Tag: crow

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”

Virgo Rising

  BRING IT ON! for “Bone Breakers”

Bone Breakers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

Playing at The Happy PlaceI 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.

 

 

 

Among the Stars

"Virgo Rising" in progressHaving spent a good deal of time on metal leafing Virgo Rising (efforts shared in last week’s All That Sometimes Glitters), I decided to take a bling break. Maybe it was all the Ziggy Stardust chatter with the passing of David Bowie, or just the realization that my depiction of the universe needed more heavenly bodies, but I got out the paint and got to it. Click image for a more complete reveal.

Me and Mondrian (self portrait)While the paint was on the palette, it seemed efficient to add another layer to my two self portraits, “Me and Mondrian”.  I was confident that the first layer had dried and I could continue to build the painting. Alas, wintery conditions in my north facing studio means a nightly drop in temperatures to a bracing 57 degree, and the underpainting was still wet in spots and tacky in other areas. Fortunately by Thursday the oil paint had reasonably set and I was happy to make some small progress on the background, which if you are a fan of Mondrian you might recognize as Composition in Red, Yellow and Blue. (Or is it Composition in Blue, Red and Yellow? Hmm, better research that!)

At this point, it looks like the promise of a few extra studio hours will be available next week, and with it, the expectation of further progress. Check back to see if that happens, and follow on Facebook and Instagram to see more studio news. And finally, you can add your comments below or send an email with your insights.

 

 

 

 

 

All That Sometimes Glitters

These past couple of weeks in the studio have found me attempting to finish a painting begun early November 2014. My misguided (as always!) belief was that I would have the work finished by the opening of a late November exhibit at the River’s Edge Gallery. The work is a combination of two paintings: a circle painting of a crow, wings lifted, surrounded by a larger galaxy painting. Separating these two works is a metal leafed circlet. It was the visual representation of the show’s title: “Virgo Rising.” (photo below left).

Virgo Rising, v. 1
Virgo Rising, v. 1

Well, Virgo is still rising and awaiting lift off. And if you have seen the posts on Facebook or Instagram you’ll realize that the current circlet looks nothing like version 1 because at some point, all that original metal leaf was scraped back and wood scrollwork added and new layers of metal leaf added for “Virgo Rising”, v. 2.1.

Virgo Rising, v. 2.1
Virgo Rising, v. 2.1

I know, I know. Why bother? Because that’s  what has to happen when it isn’t as envisioned. Revisit, revise and re-do, make it over, add to or subtract from, get it to the place where you finally say this is the best I can do at this time. It will get done, oh it will.

Until then enjoy the posts on social media as I make slow and steady progress. And finally, with all this metal leafing floating around the studio, I just glad I’m not using 14K gold. I even found some metal leaf glued into my hair. Talk about gold among the silver!IMG_2541

By the way, the image to the left shows much I’ve managed to get done to this point.