Show Me Your Feet

(please excuse poor cellphone picture quality)

I experienced a spiritual healing not long ago.  It was an interesting and beneficial experience.  One thing that really stood out to me was the importance to be, feel, and remain physically grounded.  When exploring the figure and how it relates to the subject matter that I'm focusing on, grounding interested me.  The lichen just may be the grounding agent in this case.  There's no physical ground seen, but gravity and weight can be seen/felt in the feet/legs.  The binding, invasive lichen are anchoring this figure to the invisible ground, which, conceptually, represents acceptance.  This being is unable/unwilling/reluctant to fight the grounding.  Positive or negative?  Not sure.

Side note : this may be the happiest I've been with a painting in a long time.  I actually think that I've (finally) married my two favorite painting styles, successfully.  This is a personal breakthrough; feeling prideful of a piece is a new, strange, wonderful feeling.  Feeling validated.  Feeling good.

Soundtrack : Elliot Smith - Figure 8, Dry the River - Shallow Bed, Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine

I'm Still Here

Embarrassed.  Just, embarrassed.  14 months since my last post, my website has been down for quite a while and, as facebook just reminded me, I have the same amount of hours in a day as Beyoncé.  Yes, I have a day job, make my own meals and do my own laundry, so it's not a direct comparison.  But, still.  While so much of me wants to be sitting on the couch, bingeing on Orphan Black and drinking a nice Cab ... I promise to you, oh blog, my blog, to produce.

So where to start?  Months (and I mean months) ago I had a very vivid dream.  This, in itself isn't rare, but the fact that I remembered it with such detail was special.  I was in London, not the real London, but a strange London/Minneapolis hybrid, complete with skyways and food courts.  I was with a group of friends and a dangerous situation came up, so we were ushered into an unfamiliar skyway/tunnel to get back to a safe part of town.  There were crowds and panic.  We inched our way through a narrow Chinese restaurant and ended up in this skyway that had a giant aquarium as the walls (much like big aquatic tanks at the zoo).  In my dream brain I said "Oh!  This is that new Camille Claudel exhibit I've been looking for!"  Inside of the tank were nude women.  Floating.  Animated.  Pallid.  Alive, but not quite.  The figures were in different states of disrepair; some completely bronzed, some still fleshy.  There were zookeepers of sorts there to monitor these "people."  One figure, hands pressed against the glass, was no-doubt put there to make the viewer become very uncomfortable.  Or was she legitimately trying to escape?

Of course it wasn't Camille Claudel's work.  The fact that she's been dead for years could've told my dream brain that.  But I had a similar emotional response to it.  This art installation that my subconscious self invented affected me greatly, which told me that it couldn't  be ignored.  Here is where I found my new body of work, underwater.  

The first piece - mostly an experiment gone good.

Dealing, personally, with anxiety and depression, I can easily understand the panic in the woman's eyes as she pressed against the glass.  I can also understand the resignation in the seated or pacing figures.  I have decided to take the metaphor of a person in a tank and examine the natural barriers and prisons we find ourselves in.  As I am a woman, living in Minneapolis in 2014, this is the perspective.  

You'll see a lot more of me over the coming months + years.  Promise.

Collaborating Alone

About a year ago, a good friend of mine was getting rid of his deceased uncle's possessions.  He was an artist.  "Come check out his paintings & frames," he said.  "You can re-use the canvases - we have hundreds."  So off I went to rummage through a huge collection of landscapes and portraits by Ray Ronyak.  Most of the portraits were of family members and you won't be able to find him on Google.  It was a strange experience thinking about the immortality of art - whether the artist is remembered or not.  And here are hundreds of high quality pieces, that took a person a huge amount of time to execute, piled in a basement, ready to be picked over by vultures like me.  

Unable to completely blanch the canvas and erase Ray's print on this world (only the artist can do that to their own pieces!), I've been hanging onto these pieces - trying to come up with an idea of what to do with them.  I finally decided to just start playing around.  Sometimes I've found that the physical act of applying paint to a canvas will spark inspiration.  So...I took a chance on that thought...

Ronyak's original piece

Current state!

My first instinct was reaching for Gray's Anatomy and seeing what creepy shit I could come up with...then I looked at my inspiration wall collage for more interactive figurative poses...and the above is what I have so far!  I truly have no idea what direction I'm going in or what the end product will be, which is a very different experience for me.  Usually everything is so planned out from beginning to end.  Here's hoping that a little spontaneity and a lot of layers will create something wonderful!

13/20

And this is what you get when a professional takes the photographs:

Ahmad

Colin

Ellen

Eric

Hilary

Laura & Victor
 

Laurie

Lindsay

Luke

Nik

Nik

Self
 

Sydnee

December 6 - 3 Hours

It's Thursday night and only the second weeknight I've spent in the studio this week.  I have 11 days.  Well, 10, really.  To make 2 more paintings and complete everything else that is necessary for my first graduate school application.  Deadline : December 17.  Eeeek.

Soundtrack - Crystal Castles (III), Cults (Cults), Dark Dark Dark (Who Needs Who), Doug Burr (O Ye Devastator)

Piece(s) worked on - Ahmad; Sam

I've really given myself some liberty with this piece.  The textures alone are a bit of a departure from my typical style.  I can't even tell you how much fun I had painting this shirt.... Although, while abstracting can be more loose and "easy," it presents a whole new slew of formal challenges.  I got to a point tonight where I am happy - nay - excited about it.  Uh-huh.

Glare...oh how I loathe thee...

 There's something about the light quality on the figure that I'm pleased with.  Perhaps I'm getting better at this painting thing (or one would hope).  This concludes piece #13!

I'm really loving this bit up close

Sam is a lovely lady whose portrait I started tonight. Her space was quickly decided upon as a specific bench on the shore of a her neighborhood lake.  We went there together, and got plenty of reference photos, people watched, etc.  Then, as we got back to her apartment, she nestled in between the couch cushions and said this was also her space.  The effect this posture and environment had on Sam was immediate.  She was at ease.  It's a lot of pressure to have someone examining your every move and documenting it, which is why there's usually an element of discomfort in these portraits.  It was clear that this space truly belongs to Sam.

First sketch

December 2 - 3 Hours

Sunday - Today I had the pleasure of seeing Jeff Sorensen's glass works in person.  He is one talented and hard working guy; seeing the size and variety of his pieces was truly inspiring.  Also, after a much needed trip to Utrecht, I was able to size some canvases that have been patiently waiting for a coat or two.

Soundtrack - Jeremy Messersmith (The Reluctant Graveyard), The National (High Violet - x2 #obsessed)

Piece worked on - Ahmad

More than one opinion was shared with me to STOP NOW on this face, and, luckily, I felt the same way.  So I did very minimal correcting today and I promise, I oath, I swear on Dior that I will not touch it ever again.  Now is the task of matching styles for his hands & legs, which I think I'm handling pretty well.  I haven't felt this good about a piece in a long time.

Again, apologies for the poor photographs:

shadows. love shadows.

December 1 - 3 Hours

omygoditsdecember....

Soundtrack - Joni Mitchell (Blue), Martha Wainwright (Martha Wainwright), My Brightest Diamond (Bring Me the Workhorse) --- yes, channeling some strong femininity tonight

Piece worked on - Ahmad

I need to try to keep myself from making any changes to his face.  I'm loving just how good the likeness is right now; the rough color blocks lend themselves well to the mood of this piece.  So, hopefully, I will not touch it further!