a new series

Hooray! New work to show you! I've actually had this piece done for several days, but today was the first chance I had to photograph it. I'm thinking of doing a series of twelve pieces, each representing a different month. The piece I did for Found Art Friday sort of kick started the idea...that'd have been June. The above is entitled Road Trip, and it'll be for July. Then comes Flying Kites, for August. (I'm still working on this one a bit...it wasn't feeling quite right, so I brought it to a critique and got some great insight- so I"m hoping to make it a little better- I'll re-post when I do!)

They're each about 8 inches square, and as is my habit lately, involve acrylic paint and various drawing media (mediums?) over lots of bits from vintage gradeschool primers, sewing patterns, report cards, maps, etc. The finished piece is stitched onto a nice piece of heavy printmaking paper, and they'll probably end up in a shadowbox frame. I'm loving the colors, and they're making a nice little collection on the studio wall. It'll be interesting to see how they evolve month by month.

old and old...but new now

I've had this pack of vintage flashcards for a while now...I've used a few in paintings, cut up a few for greeting cards. But my grand plan has been to make a larger piece out of just the cards to hang on a wall somewhere. So I built  a structure and covered it with the cards- wrapped them around the sides and everything, and put it up in our kitchen: voila...revenge against the math drills of my childhood. (My 7-year-old, by the way loves math drills. Crazy kid- he gets that from dad, that's for sure!)

The shelf we found to put it on then had plenty of room for me to display this cross-stitch my mom made when I was 2. (Does that mean it's vintage too? shudder) It's the alphabet, with a food that correlates with each letter, and often a catchy little phrase to describe said food. I will forever chant to myself "vichyssoise, pronounce it if you can" whenever I come across any recipe for that particular soup. Nevermind pronouncing it- try spelling it! Better yet- stitching it, along with 25 other mini-compositions! Want to know what I was doing when my kids were 2? Just trying to stay sane...definitely not making giant, complicated projects! But I'm really glad she did, because it's as awesome in my kitchen now as it was in hers when I was 2.

sanctuary

So, I've been working on a few new pieces this week. Hopefully one or two will be ready to post next week- in the meantime, wanna see what else I've been up to?

I found that being in the middle of several little pieces at once puts me in the middle of a big mess in the studio- I eventually ran out of places to put half-dry, half-resolved things- especially when most of my work surfaces tend to get pretty littered with little bits of paper, and big old books etc. that I'm not ready to put away. Not to mention pallettes, paints, brushes, coffee-cups...you get the picture. I knew that hanging stuff on the walls would be a great solution- out of my way, and up where I could see from a distance what was missing- so they could go from being half-done to all-done.

However-

We moved into this house about 8 months ago- and one of my favorite parts of the place has been that there was a bedroom I was allowed to claim for my studio. It's upstairs- with windows, and a door- not down in the basement tucked in between storage shelves and laundry piles. It's soooooo wonderful- except the walls were painted with a porrly executed 'ragging' technique in a terrible, gross mauve color scheme. I didn't think that swirly gross mauve would be a good neutral background for artwork I'm trying to figure out.

So, despite being midway through stripping wallpaper in our bedroom, not quite finished painting the kitchen, and needing to caulk and paint the trim in the living and dining rooms (this house was great- but ugly- lots of surfaces to deal with before it suits us), I decided to do this:

I'm so excited to have room on one whole wall to hang finished, framed pieces- and on the opposite wall to clip up work in progress. The room feels so bright now- I can't wait to get back to work! Hopefully I'll carve out some time this weekend. No excuses- unless the wallpaper in the bedroom starts calling to me...yuck.

hopeful

Just finished this little piece, called, Hopeful*. I like how the little bird on the fence is looking up at the tail feathers of the bird in the corner- like he's waiting for his turn to take flight...it feels hopeful. I'm sending this over to Cathy Nichols for Found Art Friday. The theme this month was "Everything's Blooming". Even though that's far from the truth in Wisconsin at the moment, I know that spring is right around the corner, so it was nice to have something bright and sunny to think about as I worked. I always think of spring as nature's dress-up party- with all of the colors of the first buds and blooms bringing us out of the grey dreariness of late winter. That's what made me put the little collar on this bird- just needed to dress him up a little. (I don't know why, but I feel like it's a him- even with a little orange ruffle)

Anyway- I really appreciate Cathy hosting Found Art Friday...sometimes it's so busy around here I need an extra motivator, and a fun deadline was just what worked this month. I also can't wait to see what everyone else posts tomorrow!

(* I edited this to change the name of the piece from "Spring is in the Air" to "Hopeful". You'll find that titles are always tough for me to settle on. In this case, I ended up feeling that "Hopeful" just said it all about that little bird.)

little love

Valentine's Day seemed to me like a good excuse for making some cookies. My mom always turned Valentine's Day into a fun day- we'd come down to find the breakfast table decorated, a little surprise at our seat and red food coloring in the milk for our cereal! Later this evolved to college care packages filled with anything and everything she could find that was red- gum, toothbrushes, socks, snacks, etc. So that's the tone I like to take on this particular holiday. I don't load it up with expectations of grand declarations of love- I just use it as an excuse to pink and red surprises into the day.

much to say about nothing

I've been wondering what I'm supposed to post about when I don't have any new work finished up and ready to share? I've been super busy, but due to the new (to us) house, the small kids, the dog, the snow... a lot of my creative energy has been directed toward painting the kitchen, stripping wallpaper in the bedroom and thinking through Bakugon-themed birthday party plans for my almost-5-year-old. Uncreative energy has been going toward shoveling. I'd be happy to share all of that if I thought anyone was interested, but feel like I'm "supposed" to have art to post.

Luckily, this piece I ordered from the amazingly talented Ashley Goldberg arrived today:

Other than being excited to have something to post about, I'm totally in love with the colors, the texture, the quirky houses. It made my day! (please note that the original image is cropped in this photo)

I know that one of the things that drew me to this piece is that I've used simple house images in my own work for ages. Every time I think I need to branch out and find a different subjet, I just can't find anything that says what I want to say like a house does. To me they can speak of family, safety, shelter, community, tenderness...but also sometimes secrecy, isolation and obligation. I wonder if I'll ever find a way to say so many things with a different image?

I love the way these other artists have used the image of the house...such a broad range of interpretations:

Sarah Ahearn is one of my all time favorites- the little houses sprinkled around in many of her mixed media paintings feel so sentimental.
Lucy Summers creates the most wonderful, intricate designs which she then uses to print her own gorgeous fabrics.
Heather Kirtland is someone whose work I just discovered, and I love her use of encaustics to create floaty, ethereal houses.
I've also just discovered Lily Stockman's work, and am completely blown away by her "Homestead" series. Breathtaking...so far out of my realm of ability, but inspiring me anyway. After visiting her site, I've been working on these:

A little experiment, I guess. I'm giving a go at working on a panel instead of paper, and more of a painterly approach to image making, over the collage-driven pieces I've been doing for a while. I'm nowhere near as comfortable with them as with some of my other work, but it's a good time for me to be playing around, as I have no shows booked until June- there's nothing to be making art "for", other than for the sake of exploration, I guess.

So as it turns out, I guess I did have something to say...but be warned...next post really might be all about a Bakugon themed 5-year-old birthday party!

together

Well, I got back into my studio today and it felt really nice. I have built myself a schedule that leaves Monday and Tuesday mornings open for studio time, so I'm going to try to get back to honoring that. I finished up this piece- called Together. I'm pretty happy with it...I think I'll use the sewing machine to mount it as a finishing touch before framing it.

I definitely need to learn a little more about photographing my work...I'm ready to start submitting pieces for potential shows etc., and I need to figure out how to capture the colors and details more accurately. Anyone have any suggestions?