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It took me all day Wednesday to get the show on the walls the way I wanted it (and to tape the radio interview about it, which I'll post in a day or two), and it took another two days to recover. But I'm really pleased with the result. The space is lovely -- high and clean with tons of natural daylight. It's a lovely space to have art. And it gave me a natural flow for the show, which has a bit of narrative element built in.
The show is open to the public at WKNO during business hours, and there will be a closing reception on Friday, March 31st, 6-8pm.
I'm off to dance and celebrate this weekend, but here are a couple more pieces that are in the show, as a preview.
The show is open to the public at WKNO during business hours, and there will be a closing reception on Friday, March 31st, 6-8pm.
I'm off to dance and celebrate this weekend, but here are a couple more pieces that are in the show, as a preview.
These are cedars from my recent trip to Washington State. They're tall and lovely and completely different from the red cedars of the south.
And here's another Washington piece. Deception Pass. The coast there is lovely.
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I have a pleasant enough view out of my kitchen window, but I don't think of it as particularly paintable. In Concrete, however, there are tall and graceful cedars. One morning was mid 40's and a bit drizzly, so I decided that painting from life but indoors with tea was the perfect solution to getting in a day's work.
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I took another hike in Rockport the other day and tried a new and lovely trail before coming back around to the Evergreen one. I'm going to have to do some more serious painting in there, but in the meantime, here are two sketches from my journal.
I fell in love with this enormous, dancing cedar tree and had been thinking about it. The second time past I had to stop and sketch. I may go back out with oils as well.
I fell in love with this enormous, dancing cedar tree and had been thinking about it. The second time past I had to stop and sketch. I may go back out with oils as well.
Here is a photo of me painting at Rockport that Jude Dippold took.
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I got to paint from a different angle yesterday. Here's the forest road, the new gateway by Tylur French, and a view across the treetops.
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The next day in Washington was foggy, so instead of going for mountain views, we went for trees. Rockport State Park is a magical place, a forest of towering evergreens and maples covered with moss and ferns. It felt like I had walked into Tolkein. I was sure ents were lurking just out of sight. It was dripping rain, which made watercolor quite challenging, but I kept having to try. I am dreaming of going back with enough time and dry weather to at least attempt to do this place justice. All I have at the moment are the palest shadows of that beauty.
Because of the rain I was having to work very fast. I badly miscalculated below on the tree in the foreground, both its placement and its execution. But the ones in the background give you some idea of the layers of trees disappearing into the fog that day.
Because of the rain I was having to work very fast. I badly miscalculated below on the tree in the foreground, both its placement and its execution. But the ones in the background give you some idea of the layers of trees disappearing into the fog that day.
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My full second day started in the tire store getting a tire fixed. They have nicer views there from the tire store than in Memphis. We went on to the coast from there. It was stunning. It looked like the California impressionist paintings I've seen with rocky outcroppings and pine trees seen from directly above.
It was cold out painting after a while, and I probably was worn out and should have stopped before that last little one, but I was so entranced by the scenery I couldn't stop myself.
We stopped for the sunset on the way back inland. Mount Baker, white with snow, turned pink in the evening light.
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I just got home from a week in Washington State. I had never been to the northwest in my life, and I was so very overdue to meet the stunning trees they have there. I stayed in Concrete, which is a small town surrounded by parks and national forests. The moon was full the night I arrived and hovered over the car as a benediction. I sketched it from the passenger seat.
The next day I bundled up in borrowed clothes (Memphis does not prepare one for trekking around in snow and quite low temperatures) and went to the Shadow of the Sentinels park. It's a lovely boardwalk (snow covered this time of year) through a forest of towering evergreens. I made very slow progress, and in a warmer season could easily have spent a whole day in there going the probably-not-fully-a-mile and painting every other tree.
The day ended at the local bakery in Concrete, a delightful place which this very quick sketch did not do justice to. They also had tea served properly in a real teapot. I was very happy.
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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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I'm trying another narrative self portrait like the one in Paris against the window of stars. This feels a bit like my Edward Hopper series -- woman alone in a large world.
This piece is based on a sign in the Old Forest where I walk daily. I've loved it for a couple of years. It seems to ask me regularly whether I will or won't step courageously out into the world and open myself up and take risks. I've done that again this fall, with not wonderful results so far, so I'm trying to remind myself to stay open. On the upside, this art is also a staying open to something new, and I'm excited about trying a new direction. So perhaps the results are mixed. And closed off is not how I want to live permanently (though I needed to be there for a while to heal last year), so I keep walking past and thinking about this sign.
I sketched it a few weeks ago and again more recently.
Then Peter Ceren posted this photo of it shining in a patch of sunlight, and I knew I had to go ahead and paint it for real. You can see more of his stunning photos of the forest we both walk daily in on his public facebook page The Old Forest.
First I typeset a couple of letterpress signs for my house, using the pointing hands I got in Paris last year. Sometimes it's good for me to have reminders in my work space. I printed the same image on the gessoed paper I'm using for this painting. I can paint over them if I decide I want to, but at the moment I'm liking the idea of combining letterpress with paint and also having a little bit more oddity and symbolism in this piece. I've been looking at Odilon Redon again and won't go as far out as he did, but the symbolism and surrealism are really appealing to me at the moment. I like that it's subtle but also there. I'll see if I keep feeling that way as I get further into the painting.
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It's been a busy week. My Celestial Paris show is now on the walls at Playhouse on the Square (up through Jan.1, and the reception is Friday, November 18 from 5-6:30). Then I went dancing with my sisters to celebrate and blow off steam. So I'm behind posting a bunch of sketches I've done in the last week or so. Here's a whole collection, starting with the Old Forest, of course.
The pedestrian section of the Hanrahan Bridge over the Mississippi River just opened. It's a great thing for Memphis, and everyone in town, I think, went down to check it out. I waited till Monday, to let the opening crowds thin out, and then I took a break from show prep. It's about a mile total, over the Arkansas side and out into their flood plain just a bit.
The pedestrian section of the Hanrahan Bridge over the Mississippi River just opened. It's a great thing for Memphis, and everyone in town, I think, went down to check it out. I waited till Monday, to let the opening crowds thin out, and then I took a break from show prep. It's about a mile total, over the Arkansas side and out into their flood plain just a bit.
Here are the bridges (there are three together) from Arkansas. A quick line drawing.
And a stop at a downtown coffee shop after.
Tuesday I had an artist do at the new Halloran Center at the Orpheum. I tend to sketch as I listen, whether that's music or meetings.
Wednesday I took a lunch break adventure over to Arkansas again, right near Dacus Lake.
And met an amazing tree there. I'm going to have to go back and paint it more thoroughly. I can see it in a print.
I've got a busy couple of days coming up with seminary and newspaper projects plus a little bit of social life, and then I should be back to making more art.