Janet Fagan

Whimsey

2012-01-11T13:55:00.001-08:00

Song and Dance
48" x 12"
acrylic on raw cotton

What I did with my Winter Vacation...

2012-01-07T18:00:00.000-08:00

Whew! November to January has been a whirlwind of activity and it feels good to be aiming for the studio again. I am currently moving my studio which involves a great deal of spatial negotiation and the thoughtful release of materials and objects that are simply not serving me any longer. Great way to start the New Year! Let the next leg of the journey begin!

Many rides through the skies - such inspiration beyond the window...The ever-comforting embrace of the Gulf Coast

While I was away the 206 Gallery was temporarily installed outside of the Seattle Art Museum.Arizona - what an oasis in the midst of Seattle Winter.

So much fun taking apart my old bike chain and making many whimsical gifts for my bike-riding buddies! Painting time was spare, but the making never stopped.!

Ripple

2011-10-28T12:37:00.000-07:00

Ripple (Breath 2)
Mixed Media
20" x 20"
in process

I am continuing to investigate the idea of breath and stillness in these small paintings using a very limited warm/cool palette. This exploration was inspired by a recent visit to the Seattle Art Museum - specifically the incredible work of Japanese artist, Tsuji Kako (1870 - 1931).

Breathe

2011-10-24T13:02:00.000-07:00

Breath
Mixed Media
20" x 20"

Oregon Morning Ride

2011-10-05T15:19:00.000-07:00

Morning 1, 2
Mixed Media
38" x 38"

These paintings were both inspired by 435 miles of cycling through Oregon in the middle of September. One morning in particular stands out where we woke early to climb through lifting fog, beside a river and through the trees. Up, up , up. With 2000 other riders stretching for miles in front of and behind me, I still felt the welcoming solitude and magic of the quiet, cloaked landscape.

Where I could touch

2011-09-21T11:30:00.000-07:00

Reef
Mixed Media
38' x 38"

Remembering where I could touch. The Gulf of Mexico lights up bright green in the shallow spots. If a storm is coming, that green glows even brighter. The places where you can stand wave to you with invitation.

2011-09-07T12:03:00.000-07:00

Full Moon
30 x 30"
Mixed Media

MFA Thesis

2011-09-01T14:18:00.001-07:00

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gsrQ7gHFzpvq3WwNyeWMw8MCx8EMKsW03HB2gANn8PI/edit?hl=en_US

2011-09-01T13:41:00.001-07:00

Summer's Edge (the impossible goodbye)
25 x 25"
Mixed Media

Forest Edge Diptychs (1 &2)
Mixed Media
18 x 48", 11 x 28"

Somehow during the most self-indulgent post-graduation Summer I have ever had in terms of travel and fun I have managed to paint - a little. All of the camping, biking, eating, swimming, enjoying friends and basking in the great out of doors is certainly fuel for the studio and in many ways simply an extension of my thesis - which I will post here soon. For now it feels so good to have a week of relative stillness before my last trip of the Summer to stand on the edge of it all - and paint.

Preparing to dive

2011-07-26T16:47:00.001-07:00

As I search for ways to settle back in to my practice, I decided to re-work some of the small abstract studies I had in my studio with woodblock prints that I created for the commission I just did. It was fun playing with combining the abstraction and the imagery, but I am eager to finish building and priming my canvases so that I can dive back into my practice where I paused prior to graduation. I still have a lot to discover about "Home" as I continue to move toward the horizon.

Tree and friends

2011-07-20T14:32:00.000-07:00

This is one panel of a commission that I finished today. This section is 32" x 40". It incorporates several woodblock prints of birds and branches inspired by my clients' beautiful yard.

Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts

2011-07-20T14:26:00.000-07:00

Two of five 7" x 11" works on paper that will be hanging in the Grand Rapids UICA exhibition celebrating the opening of their brand-new space!

MFA

2011-07-20T14:10:00.000-07:00

MFA Graduate Exhibit, University Hall Gallery, Cambridge, MA

After three weeks away from Seattle, which included graduating from the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University with my MFA, visiting family, and vacationing on the East Coast, I am once again home in Seattle where my strawberries are blooming like mad despite the unseasonably cool weather, and I am getting back into the thick of my Practice.

Highlights of the trip include having a painting selected by the President of Lesley University to hang for one year in his home where he entertains University guests, truly enjoying giving my very well-received artist-talk, having a painting in the BYC exhibit, taking a glider lesson in Florida, swimming in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, and exploring the islands of New England via ferry and tandem bicycle.

What is next?

Movement

2011-06-01T07:54:00.000-07:00

One of my paintings was accepted to the Boston Young Contemporaries show in Boston, a juried show of MFA work from these east cost colleges including: The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University (MFA), Rhode Island School of Design (MFA),Boston University (MFA), School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA, Post-Bac), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MA) and Yale School of Art (MFA)

http://www.bostonyoungcontemporaries.com/

bostonyoungcontemporaries.com

Shift

2011-04-20T12:10:00.000-07:00

Slice
32" x 6"
Mixed Media on Paper

My departure from Thesisville has been slow, but as I move back into the studio I have been putting energy toward finishing projects I am committed to outside of school, like the above paintings for the "Gallery 206" which is an interesting public art project that local artist Todd Jannausch is directing. More on that to come as the installation date gets closer!

sunbreak storm sun

2011-03-23T15:06:00.000-07:00

Sunbreak Storm Sun
38" x 38"
Mixed Media on Canvas

This weekend I had the amazing gift of being able to spend two nights on Mt. Rainier. What a powerful experience. Snowshoeing up to a ridge in the brilliant sunlight - tanktop temperature on top of 20 feet of snow. An hour later clouds and falling white surround and the magic is quiet and timeless. Learning to navigate new challenges - steep slopes bring lessons. The grey fox and the red fox leave tracks all around and mountain chickadees dart through the trees. The ravens play.

This trip was the perfect break after completing my second thesis draft. My review with my thesis adviser is tonight, but until then - I can paint without feeling pulled to work on the paper instead. This painting was started a few weeks ago, but I finished it today while remembering the Mountain.

Dream House

2011-02-23T11:43:00.001-08:00

Sometimes the sea...
38" x 38"
Mixed Media

Its always the work itself that motivates me to update this blog, and since returning to Seattle from my fourth residency in Boston, I have only just returned to painting. Filling my hours up until now has been time well spent in "Thesisville" where I have been thinking, reading, writing and thinking writing and reading some more. Here is my working abstract:

Dream House

Exploring mental and physical space within the landscape reflects my sense of "Home" and my relationship to the larger world. Placing myself in a long continuum of artists from Caspar David Friedrich to photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto, I am depicting the psychic and physical space of the landscape from perspectives of observation and immersion. Through this investigation I have found direct connections between space, process and the idea of "Home". As a metaphor for home, the landscape depicts our containment in the universe, evoking a density of experience that engages both physcial and psychological space.

Digitally manipulated photograph
Walton County, Florida, 2010

Then and Now and Nowthen

2010-12-27T12:29:00.000-08:00

Sea Sky Collage # 1
Digital print of photograph, photograph, sumi, oil, acrylic, spraypaint, woodblock print collage, gold leaf, metal
Apx. 6' x 6'

Sea Sky Collage #1, Detail of digital photograph
6' x 6'

Sea Sky Collage # 1, Painting Detail

Forest Sea Sky
Oil, gold leaf, spraypaint

Gold leaf, spraypaint, found objects, giant pixelated printouts of old photos, old photos. These are the things that I am layering in an effort to evoke the feelings of past, present, wonder and detachment that I find within the landscape. I went to Hawaii recently and two experiences continue to replay in my memory - decending the Haleakala Volcano on Maui and feeling like it was all I could do not to fly off into the ambiguous field of blue sky and water that met me as I swung around every switch-back on my bike. The other experience I will not forget was being under water at the edge of a cinder cone where the ocean dropped from about 3' into an unreadable abyss. Both moments felt truly sublime and brought me face to face with what I hope to show in my work - the unimaginable potential of tomorrow, and the atmospheric poetry of the past that brought us to the always elusive Now. Many ideas are wound up in these thoughts and the landscape is a wonderful metaphor to explore them. I am creating these collages in an effort to expand my awareness of my work and continue to search for the most radical honesty possible in my understanding of it.

The Sea is Silver

2010-11-05T16:42:00.000-07:00

"Sometimes..." continued
Oil, Acrylic, Spray Paint, Cold Wax, Silver Leaf

The leaf is so reflective - I love how it captures the colors of what is around it. In this image you can see it finding the warmth of my dark orange puffy vest (yes, wearing it in the house. Welcome to November in Seattle).

I had a fabulous meeting with Robert today during which we took turns visiting each others' studios. We had a great conversation that left me inspired and ready to work. I am super excited to experiment with different mixed media layered groupings of my work. I am not going to say much here about the process, but rather wait until it is further along to show AND tell. My mind is full of different thoughts and elements that I can trace from about third grade right up to this moment. Everything is unfolding and overlapping inside of me and it is uncanny how the readings and papers that I have been filling myself with during the AIB experience are completely supporting this moment. I feel it. It is very, very good.

Birthday Ride

2010-10-15T10:32:00.000-07:00

October sky (the gift)
13" x 26" diptych
acrylic, oil, cold wax, spray paint
process

Sometimes the sea is silver

2010-10-07T14:29:00.001-07:00

Sometimes
38" x 38"
Acrylic, oil, wax, spray paint

See?

2010-09-30T12:18:00.001-07:00

Sea Sky
38" x 38"
Acrylic and Spraypaint
Processing...

Sea Sky
12" x 12"
Acrylic and Spraypaint
Process

Through the Trees

2010-09-29T13:44:00.000-07:00

Thinking a lot, at Robert's suggestion, about what really attracts me to the themes that reoccur over and over in my work. Moving through space, moving through trees. The embrace of the woods, the speed and satisfaction of weaving around and under obstacles, the comfort and company of living Witnesses to my life. The contrast of their open, unexpected organic presence to the heavy grid that we construct as modern, urban life. The way they smell, the way they sound. My witness to the stages of their lives. Traveling through time, together.

Having a wonderful...

2010-09-24T15:37:00.000-07:00

...time.

This is the size of a postcard, created for Art Lab 9.
https://sites.google.com/site/artlab9

Before black, after white.

2010-09-24T13:37:00.000-07:00

...thinking about depth, neutralizing the purple, maintaining the edge of untouched canvas, pulling back from the precipice of pretty...

Supposedly, the painting is on its side, but this is how I have been thinking about it.

Rain, Sun, Pie.

2010-09-20T14:29:00.000-07:00

Rain then Sun
38" x 38"
Woodblock print, acrylic, oil, cold wax, spray paint, moab earth
In Process

One of the hardest things for me about mountain biking in the rain is how hard it is to see through all the rain drops on your glasses. Mountain biking is really hard enough without visibility problems, but there you have it. This painting reminds me of my first rainy mountain bike ride, which I had recently. Rain, then Sun.

Moab dirt all over my studio, spray paint on my scissors and paint on just about everything else. Whew! Painting fueled by cherry pie. This is what happens. I know this piece will not stay where it is for long, because I am very unsettled with it, but I wanted to share the whimsical quality it has right now before I work any more on it. Oh and what did I learn today? I can print my woodblocks directly on a primed and stretched canvas, and $10 a can spray paint is kinda worth it.

The motion of listening.

2010-09-13T12:57:00.000-07:00

Listen
10" x 30" Triptych
Wood block print collage, oil, cold wax

Like a dream - but better.

2010-09-11T14:16:00.000-07:00

Forest Flight Blow
big x really big
acrylic, sumi, oil, cold wax
in process

When I run through the forest trails really fast there is a feeling of flight - the ground rises and falls - the robins and wrens flush before me, and the light creates pattern and illusion - stark silhouettes and pockets of distance, blindness and vision - blur.
Its like a dream - but better.

Invitation to In Between

2010-09-11T11:00:00.000-07:00

Hesperia (formerly blow)
Sumi, oil, cold wax, woodblock print collage, moab earth
36" x 36"

I have been thinking a lot about the places between elements of contrast where understanding and union occur. I believe this has led to the emphasis in this piece on the horizon and colors representing the beautiful and compelling union of day and night.

I always find it fascinating how I can go into a painting with a fairly specific plan, and the painting almost always has other ideas. Letting the painting lead the conversation of creating often makes better sense than my conscious ideas, and it usually turns out that my original plan comes out in time, but other things have to happen first - like this. Such a lesson about not letting the busy mind try to pull things to us before they are ready to come to us on their own.

I will let this painting rest just a bit, but I am considering pushing the darks in the forground and the atmospheric texture of the background if/when I go back into it.

Robert Yoder, my new wonderful mentor, and I had a great meeting where we talked about my desire for contrast and ambiguity and he suggested focusing on the square in order to detract from the landscape impications of the rectangle. I love working with the square and recently bought a ton of stretchers for more 36" and 38"squares. I am going to see about stepping back into a more minimal approach to reflecting on sea sky forest on this scale. I also wonder about the component aspect of same size squares in order to address the idea of a larger scale without working on giant pieces. Could these squares all come together somehow? Sounds like an invitation. Union. The places where different things meet. The beauty of between. The tenderness of transitions. The gifts of new spaces, and the patience to let them reveal themselves.

The start of something.

2010-09-09T21:40:00.000-07:00

Blow
Sumi, woodblock print, cold wax, oil, Moab earth
36" x 36"
In Perpetual Progress

So not over, upside down (maybe) and filled with ideas for tomorrows...

Flipped...

2010-09-01T10:56:00.000-07:00

I think I like it better this way.

More...

2010-09-01T10:30:00.000-07:00

Forest Flight
Mixed Media
6' x 5'
In Process

Despite the murmurs in my head (psst...the top edge of the close shape must go) and the fact that much subtlety is lost in this image, I wanted to record this stage because some of the things I am interested in (atmosphere, contrast, transparent layers, lift) are starting to happen! I am slowly accepting the reality that working this large is just not the best scale for me in my current space. I think after this painting I might seriously let the large scale go.
Stay tuned... same bat channel.

Process...

2010-08-31T14:11:00.001-07:00

Blow
Mixed Media
36" x 36"
In Process

Earth Sky Tide Study
Mixed Media
10" x 30"
In Process

I just saw it a minute ago...

2010-08-25T14:35:00.000-07:00

blow
36" x 36"
sumi, acrylic, oil
in process

What I hear.

2010-07-29T12:56:00.000-07:00

...some small black and white studies (10" x 10", 10" x 30") and some larger boards that I will be cutting in preparation for the 4 and 6' canvases I have prepared. I am so smitten with the calligraphic and block print marks. Delicate fluidity and grounded strength. Attraction, discovery, exchange. What gesture might they share? How do they move toward one another? What new conversation can we hear when we listen closely? Wings moving air, water falling on leaves, footfalls in gravel beds, the sounds of breathing. Moving. Falling. Breathing.

Above, Below, Within

2010-07-17T13:02:00.001-07:00

Sea Sky Fire Studies
Mixed Media (acrylic, metallic fabric paint, oil, cold wax, sumi ink, )
10" x 30"

Now, then.

2010-07-12T10:13:00.001-07:00

Float (studies)
Mixed Media (acrylic, sharpie, woodblock print collage, oil)
10" x 30"

Through the Trees (studies)
Mixed Media (acrylic, wood block print collage, oil, cold wax)
10" x 30"

Flight study
Mixed Media (acrylic, oil, woodblock print collage)
10" x 10"

From the Sky

2010-07-08T14:29:00.000-07:00

My third residency at AIB felt like one very slow explosion. The days were filled and overflowed into evenings of rich conversation, laughter with fellow students, and nights of vivid dreams and adrenaline charged sleep. At home now, I am processing it all - gallery visits, thirteen scheduled critiques, three visiting artist lectures, two faculty presentations, a panel discussion, one critical theory and one professional development seminar. Those are the actual pieces, but what they represent to me is something far harder to outline or list. I can still feel the heat from the long explosion, and I am turning each piece of the experience over in my hands, dreaming of what I will build with them – something strong and beautiful to stand upon.

Back in the studio now, the process begins. Trusting gravity. Up is safe.

Day One

2010-06-18T18:46:00.000-07:00

Today, day one of my third of five residencies at AIB was a very full and satisfying day. I unpacked my paintings and installed them in my critique space - watched previews for the time-based, first year and graduate presentations, re-connected with my class and ate delicious meals in fantastic company. We ended our first day by 8PM, so I was able to enjoy a wonderful sunset run along the St Charles river. It is sunny and warm - I sleep on the 4th floor of a brown stone built in 1896 with the windows open, and wake to a raucous and welcoming bird serenade. I have an early run with some class-mates in the morning before critiques and our first critical theory seminar. Hard work, beautiful joy.

Artist Statement - new revision

2010-06-10T07:53:00.000-07:00

From William Turner to Anselm Kiefer, I feel connected to artists that share their personal response to the world through their emotive depictions of the environment. My life is the preparation for each painting. I cull insight for each piece from experiences that I have moving through the landscape, and my relationships with the lives within it. Intuitive replies to memories create a sense of place in my work that is defined by the materiality of the paint, and the discovery of visual contrasts reflecting emotional connections to experience. This is an environment of call and response where the heart and mind interact and the viewer is asked to consider the connection between presence and reaction.
I encourage this connection with the inclusion of unrefined pigment mixed directly into the oil paint and cold wax. Fluid transparent washes, heavy layers of sediment textured peaks – the gesture of a wave, the splatter of petals or rain – these are the marks that build and reveal place.
Although the content of my work is largely a personal form of communication, it invites participation through the discovery of the landscape from an internal perspective. When one views the world from the heart, how does our connection to it, and our care of it, potentially change?

Joy

2010-05-23T11:27:00.000-07:00

Joy
oil and cold wax on canvas
30" x 24"

Inside, around, through, behind. Irrepressible.

Favorite time

2010-05-23T10:39:00.000-07:00

Favorite Time
oil and cold wax on canvas
24" x 30"
in process??

Seattle is such a wonderful place because no matter how grey the day, chances are very likely that at dusk, you will witness an amazing transition between day and night. My favorite time.

Out there, In here.

2010-05-17T12:54:00.000-07:00

remembering sky
oil and cold wax on canvas
18" x 24"

Float

2010-05-15T10:48:00.000-07:00

Float
19" x 48"
oil and cold wax on paper

You can take the girl out of representation, but you can't take the...

2010-05-14T14:28:00.000-07:00

Through the Trees -
Still experimenting with the varnish, sumi ink and more layering of oil and wax. Crazy compulsion has taken over. Can't stop. I like it stacked vertically right now, even though it becomes tall like a giant (tree?) and more literal.

Studio Experiment Outcome

2010-05-11T12:07:00.000-07:00

Finally an experiment that I am thrilled with! This is a detail of my oh so happy discovery today that sumi ink will sit on top of acrylic water based varnish, which will sit on top of oil paint. (Archival? What?) Anyway, I am so excited about this! I do believe the entire reason I worked on the tree diptychs for so long, was to figure this out. Onward!
Oh and how funny that all of the Crit Theory readings of the moment are discussing Orientalism...!

Beauty and Loss; BFF

2010-05-10T21:31:00.000-07:00

Critical Theory Paper 3, Spring 2010

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0Acx_78ZgJoWXZGc4NDZnN2pfMGZydjgyNmRn&hl=en

Embrace the Process

2010-05-08T12:27:00.000-07:00

Embrace
oil and cold wax on paper
48" x 19"
in process

Running through the woods this morning, thinking about process, feeling the warm embrace of air, trees, sky...

Breathe into each step - recognize and embrace the process.

Full

2010-05-02T13:07:00.000-07:00

Moon
43" x 30"
oil and cold wax on canvas

Inside Outside

2010-05-02T11:40:00.000-07:00

Cave (working title)
26"x29"
Oil, cold was, BC Pigment
in progress

It is so difficult to photograph a wet, textural painting - this is the best I can do. Real life is much more interesting! The depth and texture that I am excited about is not reading in this photo, but I want to recognize this happy place before I move on. I particularly like the glimmers of the red ochre pigment that sparkle through. I am thinking of a recent candle-lit cave experience, among other things.

F L I G H T

2010-05-02T10:40:00.001-07:00

Through the Trees
Details

Carol and I met last week and she suggested that I create small collages from the large diptych as a way of furthering my dialogue with it. What came out of this process for me, which involved lots of staring at the diptych, was flight. No surprise to those of you that know me and my work, I know, but because one of these pieces began with collage elements, and the work is inspired by "flying" through trees, adding collage back into them seemed perfect. I have been experimenting today with two different ideas where this is concerned. The first is simply ripping apart my woodblock prints and adding them in to the composition. The second step I am trying is to coat the pieces with a heavy varnish that will isolate the image where it is now, so that I can freely work on top of a non-porous surface in a linear fashion. This idea came from an article I read recently in the New Yorker about Julie Mehretu where she describes her process. Interesting...

SO chatty...

2010-04-24T12:45:00.000-07:00

The most incredible thing about graduate school so far, is that I am actually working on paintings for so very long. My conversation with this painting has been continuing, in some form or another, for longer than I have been in the program - so over one year. That is amazing to me, because it is not something I could have ever predicted of myself, having always self-identified as a very fast and prolific painter. I am going to be quiet with it, one way or the other, by the end of this semester. If it tries to engage me any longer than that, I think it will just have to be in another form - collage? Compost?

Earth, Sea, Sky, Earth.

2010-04-21T15:15:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine brought me some pigment back from British Columbia. He dug it out of the Earth himself - complete with roots, pebbles and miscellaneous organic debris. Red Ochre that looks just like the Mars Yellow that I recentlly purchased, only way more interesting! I used it today for the first time - mixed with a little walnut oil and cold wax. SO FUN! Makes me feel all Anselm Kieferish... I really love working with materials that are less refined. Beautiful feeling of connectivity.

Tea, tissue, and terrain.

2010-04-20T13:52:00.000-07:00

You are here.
oil on canvas
oh about so big
in progress

I have a cold. I was hoping it was allergies, but then a friend reminded me that "allergies are forever", and well, guess I am lucky to have a cold.

I did some pouring today. Searching for that magic ratio of oil to paint to get the perfect drip/splash/puddle. Carol sent me some very Carolish directives for the diptych and I have been working on that for the greater part of today. Can't photograph it just now as it is laying flat under a table - puddles puddling, and hopefully drying.

Just had a short fling with this piece, and wanted to share because I found it oh so satisfying. Fast. More thoughts about the body as landscape, the landscape as witness, and the traces of memories - what they feel like/look like. Everything fits together like a big beautiful puzzle. I am so happy that I am an artist. How else could I ever explain my life to myself?

For now.

2010-04-13T15:50:00.000-07:00

Running steps...

2010-04-09T17:01:00.000-07:00

Through the trees
oil and cold wax on paper
36" x 96"
getting there...

Serious glare on the right, but I wanted to post this stage because I am starting to feel better about this piece. I see one more step ahead to play with the edges and make the whole thing feel more atmospheric and pull it together a bit more. All this as I imagine running through weather, light and color. We shall see!

The Internal Landscape: Paper 2, Spring 2010

2010-04-06T19:51:00.000-07:00

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/38282582/Paper-2-Spring-2010-AIB

...there yet?

2010-04-06T13:16:00.000-07:00

Trees
oil and cold wax on paper
still going...
36" x 96"

Still going on this half of the diptych, especially. Happier with it today - still not "there" yet - wherever there is...

More.

2010-04-06T11:50:00.001-07:00

Sea Sky
oil and cold wax on canvas
30" x 44"

Clouds
oil and cold wax on canvas
30" x 44"

These are the two larger pieces from the funnel series that I am continuing to re-work. I have stopped thinking of them in a series because I don't have a space large enough to look at the whole series together comfortably. It is ok - they may still work together in the end somehow - it will be fun to see! I am enjoying my continuing experimentation with a primary pallete with no white, and using masking with some glazing to contrast the more organic waxy surface that began the funnel series. The orange shape at the top of "Sea Sky" is going to have to go, because it distracts me, but it also reminds of a bird, so I am letting it sit (fly!) for now.

To be continued...

2010-03-24T13:50:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine recorded like, uh, 80 million hours of "Indian Chill" music for me, and the combination of its continual dreamy rhythmic soundtrack, and suddenly having almost three whole days to simply paint and take walks to think about painting, has left me feeling very fortunate, and a tiny bit other-worldly.
Ok, more than a tiny bit...

Here are two small weather studies (8" x 12") using earth with the addition of phthalo blue, and an itty-bitty, I don't think this is cheating, portion of unbleached titanium white. Its great how posting these studies helps me to see them differently and gives me ideas. For instance, I saw the study below cropped accidentally by this preview box that I am typing in, and got an idea for it. How does technology influence your work? In unexpected ways.

Saturation

2010-03-23T12:19:00.000-07:00

...just a quick diptych sketch to share my excitement over the "earth" palette. I really like this beginning vertically too.

The new slide show at the top of my blog is from an "art walk" that I took last night - what I see, and want to see.

Fitting life around painting

2010-03-22T12:16:00.000-07:00

Funnel Study 1
oil and cold wax on canvas
16" x 10"
in process

It has been really hard to get a good photo of this wet little painting, but I wanted to show this stage. I had a fabulous meeting with Carol yesterday, and one of the zillion things that she suggested is that I push the pigment more, and repaint the lights in several of my studies and studio exercises without white. Although this picture has some glare, it gives an idea of what is happening. It is super hard not to use white, but I am discovering and using colors I would never have approached before, and feel good about the struggle.

I think you will find that the difference is that before you were fitting in the painting around your life and now you will be fitting in your life around your painting. You will love it once you get your head and body around it. - Carol

Wind

2010-03-16T13:53:00.000-07:00

Funnel Study 1
oil and cold wax on canvas
10" x 16"

Carol asked me to do these little color study experiments and I am basing them on the large polytych that I have going on. This one is simply the primaries + white.

Funnel Study 2
oil and cold wax on canvas
10" x 16"

This one is the primaries + yellow ochre with no white. Ugh. Not a great photo - got some glare going on - but still not my fave. I used cad yellow, cad red, ult blue. May try again with different versions of those primaries.

Trace, Transition, Time: paper 1, 2nd semester

2010-03-15T16:22:00.000-07:00

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/29526091/Trace-Transition-Time

Forests

2010-03-12T15:11:00.001-08:00

Trees
acrylic, oil, cold wax on paper
36" x 96"
in process

Carol has been encouraging me to examine how I use my time in an effort to squeeze more studio hours into my jam-packed schedule. During our last meeting in response to my claim that there were just not any more hours to be had, she asked me “Well, what else do you do? Do you cook? Clean? See friends?”, to which I replied, something like, if I am lucky I see friends, cuz I probably won’t have any friends left after this program (ha ha!). Despite this interchange, I have been trying to be Carol-esque in my view of time, and have been going even further outside of my comfort zone concerning when I will paint. Pre-Carol, I would not consider painting if I only had one hour. Now I just get in there anyway. Get up early and read theory or organize notes before breakfast? Doing it. I am feeling all hard-core, and noticing that while I am getting more done, I am having some anxiety and trouble sleeping – mainly because I am not giving myself those down-moments that I used to grant myself at the beginning and in-between parts of my day. I think I will adjust to this. I think it is good for me. There may be a half step back that is better for me, but for now the constant motion and school continually in clear view behind my eyes, is just what I need. Thanks Carol. By the way, I can not stop thinking of the other Carol that I love – but he has horns.

Snow

2010-03-12T15:07:00.000-08:00

Funnel 4
oil, cold wax, spray paint, on canvas
30" x 44"
in process

Waking up in the very silent darkness and scribbling furiously on the pad I keep beside my bed - strings of words, such important words - falling, storms, snow, snow snow, traces, floating, swimming, cycles, gravity, space... What?

Ok, I admit it, I have been reading Edmund Burke before going to sleep and soaking myself in all ideas sublime, terrifying and beautiful during the day. Perhaps I need to start watching tv again.

Funnels

2010-03-12T14:22:00.000-08:00

Funnel 1,2
oil, cold wax, spray paint on canvas
30" x 44", 30" x 26"
in process

Trace, Transition, Witness

2010-02-16T13:38:00.000-08:00

Transition Trace - In Process
spray paint, oil and cold wax on canvas
30" x 150"
This is the beginning of my "dark to light" studio experiment #1.
I am starting to think about the indexical trace of weather, and emotions as weather systems that move through the body.

Forms, witness - In process
oil and cold wax on paper
48" x 38"

These are two representational works on paper that I am painting over. I am using the smaller vertical form study from last semester as a starting point and experimenting with the scale to see how that might shift my navigation of the piece. I absolutely love working with masking and playing with hiding and finding the textures and images from the older works is really fun!

Here they are together. I have been trying to pay attention to the images I see during my day and how they may be moving through my subconscious into my work, and I wonder if these dark shapes are trees? They remind me of the deepest layer of trees in the woods I run through during the day - or perhaps from my evening runs, the night trees silhouetted against the urban-lit sky.
The trees always Witness.

...another studio experiment... sketching the series - adding text...a stack of these are outside in the rain now - lets see what the weather wants to say...

I am Here.

2010-02-07T13:34:00.000-08:00

Hello February.
Wow.

After coming home from Boston, I had a great transitional meeting with Helen, and my new mentor, Carol Adelman. They encouraged me to re-think my studio space once again, and I added another dry-wall surface for painting, and removed my giant bookcase and easel from the space. I have included some pictures here of the new layout, complete with painting starts, which I will write about in a future post, when they are further along.

The Spring Residency in Boston was amazing. It brought new inspiration, ideas and goals to my practice, as well as amplified challenges in time management. This semester I am already moving further outside of my comfort zone - pushing myself to get the work done despite an increased teaching schedule and the usual demands of life. I am here - filled with gratitude to have these days overflowing with experiences, tasks, and projects that make up the artistic practice that is my life. Breathe.

Listening

2010-01-06T13:27:00.000-08:00

At the beginning of life, one is only able to distinguish a few colors – red, black, bright blue, and strong contrasting pattern . When one is learning to speak one starts with simple one syllable words: “mom”, “dad”, “dog”, “up”. As infants grow and their vision and vocabulary become more complex, they build sentences, learn grammar, and eventually put complex ideas together into stories. Along a similar trajectory, their vision develops, the colors of the world become easier to distinguish, and they develop visual as well as verbal vocabularies.

The idea of one’s understanding of color becoming more developed over time also translates into art education. As art students, one begins the study of painting with monochromatic studies and limited palettes. Slowly, an artist will add colors and variety to her palette, until as a mature artist, she settles into a selection of colors that best help her to communicate her ideas. The relationship between color and communication is what interests me. How do words and color work together, or not? What is the relationship between color and verbal expression? Color and control? Color and power? These are large questions that artists, scientists and philosophers have been exploring for generations, but in this paper, I will closely examine excerpts from readings that have caught my attention, and in doing so will clarify my own relationship to color in my practice.

In his book, Chromophobia, David Batchelor describes color as “Silent”.

Silence. The silence that colour may provoke is a mark of its power and autonomy. Silence is how we have to voice our respect for that which moves us beyond language (83).
Does color communicate silently? The elements of art (color, line, value, shape, texture, space, form) all have the ability to communicate emotion and ideas to the viewer of a painting. Of these elements though, color carries with it the strongest power to elicit complex associations, both symbolic and sensory, from the viewer. Josef Albers, in his book, Interactions of Color, discusses the symbolic associations with color that are common in Western culture (Albers, 48).

For example, in the United States the color red may express political conservatism, danger, or passion. This can only mean that as a Western culture, we have already helped to form and ingest a language that color speaks. We hear color.

Because of these powerful associations, color is a very effective communicator. Color inspires memories, ideas and emotions, which are often translated into words. Poets throughout history have used color as a descriptive tool to help them paint images and inspire associations, with words. This would not be possible without the strong link between color and verbal language. Color has a voice. The voice of color can be heard not only in the poet, but in the critic, the educator, the passionately moved, and empathetic viewer. Color speaks through us with our own words and is given another life through our verbal expressions.

I read, I see. I see, I speak. Our senses and our mind operate together and we communicate with one another about our experiences. Color’s voice becomes more eloquent and articulate as the maker, the viewer, or we, become more developed through our education, life experience, or practice. The visual vocabularies that we build through looking with our eyes, and remembering with our imagination, hold thousands of colors that are linked to experiences, emotions, and ultimately words. Poets have used the power of these associations consistently over hundreds of years. The following is from Ralph Waldo Emerson's poem, The Sphinx:

Sea waves are green and wet,

But up from where they die,

Rise others vaster yet,

And those are brown and dry.

This next poem is from Robert Frost's Sand Dunes:

Up rose the merry Sphinx,

And crouched no more in stone;

She melted into purple cloud,

She silvered in the moon;

She spired into a yellow flame;

She flowered in blossoms red

This poem is from Divina Commedia by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

With snow-white veil and garments as of flame,

She stands before thee, who so long ago

filled thy young heart with passion and woe.

The following is from Winter Memories by Henry David Thoreau:

Within the circuit of this plodding life

There enter moments of an azure hue

And finally, this poem is from From Emily Dickinson's 'n Winter, in My Room:

In winter, in my room,

I came upon a worm

Pink, lank, and warm.

A familiarity with the language of color, and a strong verbal vocabulary, work together to facilitate communication between the arts. The play between word and image enhances our experience of both art forms. We hear what we see. We see what we hear.

Silence is not color’s power. The power of color is within its effective ability to inspire further expression through language. Color has an innate power in this sense, and powerful things are often a threat to those that feel insecure. The need to define and control power is a reoccurring theme in Baxter’s analysis of Chromophobia . Although Baxter cites many compelling examples of efforts to mute or manage color by those that are threatened by its power, I see examples of its selective use by those in power for their own communicative needs. For instance, colors are used by groups of individuals to express identity, ideas, and inspire loyalty. Examples of this type of communication with color are the flags of countries, paper money, and the uniforms of groups from sports teams to fraternities. Coming from countries where money was multi colored, the founders of the United States chose to eschew the chromatic currency in favor of a monochromatic form of paper money. In the context of Baxter’s argument that color is associated with less sophisticated forms of thinking, this switch would indeed make sense (Batchelor 22). The decision to embrace monochromatic currency was made not as a conscious critique of Europe, but simply as a way to stand apart from what was, and create an identity that would not be confused with the past. There is a somberness that is reflected in the color scheme of US currency that also communicate the gravity of leaving all that is known behind for new lives, as of yet to be defined. The colors of the American flag: red, white, blue, are simple, primary, and direct. The symbolic interpretation of these colors communicates the struggles and hopes of founding a new country. Red describing the blood of battles, White for the unknown future, or hope for better days ahead, and blue for the expansive territories that were as of then, undefined, or the endless sky. Of course this is one subjective interpretation, but it illustrates the potential for colors to communicate ideas, and objectives symbolically, and the symbols we use to describe these ideas are words. The monochromatic beginning of the United States currency (which is now, two centuries later adding more color to its paper money), and the primary simplicity of the United States’ flag, bring me back to the ideas of birth and development; the first classes in art school. Lack of color is not where we end after growing more sophisticated, as many of Batchelor’s arguments suggest, but where we start – and develop from.

Color is not Silent. Its voice is a varied as its uses, but it is a compelling voice. Color reminds us. Color creates conversation. Color defines and describes. Color participates. Color is a verb. It is an active process. How does hearing the voice of color help me to communicate with color through my work? Color teaches me to think in a more complex way as I experiment with different palettes. I am beginning to hear the complexity in the arguments that color makes. I can hear color mumble and I can hear color shout. She recites poetry to herself and is a gifted linguist. Color teaches me that there is always another way to say something – a more interesting, compelling choice of words. Of all the lessons that color gives to me through her voice, what I value most are her lessons in listening. Color is teaching me to listen.

Works Cited

Albers, Josef. Interaction of Color. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Print.
Batchelor, David. Chromophobia. London: Reaktion Books Ltd.Print.
Cagil, Joy. “The Use of Colors in Poetry”. Web. 29 Oct. 2009. Use-of-Colors-in-Poetry&id=214314>.
Hamer, Russel D. “What Can My Baby See?”. The Smith Kettlewell Eye Research Institute. 29
Oct. 2009. Web. .

The Truth is Out There – or is it?

2010-01-06T13:08:00.000-08:00

Seventeen years old. I am filled with questions, righteous energy, and creative drive. The world of Art History is presented to me in college, and artists from the Spanish Renaissance, and Modernist movements immediately entranced me. El Greco, Chagall, Franz Marc, Franz Kline, all spoke to my earnestness and emotional involvement with my own work. It is only now, many years later that I am actively exploring why these artists were working in the expressive, representational styles they are so well known for. What were they thinking? Why did they make the choices they made, and what was it about them that still pull me to them, even now, over two decades later?

I see a parallel between my own teenage angst and quest for truth, and the Modernist yearnings for the pure essence of art. The Modernists are as a whole, representative of the teenage years of historical art. Breaking away from the protective parental structure of the Classical and Academic Realist movements, and searching for fresh ways to assert their newly forming subjective responses to change, the Modernists define themselves, like a rebellious teenager, by the past that they push against, and the future that they embrace. In this paper I will explore the essays of Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee, and examine the questions they were asking almost a century ago in the context of my own contemporary culture, and practice. Through this process I will strive to answer the question, “Has Art grown up?”

In my reading of Theories of Modern Art, I was particularly engaged with Wassily Kandinsky’s essay, entitled,“On the Problem of Form”. Kandinsky is addressing the question of which artistic movement, representation or abstraction, best defines the purest essence of art. He argues that regardless of what “form” art takes, it must answer honestly to both its chronological context and the inner life of the artist, two elements that I see as inseparable.

The form is always bound to its time, is relative, since it is nothing more than the means necessary today in which today’s revelation manifests itself, resounds…The form is the outer expression of the inner content (Chipp 156).

This argument is particularly appropriate for consideration in contemporary times, as artists reach across disciplines, cultures, and time lines to find the voices that best display their intention. In their introduction to the 2008 Whitney Biennial Catalog, Henriette Huldisch and Shamim M. Momin speak to Kandinsky’s question of form, and how the solution to that question has not necessarily been reached in a linear fashion, if it has been reached at all.

Within the vast, variously differentiated field that we (perhaps absurdly) continue to yoke under the single term contemporary art, certain prevalent, often interrelated practices to us seem particularly germane to the moment. Many of the projects presented in the 2008 exhibition explore fluid communication structures and systems of exchange that index larger social, political, and economic contexts, often aiming to invert the more object-oriented, ends-driven operations of the art market. Recurring concerns involve a nuanced investigation of social, domestic and public space and its translation into form-primarily sculptural, but also photographic, cinematic, and so forth- which in turn catalyzes social practices extending beyond the exhibition space (Huldisch, Momin 32).

Paul Klee foreshadowed this contemporary concern with systems of exchange and interrelated practices in another Modernist essay. In his “Creative Credo” of 1920, Klee speaks to the interconnectedness of all things, an organization of movements that converge in the act of creation. Klee goes so far as to call art, a simile of [the Biblical act of] Creation (Chipp 186). Klee’s perspective, while heavily biased toward graphic art, joins Kandinsky in his quest for truth in artistry through a filter of morality and spiritualism.

By including the concepts of good and evil a moral sphere is created. Evil is not conceived as the enemy whose victories disgrace us, but as a force within the whole, a force that contributes to creation and evolution. The simultaneous existence of the masculine principle (evil, stimulating, passionate) and the feminine principle (good, growing, calm), result in a condition of ethical stability (Chipp 185).

I am intrigued by this quote and the emphasis that Klee’s search for the truth of art seems to put on balance. The formal elements balanced against spontaneity, the narrative balanced against abstraction, and here, the balance of male and female energy, framed in language reminiscent of the Garden of Eden. This quest for stability makes sense as I learn more about the competing influences within Modernism, of which Klee’s practice was centered. Far from having outgrown these concerns, questions of balance are often in the forefront of contemporary artists’ thought as well: technology versus tradition, inclusion versus alienation, public versus private, nationalism versus diversity. How we balance ourselves against these competing influences and more, is where our truth is revealed.

Another interesting tangent from the 1920s that reaches across the boundaries of generations into current times and my own contemporary art practice is Klee’s awareness of art as a mediated form of communication.

Formerly we used to represent things visible on earth, things we either liked to look at or would have liked to see. Today we reveal the reality that is behind visible things, thus expressing the belief that the visible world is merely and isolated case in relation to the universe and that there are many more other, latent realities. Things appear to assume a broader and more diversified meaning, often seemingly contradicting the rational experience of yesterday (Chipp, 185).

Yes, we are revealing the “reality behind the visible things” today as well, but that is a subjective interpretation now, as it surely was in Klee’s time.

Despite my nostalgic and emotional connection to the Modernists, I ask myself what my art means beyond its visual and emotional echo of the Modernist aesthetic. I am currently trying to communicate beyond the pictorial references that I have become so attached to – I want the surface to hold marks that evoke memory and imagination in the same way that the dreamy narratives of Chagall, or the energized woodcut portraits of Max Beckman evoke responses. I want to jump from the launching pad of so much history into the arms of my own moment’s very contemporary longings. Yes, the same questions of essence and purity are present for artists working today, including myself, but these questions are mediated by the quickly changing definitions of what essence and purity really are. With so much of our reality being mediated by technology, industry, commercialism, and cultural exchanges at the speed of light, how we define Truth has becomes nearly impossible to describe beyond our own personal boundaries.
As I explore Modernist essays and read academic reactions to contemporary art, I wonder if Art continues to be in the wild throes of adolescence? As artists we continue to ask and re-ask the same questions of ourselves. What gives what I do meaning? Where is the Truth in my experience? How do I best communicate my intention? The form may change, but the questions do not. The problem of Truth is best considered as a circular quest that begins and ends with the artist. We are the mediators for the viewing public. The public and all that surrounds and comes before, mediate us. We can only take responsibility for our own truth, and that truth is not out there, but inside each artist.

The Truth that a 20th century seventeen year old yearns to release is primitive in its relationship to the centuries of history that attracted it, but it is that connection between generations that is worth examining now. The effect of the Modernists is still being felt by working artists today. For myself, I know that I am pushing back against different things than they were, due to the expanse of time that separates us, but many of their questions are familiar and resonate with me. I thank the Modernists for leaving behind the path of their search, for reflection, as I work through both philosophical and technical questions of meaning and communication for myself. The History of Art may never completely outgrow adolescence, but in my lifetime I look forward to the continual maturation of my practice of art.

Works Cited

Kandinsky, Wassily. “On the Problem of Form.” Theories of Modern Art. Ed. Herschel B.
Chipp. Berkley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968.155 – 171. Print
Klee, Paul. “Creative Credo.” Theories of Modern Art. Ed. Herschel B. Chipp. Berkley, Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1968.182 – 187. Print
Huldisch, Henriette; Momin, Shamim M. Introduction. “2008 Biennial Exhibition.” New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. 32 – 36. Print.

Bless you.

2009-12-28T16:51:00.000-08:00

December.
Writing, reading, teaching, sneezing. I feel like this just about sums up the last couple of weeks.
December was actually a wonderful month in many ways having to do with experiences, relationships, and forward movement. I feel so much excitement and potential for the upcoming AIB residency, new work, and a studio in the middle of being deconstructed once again, to make it an even MORE effective space for making. It has also been amazingly beautiful here in Seattle this past week, and I feel so fortunate to just "be".

These are a couple of recent images of what I have been making, along with the most current version of my artist's statement.

For now, I am in the middle of a reading marathon to prepare for upcoming seminars in Boston, and recovering (hopefully, now please) from a devastating virus. Well, ok, a cold.

The Blue Moon is on its way...

The ritual of painting is one way that I process change. What remains constant, always, is the mark. Through the mark, I give voice to change in an intuitive way while recognizing that each part of my life is relevant to, and reflected in my work. Intention for my practice forms through my life experiences, and reflection. Through the paintings, I am looking for engagement with the world through a language that communicates differently than words. My practice is a form of call and response with life. It is a conversation that stretches over time and reveals its many truths slowly and quickly. The speed of exchange is an internal, yet visible conversation.
Part of my ongoing personal search for the truth of my practice has been to strip away images that mediate my relationship to the paint. The past several years have presented me with enormous loss. Many of the relationships and places that I grounded myself in for decades, if not my entire life, have shifted. This body of work is an exercise in releasing the pictorial image that I have always relied on as my translator, and replacing it with greater attention to the materiality of the paint, and the use of formal elements to communicate the response to a shifting landscape. Through a mixture of acrylic under-paintings, oil and wax medium on paper and canvas, I am exploring single words, feelings, or ideas, and responding to the intuitive hum in the heart, as I search for the combination of formal elements that express what I want to call out. The time that I give these pieces involves layering, sanding, scraping away and re-building the surface. This very visceral connection with the materials gives voice to the complexity of my personal experience, and a materiality to what sensations my body holds surrounding these experiences, as well as the experience of making. The passage through these paintings took me from ideas of space, to ideas of form. The most recent pieces are looking at form in direct relation to how it is affected by the experience of its surrounding. Art making to process change, marks as a call and a response.

These are the works of this moment.

And so it ends, and begins.

2009-12-06T11:00:00.000-08:00

"Dive"
12" x 8"
oil on paper

So I come to the end of my first semester. A couple of really interesting things have come up for me. In my second to the last session with Helen, she noticed once more the recurrence of certain forms in my work, and brought up the idea of my making 3D forms. The creation of forms would potentially give voice to the pictorial references that are so a part of me, and perhaps give me a new way to interact with them. I imagine they would be a grounding balance to the imaginative components of the abstract work. How abstract would these forms be? It will be fun to discover. This idea immediately appeals to me and takes me back to the end of my BFA work at PAFA, where I was indeed, making all kinds of mixed media forms that directly related to my imagery. I was attaching them to paintings, hanging them in space, and mounting them on the wall. I never fully explored this direction, yet I love the physicality of making objects, and satisfy this drive now through woodblock carving and printing.
Turning to the object again makes sense to me even more after attending a gallery talk by Margie Livingston at the Greg Kucera gallery yesterday. Margie is a painter, but uses objects that she makes as references for her paintings, and as a dialogue between painting and object. Margie's approach really spoke to me as it comes from a place of communication, wonderful abstraction and color, and moves beyond simply creating still life forms to paint from. While I was running today, I thought a great deal about what I saw in Margie's work, what I would like to try, and how to get started. I am excited to get to it!

Margie Livingston
"Big Yellow"
Oil on Linen
90" x 66"

Helen also asked me to move away from the small studies and begin a 6' x 6' painting. Wheee! I have it primed and ready to go. I can feel it's presence as I stand infront of it, and I so love that. I am very excited about this upcoming semester, and so greatful for the experiences and insights of these past six months.

Where...

2009-11-17T15:33:00.000-08:00

"Where"
oil on paper
24" x 36"

I have been having a really tough time getting photos that I am happy with - that actually look like the work - since the season changed. This image has more "white" in it in this photo than in real life, but it gives an idea of what I have going on today. This painting began as a body landscape and is still really reading that way to me. Thinking while I was working today, the phrase "she lost her head and followed her heart" kept repeating in my mind. Turn this image 90 degrees clockwise and you really see that...
Float.

2009-11-13T15:19:00.000-08:00

Helen O'Toole
"First Cut"
oil on canvas
78" x 58"
2008-2009

Last night I went to an incredible panel discussion at Kitteredge Hall.
The artist speakers were Helen O'Toole, Danila Rumold, Mary Ann Peters, and Eric Elliot.
I had seen work by all of these artists except Mary Ann in Seattle prior to this discussion, but was inspired anew by this exhibit. Their radical honesty, insight into their practices, and the evidence of their hard work, left me full. Some of their comments that truly resonated with me and that I continue to reflect on, are at the end of this post.
Here is a piece of Helen's from the exhibit. This photograph, of course, does not honor it as I would hope, but it gives you an idea. Helen's work takes you to an internal landscape - a place of emotion and mystery. It is a personal and beautiful place. An honest place.

Everything can change in an instant...Ideas as a hum in the mind...the idea comes in the middle of the process...what habits limit...defying the idea of a "body of work"...work that is shown is only one reflection of an artist's life long changing practice...Everything can change in an instant... the Lotus Sutra...Dual notions...beauty as a seductive tool to introduce other topics...art that causes discomfort...Everything can change in an instant.

Practice

2009-11-13T14:50:00.000-08:00

Form Study - Wing
oil and cold wax on paper
18" x 24"

I am in a place right now where satisfaction is hiding from me. I am stretching and wandering - bumping into things and then reaching again. This piece is just one example of the many things I am exploring right now. I think this place of being unhinged began as I shifted my thinking into ideas of form as "body" and body as history/landscape. Some very exciting, yet fleeting, things have been happening - only to be lost again as I become uncomfortable with the literal images that begin to emerge. What seems to be tricky for me is holding an idea of an "object", the body, but still trying to remain abstract with it. What I am learning is that because my attachment to form is so definite, if I want to work in the abstract, it is better to simply focus on general ideas or moods, rather than specific forms. I am not ready to truly bring the figure back in. I am going to redirect my thinking away from it and back to ideas of color, space, mood and form without attachment. When I do bring the figure back, I can tell a great deal will happen. Just not yet.

I just had a trick or treater come to my door. It is November 13th. He was pretty cute, but I still told him to come back in 334 days...

Time

2009-10-21T15:16:00.000-07:00

Forms
Oil and Cold Wax on Canvas
18" x 24"

Final Splash

This was the first abstract painting. It has been being reworked for that long. I have broken all my previous unkept records for length of time staying with a painting.

What is missing?

The "ball" was really bothering me - so ultimately, it had to go.

Ok, so I had yet another inspiring meeting with Helen, and the exploration feels so vast as things change and then change again. An idea that came up in our meeting that is completely taking over my internal mechanisms is the body as landscape. Wow. SO much to say there. Time will unfold and reveal it all for me.

There is no linear movement

2009-10-12T12:48:00.000-07:00

"Splash (3)"
Acrylic and Oil on Paper
38" x 48"

This is one of those pieces that I put aside, and recently pulled out again and reworked. I am much happier with the areas of atmospheric transition in this piece, as well as the serendipitous little areas of under-painting peeking through. There are areas of heavy texture that may be tough to pick up in this image, that also give the piece a satisfying feeling of weight and movement for me. I am also happy with the way the texture contrasts with the thinner areas where depth is apparent. The sphere may need to be softened and modeled, but I am letting it rest and dry for now.

I have many other pieces going in the studio and am noticing that form and depth, as defined by edges and temperature, are becoming my consistent distractions. This feels good and I believe it will make a nice bridge to bringing imagery back in eventually. The focus is shifting. It is also becoming easier for me to work with smaller formats and tune in to a more intimate scale.

On a parallel personal note that I believe reflects the ever present art/life connection, I noticed something interesting on my run yesterday. I often use visualization to help me get through a tough part of a run. As I was heading up an enormous hill yesterday the visual aids began, but instead of giant eagles surrounding me, throwing their magic lassos around me and pulling me up the hill, a stronger version of myself leaped from my heart to dance and skip around me, beaming and encouraging - guiding me up and up. Forms are changing. Work is changing. It is all beautiful and I am listening.

Right down the middle.

2009-10-02T13:07:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you just have to slice a painting in half.

Listen

2009-10-01T15:08:00.000-07:00

Listen Form 2
Oil and Cold Wax on Paper
18 x 24

Listen Form
Oil and Cold Wax on Paper
18 x 24

Today marks the half-way point of my first semester of graduate school, and my Mother's 87th birthday. It is also the first day of a new chapter of my life.

I had another really good meeting with Helen today, that filled me with renewed inspiration.
These two pieces represent my continuing experiments with abstraction. As I strive to create form, depth, atmosphere, emotion and resonating color that communicates, within a work without pictures, I meet questions of time, materials and scale. I sit with these questions and they bring their friends along. I will hold the intention of energy, gesture, radical honesty, and spontaneous response throughout the journey of each piece. I will let the painting take as long as it needs to. I will keep looking. I will listen.

My Practice, My Life.

Experiments in Green; Final Parting?

2009-09-19T15:09:00.000-07:00

Green 1
Acrylic on paper
In Process

Recently, I have been doing a great deal of experimenting. The top two pieces here reflect a couple of sessions where I am primarily playing with a color I rarely ever use: Green. I am also continuing to think a lot about depth, as well as marks that divide, dangle/float, and reach. Contrast is always on my mind.

I find that I really respond to the first push of the painting, and as I continue to work on it, the initial momentum of the piece often morphs into something else. This happens most radically when several days go by between painting sessions. This can work for me, as the layers I continue build often strengthen the overall work, but of course it also often backfires and leaves me with nothing to show for hours of work except a very heavy, paint-laden piece of paper. Of course there is the benefit of what the hours give me in experimental experience, which I am not disregarding. I am however, trying to find a way to capture the energy of my first attack, AND build a rich and interesting surface. Working in series and on many pieces at once are two ideas that immediately come to mind. Any other thoughts would be welcome! I know this is not a new issue for me, or for lots of other artists out there.

Green 2
Acrylic and Oil on Canvas
In Process

"Parting"
Oil and Cold Wax on Paper

Ok, I am stopping now.

the Parting continues...

2009-09-10T14:01:00.000-07:00

"Parting"
Oil and Cold Wax on Paper
38" x 50"
in process

Ok, well this painting just won't stop. It has changed radically several times, and all you can probably recognize from it's last posted version, are the small glimpses of pink and yellow shining through here and there. I was just not satisfied with the palette, or the composition. Neither felt right, so I have been working and re-working it. This is where I am now - swinging back close to where I have been before, but wanting to be here as it feels unfinished still, and like where I need to be. I feel the tension between the surface and the illusion of depth - still intrigued by this palette with its beautiful darks and greys, and ochre light. These colors bring me to the sky, transitions of storm and light, day and night. Back to work - still going...

Double click on image for a better read of the surface.

A day for small studies and re-working...

2009-09-02T13:47:00.001-07:00

"Fly or Fall" Reworked

After an inspiring crit with Helen, I am spending the day today reworking several pieces, and starting a couple of new things. Here is the most recent version of "Fly or Fall" in which I am trying to better define the spatial relationships and make the reds a bit more saturated. Among other wonderful ideas, Helen encouraged me to flip the pieces upside down in order to see them more clearly - a great tip!

Study 1 Oil on Paper
10" x 12"
These small studies are inspired by abstract photos that I take of value, texture and color in nature. I was more than a bit frustrated by the experience (fighting with the scale, feeling hemmed-in by the photos), but after my crit with Helen, I was able to see some beauty in these pieces, and especially appreciate that they tend to be much more detached from narrative than the larger pieces. After looking at them with fresh eyes, thanks to Helen, I am actually excited to do more of these.

Study 2 Oil on Paper
10" x 12"
Another aspect of these smaller works that I appreciate, are the palettes. It is rewarding for me to use more muted color combinations, developed from my experimentation with Helen's palette ideas. I hear new voices from these color choices.

Updating this blog after painting is making a very painterly object out of my keyboard...

Critical Theory - Paper #2

2009-09-01T10:20:00.000-07:00

The Ritual of Change; Mark Making During Transition

Hesperian sadness; the quiet acknowledgment of the passage from day to night, with stillness and attention. A Shabbat dinner; a meal recognizing the end of the workweek and the beginning of the Sabbath. The ball dropping in Times Square; a communal marking of the end of the year as defined by the Christian calendar. Transitions, large and small, announce change. How do we as individuals, and as community, define the space between what we leave behind, and what we step into? What ritual marks this passage? These are questions that I have been fascinated with since I began studying folklore in my undergraduate years at the University of Pennsylvania.

Judy Chicago is an artist that I share my interest in both folk culture, and ritual with. In her well-known work, “The Dinner Party”, Chicago pays homage to the folk art of talented women found in myth and history. She describes the ritual of the dinner party with her piece, and gives voice to the creative talents that enacted these labor-intensive rituals. The women Chicago references channel their creative energies and skills into acceptable forms of expression for their time and culture. Together, they form communities with each other that lead to a larger ritual of sharing and communication within their groups. Chicago recreates this communal act of creation with modern artists still well versed in the folk arts that she is exploring as she facilitates the vision of her piece (Fabozzi 320). In this way, Chicago connects the rituals of the past with her more modern creative force.

17 years beyond my introduction to folk culture, I am actively involved in the exploration of folk music and the rituals surrounding its creation and dissemination. I play in a Klezmer band (music of the Eastern European Jewry), and am enamored with the tunes and songs that different cultures use to describe and navigate transitions. The notes that I play on my fiddle are akin to the marks that I make in the studio. The music and the mark making are both holding the space for the transition between what was and what will be. They tell the story of change.

As I reflect on the changes within my own life, and the role that my artistic practice plays in it, I am beginning to understand that my studio is the space of ritual where the marks that I make communicate the personal and public changes that occur around me. While I am not interested in using my artwork as a form of therapy, I do understand that through my work I am navigating change, and defining transitions through my ritual of painting. In this paper I will explore how other artists have used the mark as a tool to navigate change, and examine the questions that their practices or opinions raise for me as I analyze my own work, and the ritual within it.

War. What a powerful word, and what an immense vehicle of change. How have artists responded to such devastating and unasked for change? I found the answer to this question in the current Seattle Art Museum exhibit, “Target Practice, Painting Under Attack, 1949 - 78”, curated by Michael Darling. The voices in this exhibit are responding in a clearly visceral way to both the world changes that are occurring during their lives, such as World War II, Hiroshima, the Korean War, the Eisenhower years, and Vietnam, and cultural changes in how artists and the public consider painting itself. What I find most compelling in the exhibit are the artists that are actively processing traumatic change through their paintings – specifically, the type of marks that they choose to make to bring themselves, and their artwork, into the future.

Lucio Fontana, was an Argentine painter that lived and worked in both his native Argentina, and Italy during the second world war. After seeing an image of Fontana standing outside of his Italian studio after it had been reduced to rubble by bombings, I understood the incisions in his canvases in both a visceral and cerebral way. Considered a late modernist “heretic”, (Morgan. 18-19) he was consistently interested in the future, and described the razor knife slashes and punctures in his canvases in terms of an understanding of what lay beyond the current moment:

“I make holes, infinity passes through them, light passes through them. There is no need to paint.” (qtd. in Fisher)

Fontana’s eloquent description of his practice and what it means to him, speaks directly to the act of painting as a passage, or portal into the future. Through destruction, Fontana is actively creating a new space, or future, for himself.

Working on the other side of the globe, but simultaneously facing destruction on a grand scale in his home in Japan, Shozo Shimamoto also turned to the mark as a way to process change and move into the future. Puncturing and covering the surface of his canvas with gestural tears and nervous pencil line, Shimamoto viscerally and elegantly brings us into the future through his process of dakai, translated as “destruction as a constructive site” (Darling 106). Shimamoto’s canvases mark the event of his creation with their aggressive confrontation to the viewer, but retain a poetic elegance and fragility that speaks to the fleeting nature of reality. Shimamoto’s work is mediated by the titles that he chooses for them. “Work”, “Ifu” (Awe Inspiring Fear), and “Mother”, are titles that all further take us into the past and future of our own life-transitions (Darling 113).

Fashion model turned avant garde artist, Niki de Saint-Phalle joined her artistic comrades ideologically through her work that used the rifle as a paint brush. Exploding containers of pigment with rifle fire, Saint-Phalle speaks to the liberation of her mark marking ritual:

“We want to find a renewal. We want to find beauty in a new way. Making my paintings is life itself. The shooting is magic. The shooting is the moment.” (qtd. in Darling 24)

How does an artist decide what marks best communicate their ideas, emotions, intentions? How is the ritual played out in the studio? Is it planned ahead of time and scripted like a Catholic Mass, or is it a spontaneous response dictated by the moment? I have only recently begun to examine these questions, but know that my practice has been largely a spontaneous response, without much analysis up until recently. My current understanding of what happens in the studio is revealing that it is actually a mixture of analysis and spontaneity, a combination of control and reaction. While I may believe that I am composing ritual and opening a space for change to enter in, I am also working within the context of many other influences that act upon me both consciously and unconsciously. My work is mediated by my imagination as I consider forms that speak to a larger meaning I am expressing. My marks are also mediated by my memory as I work from what I recall without pictorial references to guide me. Just as the artists in “Target Practice” were each affected by their times, I am only beginning to be consciously aware of the cultural mediators that form the backdrop of the world I am surrounded by.

In his essay, Post Modernism and Consumer Society, Frederic Jameson speaks to his understanding of the complexities of mark making and the influences that define them. As he reflects on the views of French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan, Jameson describes the fluidity of the signifiers in language, and suggests that as meaning becomes more fluid, our grasp of reality may also become less stable. Jameson stresses that because we do not translate words into their meanings on a one-to-one basis, but rely largely on context, the connections between words form our experience of continuity and time. The relationships between words (signifiers) and their meanings (referents) allow us to move through past, present and future (Foster 118-119). Just as language creates meaning and moves us through time, so to does the ritual of mark making in artwork. The inter-relations of the references the artist provides on the canvas have the ability to work together to transition the maker, and potentially the viewer, from the past into the future by virtue of providing a space in between entering and exiting where reflection and ritual can take place.

In my work, as I process transition in my practice, I often turn to pictorial references that symbolically represent change or transformation. Although these definitions are supported culturally, their meaning changes depending on the background and life experience of the viewer, or as Jameson describes, from their context. This leaves room within my pictorial work for many interpretations. As I turn away from the pictorial image, and experiment with expressing my intention with abstract marks, how does this new language change my ritual and my understanding of the relationship of my work to the larger world? In viewing Target Practice, I feel a resonance between the vocabularies that the artists are developing, apart from, and unknown to one another, yet in synchronicity. Does abstraction, and a more visceral approach to painting, open up a less mediated form of communication, in which the ritual of painting can speak to the changes we all navigate? While any mark, form, or image has the unavoidable potential to become contrived or representational, it is the job of the artist to move through the passages of exploring them with honesty, integrity and awareness.

“…I rubbed and scratched the paper until I tore holes in it, trying to reach something else, something more profound, to grasp the very essence of things.” (Nolde, Emil. qtd. in Chipp.146)

It is evident that artists use their practice as a response to the world around and within them. Chicago uses ritual to remember. Fontana, Shimamoto, Saint-Phalle, are all turning to destructive, often subtractive marks to express the moment of change. Their choices reflect the larger cultural shifts around each of them and their personal reactions to change. My own imagery, and mark making, has a similar visual connection to the quality of change I am transitioning through. My interest with strings, seams, horizons and the breaking, severing or expanding of these references informs my work. Looking for resonance, turning to ritual – are both ways that I am navigating a shifting landscape through my practice. When the landscape shifts because bombs, literal or figurative, were dropped, the marks we make in response cannot help but be mediated by that change. As I build upon a visual lexicon of marks and images that have come before me, of course their meaning will remain fluid and over time the definitions of my marks and images will take on their own lives, dependent on their surroundings. The personal meaning that was my intention during creation will eventually be lost. This is not something that I fear, but something that I believe has value. If the creation of a painting is a catalyst for movement, how can it be expected to stop moving once the artist’s hand is still? Part of the ritual is also releasing the work to become what it will, based on what meaning is ascribed to it tomorrow.

Recognizing a place for ritual, whether it is a dinner, a holiday celebration, the destruction or the creation of a painting, will help us all maintain a space where we can reflect with integrity on the speed of change, and our individual and communal passage into the future. The change is an act of creation in itself, and through the conscious recognition of our rituals, we can release what came before and step into what comes next. Painting is an active ritual. Through our mark making we will not only pull the future to us, but discover within ourselves a place between past and future where the most radical honesty resides, and a visceral language through which to share our passage.

Works Cited

Chipp, Herschel B.. “Theories of Modern Art”. Berkley, Los Angeles, London. University of California. 1968. Print.

Darling, Michael. “Target Practice: Painting Under Attack, 1949 – 78”. Seattle. Seattle Art Museum. 2009. Print.

Fabozzi, Paul F. “Artists, Critics, Context, Readings in and around American Art since 1945”. Upper Saddle River, Pearson Education. Print.

Fisher, Sylvia. Target Practice. Seattle Art Museum. Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA. 8/25/09. Docent led exhibit tour.

Foster, Hal. “The Anit-Aesthetic, Essays on Postmodern Culture”. New Press. New York. 1998. Print.

Morgan, Robert. Lucio Fontana. Sperone Westwater. Sperone Westwater. August 25, 2009.

2009-08-25T14:41:00.000-07:00

"Parting 2" Acrylic 25" x 38"
In Process

"Parting" revisited...

2009-08-25T11:15:00.000-07:00

"Parting 1"
Acrylic and Oil on Paper
38" x 50"

Today.

Layering oil on top allowed me to quiet some of the action, which is what I wanted to do. I also like the contrast of working fast with the acrylics, and then slow, with the oils.
Even though I feel the pictorial references in my head asking to come out come out come out, I am remaining excited about seeing what else develops as I continue to explore working without them. They will still be there, I am sure, when I invite them back in.

Holding the Space

2009-08-22T14:56:00.000-07:00

"Parting 1"
Acrylic on Paper
38" x 50"
In process????

This is my first experiment with Golden OPEN acrylics. They certainly stay open longer than the trad acrylics, but they don't have anything on oils. You can tell by my marks how quickly they still dry. I am going to keep using them and experiment with a slightly smaller scale to gain more flexibility. I started this piece today with a very specific idea that I was only able to partially hold the space for. The painting always has a voice, as do other variables, such as the behavior of the paint, and of course, my facility. This idea of parting, seams, horizons, is continuing to resonate with me and I am looking forward to doing at least a couple more paintings in this theme. I may just let this one sit for a bit - I am not sure if I feel that it is really finished, and think I need to start another "Parting" or two, to figure that out. The pallete is my first try with a combo that Helen suggested, based on saturation.

"Fly or Fall"
Oil on Paper
29" x 50"

OK! Well, I spent about a month on this painting and it caused me some despair. The idea was to recreate a previous representational painting abstractly. I chose "Fly or Fall" because it was one that has been responded to very strongly, most recently by Helen, my mentor. I love the idea of working this way, but what I learned, among many things from this process, is that I should pick recent paintings with themes that I can still loudly feel. "Fly or Fall" was originally painted about one and one half years ago, and its poignant theme has since been resolved in my heart. It was quite difficult for me to hold the space for this painting as I worked, and I found myself drifting to more current ideas as I worked, and having to muscle the painting back to my intention. It took some time, but I am happy with the outcome and feel that this piece speaks to the idea of "Fly or Fall" from a more abstract place, which was my goal. It was also wonderful to work with oils on this scale again! I am in love with real Cadmiums, don't regret spending oodles of money on the real deal, and will forever be addicted to M. Graham paints with fabulous, non-toxic walnut oil! Huge thank you to Helen for pointing me in this direction.

2009-08-05T16:18:00.000-07:00

Jacqueline Humphries
http://jacquelinehumphries.net/welcome/welcome.html

Susanna Coffey
Water Years
oil on linen
2006

Joan Snyder
Free to Imagine
Acrylic, Pencil, Oil, on Paper
36 x 72"
1985

2009-07-31T12:43:00.000-07:00

"Splash (2)"
Acrylic on Paper
38" x 48"

This is today.
The most recent version of "Splash".
Even though I do not yet have everything on my shopping list from my meeting with Helen, I was able to play around with her color wheel palette idea - well not perfectly, but in my very own "work with what I have" kind of way. Shopping around for the best deals on paint is very time-consuming! I don't even want to think about how much money I spent on stretchers yesterday! It is ok. It is ok. It really is. I actually just sold several pieces, in perfect time. I love the Universe. Thank you. One million, perpetual, thank yous.

In addition to limiting my palette, I tried to focus on the idea of "Splash" flowing through my body, as opposed to my mind/subconscious. This is a very intense way to paint (where do we store emotions in our body?), and I actually had to stop and cry at one point. Don't tell anyone.

Splash (2)
Detail

2009-07-30T14:51:00.000-07:00

Today was a day to reflect, prepare and research.
How do I ground myself within what is being asked of me? What is the first step? And then what?

Prepare surfaces. Inventory and gather supplies. Make a list of what is needed. Go Go GO!

Artists that I explored today include Edwin Dickinson, Susanna Coffey, and Frank Auerbach. Although I am releasing the figure in this moment of exploration, it is wonderful to see the very visceral handling of the figure and the background that these artists employ. Inspired.

Space, Color, Light
Gather information from outside - small studies - exploring oils in conjunction with acrylics - experiment with limited palettes based on the color wheel and temperature - move away from the pictorial and the decorative to make room for the visceral, haptic response. What is possible? When the symbol, the figure, returns, and is re-examined, what will it be? Look. Look. Look. Inside. Outside. Inside. The head and the heart hold hands.

2009-07-30T14:35:00.000-07:00

Helen O'Toole
Dreams, Clouds and Hazelwoods
2008
Oil on Canvas
90" x 55"

Yesterday I had my first studio visit from my mentor, Helen O'Toole. Helen teaches painting in the UW MFA program, and is represented by Linda Hodges in Seattle. She is brilliant.

What struck me right away in our time together, was her sensitivity to me as an artist, specifically a female artist, in a transitional moment of life. Her critique of my work resonated with me, and was completely in step with the dominant voices from my AIB experience, thus far. I have so much really exciting work to do, and am very pleased to be so inspired by my first mentor!

One week from today is First Thursday in downtown Seattle. Join me in stopping by the Linda Hodges Gallery and asking to view Helen's work - a definite treat!

2009-07-22T14:48:00.000-07:00

"Splash"
Mixed Media on Paper
38" x 48"
In Progress

Transparency and opacity. Modeling paste, tar gel medium, and gel medium in abundance!

In this painting, I am trying to push the contrast between thick and thin to describe in a material sense what experience leaves behind.

Thinking around the figure again, but the figure(s) is certainly present here, even without being named/defined. Walking back from a swim today, I imagined myself as a canvas. Life experiences are glazes, impasto attacks, and fine lines. Incised marks, raised edges, gouges, tears, shapes, colors, pattern. What comes before enhances or detracts from what comes next or beside. Such a simple metaphor - a body as a canvas - but it really struck me today as relevant. Layers. What we reveal, what we conceal. What we create. What we build and present or give. Choices. What comes next?

"...I rubbed and scratched the paper until I tore holes in it, trying to reach something else, something more profound, to grasp the very essence of things..." ~Emile Nolde

2009-07-22T12:25:00.000-07:00

"Shalom..."
In Progress

"Shalom..."
Detail

2009-07-21T13:50:00.000-07:00

Influences for this week:

Theories of Modern Art, Herschel B. Chipp

The Book Thief, Markus Zusak

World's End, Pablo Neruda

Sound track to Slum Dog Millionaire

Art Forum, Summer Issue

Running through the trees, swimming under water, floating, listening...

Friends.

2009-07-21T11:28:00.000-07:00

"Through the Trees"
Mixed Media on Canvas
36" x 36"
In Progress

This is the first piece where, at the suggestion of my advisor at AIB, I am not using any figurative reference. I continue to feel my way, following the images in my head/heart, but attempting to break them down into an essence that while still being satisfying to me, does not literally suggest a narrative. Stay tuned to see how this comes along - it is a journey!

2009-07-21T11:26:00.000-07:00

Details of "Shalom Aloha"

2009-07-21T11:06:00.000-07:00

"Shalom, Aloha"
Mixed Media on Paper
38" x 48"
In progress

After my first residency in Boston, I began challenging myself to really open up my experience of mark making. I am working on pushing beyond the space where the surface feels comfortable to me, and asking myself to continue. I am also exploring color choices that are not intuitive, and looking around me for the pallete configurations that make up my world. Paint chips from the hardware store, interior decorating source material, popular magazines. Might these sources suggest color combinations that speak directly to what I am working on? For instance, in this piece, "Shalom, Aloha", I am considering my expectations of what "Home" looks and feels like. The pallete that I chose came directly from interior color design samples taken from the Lowes paint department. I then used these same samples as collage elements. Artists that I looked at prior to starting this piece that inspired some of the surface experimentation were Mary Heilmann and Jacqueline Humphreys. I have also enjoyed the work of Thomas Eggerer lately, and am asking myself how the ground and the figure both reject and support each other in my work. How can I push the dynamics of that relationship further to express the figures ease or complexity in relationship to their world, or the body as home? In this piece specifically, how does the figure relate to it's chosen "home"? What do you surround yourself with? Reach for? Walk away from? What defines and divides us? Also within this piece, I return to my life long fascination with text and image. Shalom Aloha. Peace and Love. Ideas of home. Release. The gesture as an archer taking aim, a dancer telling her story, a figure in motion - leaving, arriving. Where do our "Homes" really begin and end? Who do we invite in? This work is still in process. I am collaging old dress patterns from my sewing days into the surface. A pattern for life, a replica of our shadows, or silhouette. The lines that shape our coverings. What do we cover? What do we reveal? The exploration continues.

2009-07-21T10:56:00.000-07:00

"Qualities"
Mixed Media on Canvas
36" x 36"

This was the last piece I completed before going to AIB for my first residency. Again, the animal as metaphor for my experience, and lots of work on the surface. In this painting, you can also see the layering of collage, using marker drawn images on tissue (the bamboo). Nature is a common backdrop for my cast of characters, as the natural world is a consistent setting where I explore transition and release - two themes that interest me very much. My experience with nature is mediated by my memory and the usual complexities of urban living.

Studio Exploration

2009-07-21T10:20:00.000-07:00

"From the Shore"
Mixed Media on Canvas
36" x 36"

This image was completed this Spring, and is a good example of my working style and interests. My paintings tend to be autobiographical, composed from enigmatic symbols that hold personal meaning for me. Figures and animals are cast as place holders for my emotions, my identity, or other players in my life. The images are often mediated by my imagination, or references from life drawings, the internet, or reference books. The symbolic narrative is supported by a great deal of surface-play. I enjoy layering and to achieve a surface that holds interest for me, I often use drawing-in, stencils, masking with acrylics, markers, collage and spray paint.