Ripple

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

Breath
Mixed Media
20" x 20"

Oregon Morning Ride

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

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.

Full Moon
30 x 30"
Mixed Media

MFA Thesis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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.