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I've been working on two more self portraits this week since getting home from Washington. Here's one inspired by a poem called Polka-Dot Sky. I've always loved those cloud shapes, and the poem made me think back to those Redon portraits in the Orsay I saw last summer with people placed against clouds.
It started off well. I always struggle with faces and almost liked this level of finish better, but I pushed on. Here is the partway through version.
It started off well. I always struggle with faces and almost liked this level of finish better, but I pushed on. Here is the partway through version.
I'm also finally back to working on the self portrait at my easel. I hate the Arches gessoed paper it's on, which sucks down paint, and I had gotten discouraged weeks ago and set it aside for a while. But I finally decided to use my figure painting momentum and pull it back out again. It's close to done but still needs some finishing. The show hangs Tuesday, so I'm racing to both mount and prep everything and also finish as many of the ones in my head as I possibly can in that time.
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I am having so much fun doing oils again. I'm doing them on paper, which is more immediate than canvas. It's a firm surface you can leave bare, draw on, wipe back down to white. Elizabeth Alley said Saturday at our Memphis Urban Sketchers group that it's more like drawing, which is exactly right. After all the deep patience printmaking requires, it's fun to just be able to play with paint again and not worry about technical issues.
Above is Deception Pass in Washington State, from my favorite journal sketch of the trip out there before Christmas.
The self portraits have me thinking about both Hopper and Wyeth. I pulled out my books on both of them and did a quick sketch of the book in my lap and Mr. Darcy on my feet. I think I'll call it "Self Portrait under Book and Dog."
The last is from an old journal sketch I really like and that keeps calling my name to do something with. It's from a special place I go and paint sometimes over in North Carolina.
Above is Deception Pass in Washington State, from my favorite journal sketch of the trip out there before Christmas.
The self portraits have me thinking about both Hopper and Wyeth. I pulled out my books on both of them and did a quick sketch of the book in my lap and Mr. Darcy on my feet. I think I'll call it "Self Portrait under Book and Dog."
The last is from an old journal sketch I really like and that keeps calling my name to do something with. It's from a special place I go and paint sometimes over in North Carolina.
I'll have a bunch of these in my spring show "Autobiography" at WKNO.
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I am so enjoying the Intrude exhibition at Brooks by Amanda Parer. It delights me. Mr. Darcy and I stopped to sketch again yesterday on our way home from the forest. I like the nocturne better, but it was fun to do this one as well.
For some serious happiness, treat yourself to two minutes of Bard Cole's marvelous video of the bunnies, beautifully edited and set to music. He caught me there sketching, but of course Mr. Darcy is the real star of that small clip. Thanks to WKNO for putting this out.
For some serious happiness, treat yourself to two minutes of Bard Cole's marvelous video of the bunnies, beautifully edited and set to music. He caught me there sketching, but of course Mr. Darcy is the real star of that small clip. Thanks to WKNO for putting this out.
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I did a whole show of river paintings some years ago and largely haven't revisited it since. But the river is where you can truly see the sky in Memphis, and skies are fun in oils, and a photographer visiting Memphis got me back down there to sketch. I started this oil this morning, and it will get some cloud work and a second layer after this layer dries.
I'm planning to do a few small river oils for the self portrait show. The show is a wide definition of self portraiture with still lifes and dog/banjo paintings as well as ones of me. The show began as a "woman alone in a large world" series, but it took a turn along the way. Jude Dippold wrote a poem about the first self portrait I did, against the large window in Paris, and I'd like to use several of his poems about me as one lens to see myself in this show. He's also written two with the Mississippi River in them, and I think a few river paintings would complement them nicely. Here is one poem I plan to include in the show.
Skagit Dawn
The last light of a winter's afternoon
glimmers on the hills
above the Skagit.
I hold to that amber glow
with thoughts of blankets
warmed through the night
and the promise
of the sun circling back
to rendezvous
with dawn
over the Mississippi
and you.
Below is the journal sketching working from that I did while we were down at the river last week. I can never catch the sunset the way it looks, but I was pleased with the sketch as a thing in itself after the fact.
I'm planning to do a few small river oils for the self portrait show. The show is a wide definition of self portraiture with still lifes and dog/banjo paintings as well as ones of me. The show began as a "woman alone in a large world" series, but it took a turn along the way. Jude Dippold wrote a poem about the first self portrait I did, against the large window in Paris, and I'd like to use several of his poems about me as one lens to see myself in this show. He's also written two with the Mississippi River in them, and I think a few river paintings would complement them nicely. Here is one poem I plan to include in the show.
Skagit Dawn
The last light of a winter's afternoon
glimmers on the hills
above the Skagit.
I hold to that amber glow
with thoughts of blankets
warmed through the night
and the promise
of the sun circling back
to rendezvous
with dawn
over the Mississippi
and you.
Below is the journal sketching working from that I did while we were down at the river last week. I can never catch the sunset the way it looks, but I was pleased with the sketch as a thing in itself after the fact.
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I dropped my phlox print off yesterday for an exhibition at Dixon Gallery and Gardens. They're having a retrospective show for artists who have exhibited in the Mallory/Wurtzburger gallery there. I am delighted to have work hanging in that museum again. The opening is this Thursday, January 19, from 6-8pm with music and food. The show will be up through April 9 to complement a show of current American art by the Crystal Bridges museum.
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In the process of moving from pure landscapes into figural and narrative painting, I have found myself raiding my art library (I have long picked up enticing books second hand as I have found them) and sitting with them on the sofa in the evening. Spending all that time last year in the Musee d'Orsay started me on this path, and it's one that would benefit my work no matter what I'm painting.
After finding my set of sketches from the Helga photos recently (you can see them in this blog post), I pulled out my book of the Helga photos to go back through. Mr. Darcy kept me company on my feet as I studied.
I did a sketch of the page with Overflow. I love this one. The art major in me who delighted in Northern Renaissance paintings with all their tiny symbolic elements loves the highly suggestive waterfall glimpsed in the corner of the window. And the quote at the top of the page from Wyeth delighted me. "I think one's art goes as far and as deep as one's love goes.
After finding my set of sketches from the Helga photos recently (you can see them in this blog post), I pulled out my book of the Helga photos to go back through. Mr. Darcy kept me company on my feet as I studied.
I did a sketch of the page with Overflow. I love this one. The art major in me who delighted in Northern Renaissance paintings with all their tiny symbolic elements loves the highly suggestive waterfall glimpsed in the corner of the window. And the quote at the top of the page from Wyeth delighted me. "I think one's art goes as far and as deep as one's love goes.
Here is my sketch from the same painting that I did in the exhibition 13 years ago.
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I did a watercolor study for this oil on paper piece several weeks ago, but I hadn't had time to get to the actual painting what with Christmas shows, commissions, and the trip to Washington. It feels great to paint again. I drew this out two nights ago and started painting yesterday morning. It's close to done. I'll look at it again with fresh eyes in the morning.
This is the fourth in my series of "woman alone in a large world" series of paintings. The series started in Paris with me sitting on a couch, dwarfed by the enormous two story window behind me filled with night sky and stars. I've been examining my life lately, thinking about direction and how to live to be happy and make the most of my time. Self examination tends toward the literal for me. It is almost always accompanied by self portraits.
I've intended these to be something of a valentine for others also living singly. This is perhaps the most alone feeling, without dog or stars or banjo, but I included one of my favorite paintings I've done, one that was in the Dixon show last year, to be a window out into the wider world and also to have my abiding vocation present in the piece. Every time I do one of these, I hear from someone who is touched and sees him or herself in this place as well, so it's a kind of "solidarity" moment for me to reach out to others. Society gives us romantic couples as the only possible, successful way to live, and that's a lovely thing. But I have also found great freedom and creativity in living alone, as well as periodic lonely days, and I love the independence to pursue my art full tilt. I think it's good to offer different visions of acceptable ways to live, even if there is also great joy in finding a partner. Alice Steinbach (Without Reservations), who wrote a middle aged version of Eat, Pray, Love ten years before Gilbert's book came out, said that given demographics, all women should learn to live alone. That is so very true. My grandmother married at 30, which was quite old for her era, was happily married for 50+ years, and still had another 20 years on her own after my grandfather died, because she lived to 104.
This is the fourth in my series of "woman alone in a large world" series of paintings. The series started in Paris with me sitting on a couch, dwarfed by the enormous two story window behind me filled with night sky and stars. I've been examining my life lately, thinking about direction and how to live to be happy and make the most of my time. Self examination tends toward the literal for me. It is almost always accompanied by self portraits.
I've intended these to be something of a valentine for others also living singly. This is perhaps the most alone feeling, without dog or stars or banjo, but I included one of my favorite paintings I've done, one that was in the Dixon show last year, to be a window out into the wider world and also to have my abiding vocation present in the piece. Every time I do one of these, I hear from someone who is touched and sees him or herself in this place as well, so it's a kind of "solidarity" moment for me to reach out to others. Society gives us romantic couples as the only possible, successful way to live, and that's a lovely thing. But I have also found great freedom and creativity in living alone, as well as periodic lonely days, and I love the independence to pursue my art full tilt. I think it's good to offer different visions of acceptable ways to live, even if there is also great joy in finding a partner. Alice Steinbach (Without Reservations), who wrote a middle aged version of Eat, Pray, Love ten years before Gilbert's book came out, said that given demographics, all women should learn to live alone. That is so very true. My grandmother married at 30, which was quite old for her era, was happily married for 50+ years, and still had another 20 years on her own after my grandfather died, because she lived to 104.
Here are a couple of the earlier pieces in the series. I think my spring show at WKNO will be self portraits, interpreted somewhat loosely. They seem to be where my head is at the moment.
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I'm still scrambling around with my show a bit, since the opening is tomorrow night (Playhouse on the Square in Memphis, 5-6:30pm), but I did manage a bit of sketching. The weather is fixing to change, so I took yesterday afternoon to go hang out in the forest with my sketchbook and drink in the last of the gorgeous weather. It's good to have the flexibility to do that and reorder my priorities as bit as the weather calls to me. And it was fruitful. I might try an oil from this first one. We'll see.
Then tonight I went to Dixon to see Wayne Edge's new show and hear some of my favorite jazz guys play at the reception. I couldn't resist sketching them too.
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Memphis's NPR station, unlike any that I know of around the country, has a daily arts interview show, twice a day as needed, that features the whole spectrum of the arts. Many places occasionally get a band in, but I don't know of anywhere else that includes visual artists in their regular promotion of the arts. It's a huge gift to those of us making a living as independent artists with minimal (or no) advertising budgets.
Plus, as you can see from the photo, Memphis also has the super coolest folks working there too. Darel Snodgrass not only does a great interview (he does his research ahead of time, asks great questions, and jumps in any time I start to flag or get lost in a thought), but he also loves dogs. So he
Plus, as you can see from the photo, Memphis also has the super coolest folks working there too. Darel Snodgrass not only does a great interview (he does his research ahead of time, asks great questions, and jumps in any time I start to flag or get lost in a thought), but he also loves dogs. So he
publicly invited Mr. Darcy in a facebook post to come in for the interview as well. He's got three rescues of his own and knows that Mr. Darcy is my constant art companion. So we both went in this morning to the studio.
What I realized today (aside from what a southern accent I have, which hits me annually as I do this interview for my big show of the year) is that my brain really closes one book artistically and moves straight into something else. I came home from Paris and spent a good bit of time painting and making prints from the landscape watercolors that I did there, but in the two weeks since the show got on the walls, I've completely shifted over to this new series I'm doing, and that's what was in my brain to talk about. Fortunately the first one of the self portraits was in the show, so it was a legit topic of conversation. And talking about the trip and my art process gave me things to say that weren't "Hey, I did this specific piece that you can't see because it's radio!"
So here's the interview, about 15 minutes, for anyone who's curious.
What I realized today (aside from what a southern accent I have, which hits me annually as I do this interview for my big show of the year) is that my brain really closes one book artistically and moves straight into something else. I came home from Paris and spent a good bit of time painting and making prints from the landscape watercolors that I did there, but in the two weeks since the show got on the walls, I've completely shifted over to this new series I'm doing, and that's what was in my brain to talk about. Fortunately the first one of the self portraits was in the show, so it was a legit topic of conversation. And talking about the trip and my art process gave me things to say that weren't "Hey, I did this specific piece that you can't see because it's radio!"
So here's the interview, about 15 minutes, for anyone who's curious.
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My show is fully up, signs and everything, my reception is this Friday (Nov. 18th, 5-6:30 at Playhouse on the Square in Memphis), so I went dancing to celebrate. And to restore a little equilibrium after the week that was difficult for me and so many of my friends. It was marvelous to spend a weekend with sisters and other special people and to get my joy on dancing. Usually dance weekends are the only time I completely walk away from art and don't even sketch, but I did do just a couple at Noodle in Decatur, Georgia, while having lunch with our crew. The laughing Buddha above was too delightful to ignore, and I also loved the warm lamps dancing above the table tops. Plus it's nice to have those good memories woven into my art journal.
