roof, but at least I had a place to stash my snacks and sleep above the coyotes on summer nights, once he built a treehouse for me. Popular Mechanics magazine had just the blueprints for that little Ponderosa kid fortress, and Papa put his best carpenter's hat on and went to work.  

I should tell you that the above illustration is not my childhood treehouse.  But it is someone's childhood treehouse in Scotland.  Jim and I have a few books on tree houses of the world, and leafing through them a few days ago, I had some nice visions in my head of uses to put my newly minted, crinkled and stained, Masa Printmaking Paper cards to. I don't think the blueprints for this particular treehouse were published in Popular Mechanics.  

In my next lifetime, I will be sure to inherit the estate this tree palace occupies.

Giselle Finds The Perfect Leaf

So the pigment spill I thought had been the basis for a wild floral display, the plastic-wrap print in the center lending itself to a cut crystal vase, actually turned out to be a woman gazing at a windblown storm of Autumn leaves swirling around her.  It's a thrill to collaborate with what the patterns tell me after some deep meditation on them.