Category: Studio Updates

April 9, 2016

On Holiday: A Visit to Asheville

“Art is all around you”

street painting: Asheville, North Carolina

Easter week found me away from the studio on a trip to Asheville, North Carolina. There, my sister Josephine and I, along with our very understanding spouses, spent time researching family history, going to cemeteries, and visiting the local county historical society. Genealogy is one of my sister’s long held passions and one of the site visits she was particularly looking forward to was an afternoon outing to the Earle-Chesterfield Mill Company. The mill, built c. 1890, was situated along the Norfolk Southern Railroad and the French Broad River in Asheville’s industrial area. It was there that our great-grandfather, leaving the family’s mountain farm, found employment.

But we were 21 years too late. A fire in April 1995 destroyed both the Earle-Chesterfield, and extensively damaged the Asheville Cotton Mill, originally built 1887. While that discovery was disappointing, our spirits rallied because we found out that whole area is now designated the River Arts District! Now just how cool is that for an artist on vacation, especially one who loves visiting other artist’s studios?

Beginning in 1985, the rundown area underwent urban renovation. Where once abandoned and rundown buildings stood, the former economically depressed area is now vibrant. Today 22 historic industrial buildings and warehouses provide more than 200 artists spaces to create and share their work. Our self imposed time limit meant that we couldn’t visit all, or even a significant number of studios, but our quick in-and-out visits refreshed and inspired. A perfect complement to the time spent with one foot in the past.

Now I’m back on home turf, playing catch-up in the studio and classroom, thinking and dreaming about current and future work. Without a doubt, Asheville, and other cities embracing the arts, show how art and artists possess transformative qualities.

This Week in the Studio

I have been able to spend some time in the studio since returning home. Next week, I’ll share the small increments I have accomplished. Perhaps, the Muse willing, those increments may be of significant size. As usual, stay tuned!

March 18, 2016

A Table of One’s Own

“A woman must have money and a room of her own. . .”
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

First published in October 1929, Virginia Woolf’s extended essay, A Room of One’s Own, has served as a feminist rallying cry and a raised banner for what artists need in order to accomplish their calling. For Virginia understood that in order to produce creative works, one must have the means and the space to do so. Her ideas still resonate with me; although at one time there was little money or room. What could I do?

When my longing to be an artist was crying out not to be a downy dream but manifested in reality, I was a mother with young children. I worked part-time, contributing much needed income for household expenses; there was not a lot left for extras. Our 1930 era home, though comfortable in size, did not have a finished basement, nor a spare bedroom, and had a living room, but not an extra family room. My interest at the time was in the book arts, and occasionally I would garner a commission, be in an exhibit, or sell small work. Any creative endeavors on my part were carried out on the dining room table, in the midst of family activities, in snatches of precious moments.

That table was the settings for meals, the kids’ homework, crayons and puzzles, toys and books, and that same table had to be cleared after every activity and be made ready for its next use, including my current art project. At least half my creative time was spent setting and cleaning up, and I often felt cheated and frustrated.

What to do? My first step was to get a folding table and I left my “stuff” out at all times, easily at hand. When I had a bit of time, when the kids were occupied or asleep, I could get right back at my work. The second thing I did was to break down every project into steps that could be accomplished in small segments of time, anywhere from 10-30 minutes. Third, the table was off-limits to small and big hands alike! In such a matter, on my little studio table, I was able, bit by bit, to produce artwork.

In time, I cleared everything out of the 5 x 5 foot breakfast nook, claiming it as my own. Eventually, as a Wayne State University grad student, I got my first “real” studio space. When the kids got older, and money less tight, and we converted some unused space into a home studio. Finally, I outgrew the “Happy Place” and with money earned from teaching, and by sharing the rent with another artist, I took on my first public studio.

Now in my current location, The Office, I look around and think how far I’ve come from the folding table in the corner of the dining room. These days, I’ve come to the conclusion that what I really need is a warehouse to call my own! Haven’t convinced my husband of that. At least not yet.

This Week in the Studio

I’ve been working on a concept that I’ve carried around in my head for some time, a mixed media piece, oil on board and canvas, it will measure 12″ by 48″. There will be 5 small rondos mounted on the longer board. The two pictured paintings here are in the underpainting stage. Can you guess my influence?

March 11, 2016

The Sometimes Long and Winding Road

“Art results when there is nothing that can be added, but when there is nothing that can be taken away.”

James O. Collins

“Professor MacDonald, how long will this painting take me to do?” Now and then one of my students will ask the “how long” question. I know they are hoping that the answer is going to be “oh, not too long at all!” Instead I tell them about the time, when I was in school for my formal art training, I worked on a drawing assignment that took 16 whole hours to finish. Man, oh man, did I think I was something! Little did I know that was nothing compared to the amount of time I would spend on later work.

That was especially true when I was working in colored pencil, a medium that practically lays down and rolls over for the obsessive artist. I once calculated that I could tear through a colored pencil work at the speedy rate of one inch an hour! Work like Time Traveler, seen here, might take several months to a year to complete, with the finished size measured in inches rather than feet.

In fact the slow methodology of colored pencil made me feel that I couldn’t get my ideas out fast enough and I eventually turned to painting. If I thought I could just hurdle some paint on the canvas and call it a winner, I soon learned otherwise. Most of my paintings still take several months to complete, only now I obsess on a larger scale. Sometimes, there are those magical paintings that take just a day or two, such as Promise, seen here, a 3′ x 4′ landscape of a Texas field. But then, to keep me humble, I’ll go ahead and do something like Bone Breakers, a piece I wrote about in an earlier blog. This painting wonder, 2′ x 3′ in size, took about six months or so to complete.

And what have I learned from all of this? That the creative process, like household renovations, always takes more time than the optimistic artist thinks they will. That the final size of the work really doesn’t matter; small paintings can take just as long as larger ones. That you can’t go against your fabric and if you work slow, then slow is how it is going to go. And of course the most obvious lesson of all, the one I give to my curious student, is that it takes exactly as long as it takes. As artists we work until arriving at that point when neither adding more, nor presenting less, makes a better picture. Sometimes that process is measured in minutes and hours, sometimes in months and years; but we get there in the end, we surely do!

This week in the studio

Continuing to work on a new piece, and hope that by the end of next week I will have something of interest to share. Until then, keeping it a little bit under wraps.

As far as the self-portraits go, I finally figured out why the black paint wasn’t drying. It seems that the masking tape I used to block out the grid actually left behind a gummy residue that when combined with the paint resulted in a non-drying medium. I had to carefully scrape away the grid and am at the repainting stage. In my perfect world I may be almost finished by the end of next week.

Oh seriously, who am I kidding. It will take as long as it takes. In any case, pictures next week!

March 5, 2016

Watch the Birdy!

“Beep, beep.”

The Roadrunner

When I was pulling together the Mixed Media Gallery, I was surprised by the number of times, and the diverse ways, that I have used a particular subject matter. Among the many instances is this mono print, and a three-in-one colored pencil drawing:

Plus, there is this gallery installation, and then this guy shows up in a mixed media piece, and here’s a fellow incised in stone.

Oh, there’s more, lots more. All I can say is, great balls of feathers, I think I’m going to the birds! While I haven’t deliberately set out to be a bird illustrator, (that I will leave to those who follow in the wingspan of John James Audubon), it appears that I have come down with an avian attachment of sorts.

Artists commonly produce multiple works of the same subject matter. Think of the magnificent Georgia O’Keeffe, repeatedly using flowers and bones as subject matter, playing with composition, color and scale, series nested within series. Still, why do artists perseverate on a theme when there’s an infinite number of subjects to tackle, notching each completed image as a tick on a bucket list?

Sometimes the subject is one that resonates on a symbolic level with the artist. So the moon becomes a stand-in for the Feminine Divine and the painter explores several versions of what that might mean. For another, form has a strong pull on the artist’s sensibilities, therefore she completes several drawings on the mutable of clouds to fulfill that urge. Or it can be something more indefinable, such as the quickening “oh my” when encountering the beauty seen in the structure of trees, and there is hunger to capture that time and again.

Keeping that one constant, the repeated image, allows freedom to explore, and the subject, like a music motif, dances, changes, circles back around, spins off into new directions. And so I’ll keep flying with birds, symbols of strength and delicacy, seeing where they take me as I venture into new places in 2016.

Meanwhile, this week in the studio:

I felt very productive as I finished preparing cradled boards for upcoming projects, going so far as to actually apply a cadmium red ground on them. Oh, joy! Oh, red!

As for the self-portraits, they continue to vex as the painted grids remain wet, preventing cleaning up the interior of each rectangle. Perhaps it’s a combination of Mars black with too much oil medium and the cool studio air temps. I’ve decided to set them aside and let time take care of the curing process. But the hats are done! Huzzah for small victories!

February 26, 2016

I, the Juror

Remember that all is opinion.

Marcus Aurelius

Next week I take off my artist beret and replace it with my juror’s cap, as I once again adjudicate the spring exhibit for the Downriver Arts and Craft Guild. I will speak to the assembled membership, offer a quick critique for each of the pieces submitted, (a modest number easily covered in the time span allowed), and select a winner. Over the years, the event has trans-morphed in the Marty Arty Award, no prize money but bragging rights for the year. It’s a fun evening of repartee and storytelling and I enjoy the event immensely.

That’s not normally how things work when serving as a juror, especially when prize money is on the line! As the artist entering the competition has guidelines, oftentimes so does the juror. Sometimes the host organization will request that everyone has at least one piece selected, or cap the number of pieces chosen because of the size of the venue, or limited the number of awards one artist can receive.

Once the parameters are known, selecting the work can begin. I’ve heard it said that picking the strongest and eliminating the weakest is the easy part, and I have found that to be true, more or less. It’s the work that falls into “good” art category that offers the challenge. Among the many things I look for, here are 3 to consider:

Original and creative interpretations of the subject matter, without falling back on gimmicks. When I was member of the Colored Pencil Society of America, one juror summed it up this way: When everyone else is doing cats, you paint the rhino! And please, only use glitter if it is integral to the work.
In one word: Presentation, presentation, presentation. It hard to look at the work if the frame is askew or the picture has fallen down behind the mat. As an artist I’ve done the wham, bam, thank you ma’am approach and more often than not I end up more sorry than pleased. In a related note, I am always appreciative of mastery of media.
I experience a visceral reaction to the work. When work engages me on an emotional level, one that I keep going back to over and over again, I know that’s a keeper. Then I set aside my subjective reaction and concentrate on analyzing which of the principles and elements of design went into the work to make is successful.

Keep this in mind as well. Don’t think too much of whether or not a juror accepts your work; last time I checked we are only imperfect people passing judgment on other imperfect people. Seriously, don’t take any of this too seriously!

Now back on with the artist beret and an update for this week in the studio:

Will this painting never end?? Only 12″ x 12″, this self-portrait, and its companion piece, feels like it is taking FOREVER to complete. Yet, I think I see a light at the end of the paint tunnel and if the Muse is agreeable, I hope to begin the final act: cleaning up the Mondrian inspired background and redefining the hat and shadows therein. Finally, an oiling-out and then off to the photographer for documentation. See, almost done!

Going forward: I am in the process of prepping cradled wood panels for the next painting project, a multi-step procedure that begins with sealing the wood before adding the ground. Since it takes a couple of drying/curing days between every step, this will take a week and a half easily to complete. Stay tuned!

February 20, 2016

Sometime You Win, and Sometimes You Live to Try Another Day

This week I entered two paintings for consideration for the Detroit Society of Women Painters and Sculptors spring exhibition. Unique to this group is that the jurying process is by viewing the actual work. After an hour or two wait, you learn the results: thumbs up or thumbs down. I brought these two lovelies, both of which have received a lot of positive feedback, and waited to see what the juror decided.

Virgo Rising — oil and metal leaf on board

Bone Breakers — oil on canvas, 36″ x 24″

Every time I respond to a call for entry, I think back to the early days when I first started getting into the game. At that time, oh so last century, we would send in 35mm slides, red dot in either the top right or left corner to indicate front, and an arrow showing “this-end-up”. On the slide frame was your name, title, media and size, lots of info on a small cardboard frame. Typically, you filled out a postcard that the exhibition coordinator would check that indicated acceptance or rejection. If you wanted slides returned, you had to include a self-addressed stamped envelope, and if they didn’t return the slides you had to still provide the stamp for the postcard.

There was one exhibit, the particulars I no longer remember, I decided to enter. Still in graduate school, I didn’t have much exhibition experience but I dutifully labeled my slides, filled out the forms and stuck a stamp on the self-addressed postcard and sent everything off and eagerly anticipated the good news.

Time passed and finally the postman delivered the results. All I can say is that I scored 100%–yep, every image I submitted had a check mark in the REJECT box. I was totally horrified that everyone must know of my failure, after all it was on a postcard for all to see. I went into a double helix of self-doubt and worry, questioning if I was ever going to make it as an artist.

It turned out that postcard was not a harbinger of my demise as an artist and in the intervening years I have been selected for many shows, even enjoying an award or two along the way. Every artist can tell a story about a particular piece of work that was REJECTED from one exhibit, only to have the same work ACCEPTED later. The key is not attaching too much importance to either being refused or accepted; one person’s opinion is not who you are, or where you are going or a commentary on your unique vision. The key is just to keep on making the work, and remember that sometimes you win and sometimes you live to try another day!

Now what did the juror decide in the selection process? Here is it:

 NO THANK YOU for “Virgo Rising”

 BRING IT ON! for “Bone Breakers”

February 12, 2016

Get Back to Play

It is a happy talent to know how to play.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Okay, okay I throw in the paint brush! Car problems, being under the weather, family obligations and other mundane issues, meant limited time spent at “The Office”, and it feels as though nothing noteworthy was accomplished. Still, life offered a lesson worth sharing. This week, the Muse sent me a teacher in the form of a three-year sprite named Jack. Did I happen to mention he is related to me? That Muse has a sense of humor, for sure.

I have a studio at home, “The Happy Place”, where I do much of my 3-dimensional work, have my library, and store my supplies for teaching. It is one of the places that Jack loves best, where the colors pink and blue reign supreme, and there are boxes of bones, stones and feathers to open and explore, and whatever creative world you wish to visit you may.

And so that’s my biggest accomplishment this week; I played.

It’s too early to say that any great insights occurred, or that a creative door was opened. Sometimes it’s play just for the sake of playing and sometimes something made while playing does end up in a finished piece. Take for instance the mixed media piece, Edgar, Of Course, now at the exhibit, Do You Know Poe?, at the Henry Ford Centennial Library in Dearborn.

Edgar, of Course — collage, paint sample card, leaf, text, etching ink, 8″ x 8″

Edgar began as a demonstration of using stencils and masks in mono printing. I laid the tag board silhouette on a sheet of Plexiglass, used a brayer and rolled ink over it. I lifted the bird, placed a sheet of paper on the image, and put it through the etching press. Voila, a print! I showed variations of using the silhouette as a mask, and the cut out area of tag board as a stencil. Basically, I was just playing around, not really trying to accomplish anything other than showing a technique or two.

But when I was done, I was struck not by the prints produced but the silhouette itself, now gloriously inked yellow, green and orange. A lithograph someone abandoned years ago became another surface to print on. Alice, always eager to join the play, gave me the oak leaves, now skeletal and lacy. Later, I found and assembled other elements needed to complete the image you see here.

But the bottom line is this: I didn’t set out make a crow that was yellow, green and orange; I was just playing, without fixed intentions towards outcome. Those who know me, know that I am serious about my art making. Sometimes I become too goal driven and I don’t step back from it, to just enjoy taking a day or two to explore, to learn again the lesson from a pre-schooler, that play is worthy work.

Now time to get back to work, I mean play.

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February 5, 2016

Everybody, Let’s Mise-en-Place!

What do generations of chefs, from the late Julia Child to the reigning celeb-chefs, know that can help artists make the most of their studio time? Three simple words:

mise-en-place

Mise-en-place is a French phrase meaning “putting in place” and refers to the system of prepping and gathering all the tools and ingredients needed to complete a recipe, and in the larger sense, run a restaurant. If you’ve seen any cooking shows you know what I’m talking about. Those little bowls, all lined up with the spices, the pre-cut chunks of meat, the neatly diced vegetables, all close at hand. But more than that, it is what enables a kitchen to run smoothly, in the midst of intense activity and chaos.

And that relates to art, how?

Mise-En-Place is a concept I introduce to my students (and it is so much fun to say!). What a delight for a teacher to see, without prompting, when a student takes the approach to heart. Here Jenna is doing mise-en-place before class last night:

Jenna's palette — Jenna uses a mise-en-place approach in getting ready to paint.

Allowing herself plenty of time to gather her materials, arriving before class begins.
Reviewing the “plan” for the session, in this case going over the goals of the assignment.
Arranging her palette, paint, water and any other anticipated supplies within reach.
Removing all non essentials such as coats, backpacks, books, from her work area.

By attending to the mundane details first, she is developing great work habits that make her painting time so much more satisfying. Once she is in the zone, she doesn’t need to stop because she can’t find the yellow ochre, or a rag to clean her brushes, which allows for greater creativity and spontaneity. Only a beginning painter, I have faith that Jenna, and my other like minded students, will develop into accomplished artists!

I would love to hear what you do to prep a session in your studio! Comment below or send an email!

Find something you’re passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it.

Julia Child

Studio Update: The Mug Shots

Realized belatedly that I didn’t take a photo of the profile view, but here is this week’s progress on the forward facing self-portrait. Will this painting never end?

In progress

oil on canvas

January 29, 2016

Well, hello Anders!

Using the Zorn Palette — ochre, mars black, cadmium red, titanium white

I’ll be the first to admit that I am not, and I repeat, NOT, a figurative painter. I went down this path when my beginning painting class had an assignment to paint self-portraits. The search was on for a color palette that would use a straight forward, limited number of colors. It was down that path that I met the man of my dreams. Well, hello Anders, new in town?

Anders was Anders Zorn, a Swedish born painter (1860-1920) and contemporary of John Singer Sargent. He was a highly successful (read wealthy) artist, well-known for his portrait of society swells and full-figured nudes (though to the best of my knowledge, not nudes of society patrons!) and self-portraits. But that’s not what sent my heart all pitter-patter. It was his limited palette:

Titanium White
Yellow Ochre
Cadmium Red
Ivory Black

This four-color palette produces skin tones that can be supplemented with umber, sienna and cool reds, extending the range even further. The simplicity of this system means the painter is not overwhelmed with choices, and the mastery of mixing these colors feels attainable.

This week I was finally able to return to working on two self portraits (using the Zorn palette) and here’s a peek of where they are at now. I’ve added alizarin crimson and Mars black, and of course cobalt blue for the eye color. I am jokingly referring to these works in progress as my mug shots–

PS. I have a certain reluctance to share them at this stage of painting because they are so unfinished. Yep, the face is too wide, the ear too high, the hair needs to be added to better frame the face, and let’s not even talk about what has to happen to the hat! Putting works-in-progress out for public viewing is like taking and posting a selfie when first getting out of bed, before teeth brushing and shower. I’m sure some folks look divine; I’m not one of them.

January 22, 2016

Hitting the Hi-Whirl Button

“Because the most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day & trying.”
― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

Every 15 weeks my routine goes awry in a big way. That’s when a new semester begins and, with the craziness that is life, it sometimes feels as though everything is being dumped into a blender and we’ve hit the hi-whirl button. The part-time teaching gig, with regular hours and scheduled days, serves as an anchor for the full-time job of studio artist. Hours that form the “professional” work are fluid in duration and focus, requiring a self-motivation to attend to tasks that the teaching, with its static parameters, doesn’t need.

Trust me, there are days when going to “The Office”, feels like work. It’s pulling on boots, packing the lunchbox, greeting the wintry chill inside the studio, confronting a painting in the not-going-great stage, and knowing that the Mountain of Need-to’s is waiting at home to be conquered. Without a sense of routine (“Tuesday, teach until 12, work at The Office until 6”), it’s über easy to make excuses for not dealing with the real work.

One resource I’ve found for guidance in these situations is The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield. I read this slender volume every semester as a reminder of what it means to be a professional artist and to treat my time and commitment to my studio practice in such a manner. I recommend this book to every creative; and if you haven’t read it yet, I hope you do. I would love to know what you think of it.

Virgo Rising-detail — oil on board, metal leaf

Now back to this week in the studio. The winter routine is slowly getting established. I was able to clean up edges on the metal leaf on “Virgo Rising” (seen here and on Instagram.) However, by midweek I found the sides of the self-portraits were still too wet to handle and I was at a holding point with “Virgo”. That day I was determined to stay at the studio until I got something done. Grabbing pencil and drawing paper, I sketched a raven, part of an idea for my next best painting. After posting it on Facebook, my stats indicate that the “get something done today” drawing is a hit! I think I’m on to something that would never have happened if quit work early in the day. Stay tuned to see where this may lead!

It is a happy talent to know how to play.

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