I Drown In The Fern

Poet, painter and podcaster Phillip J. Mellen @phillip.j.mellen asked me to collaborate with him on a project involving his poetry and my drawings. 

I sent Phillip a drawing and he wrote a poem instigated by it. You can see it on his blog here All Systems Nervous.  

He sent me poems to choose from and to use as impetus to make a drawing. I chose I DROWN IN THE FERN. This poem is light and verdant at the same time, living and dying. Time passes and still there is return.

I've posted my collaboration below. Thanks Phillip for reaching out. It was great to work with you, let's do it again in the New Year.

Explore and Seek

Drawing 
Seems I've come to the end of something and something new is beginning, or I'm circling back somewhere. Ever since finishing the website (since my last post I updated my website with recent paintings) I've been concentrating on drawing.

I've made a lot drawings over the years. I may create a separate site for some of them. Recently there are a lot of medium size self portraits in ink and chalk and there are sketch books of self portraits, landscape and still life drawings ..like thoughts on paper in pencil.

There are small coloured ink drawings of flowers in various stages of living and dying, in bottles and jars.

Drawing on myself
A series of drawings has evolved in ink on mylar, self portraits that are not self portraits. I'm using myself as a convenient model to draw from life, and draw from photographs (you should see the number of photos I've taken of myself with my Mac's photo booth program. I alternately work from them and from life).

Photo booth capturing

I'm combining drawings of the plants in various stages of living and dying with the portraits. It took awhile to come to this decision to combine in this way.

Drawing on others
Recently I saw the Giacometti show at the Vancouver Art Gallery. I was struck by how he focused in so many drawings on one aspect, drawing and redrawing that aspect and leaving a lot of slightly drawn and unworked area. I don't work that way but I am drawn to it as an example of artists who explore and seek through drawing. At the same time there was a Rauschenberg show in a nearby gallery space. His combines, especially those on silk, were wonderful. I work a lot on mylar and that work of his left a mark too, opened my mind to possibilities.

Rauschenberg at the Vancouver Art Gallery

Giacometti

This series, as illustrated with the woman with plants above, is pulling me along.

Stepping into another stream

Meantime, as usual, I have another stream going. When I'm on the road, which is a lot, I want to make work based on my experience in nature. I've been doing some drawings. When I saw a hiker I follow on Youtube (I follow several hikers and campers and the like) who makes watercolours with a tiny postcard size pad and water brushes on her hikes I got excited to try this and I did. You can see them and my drawings if you follow me on Instagram @roadtrip.painting.

Moving on Into the Pink?

I took down my last post, so rainy, sad weathery a post. I'm moving on. Today I get back to my "regular" studio work, and preparing for the trip. The way things are going down in the United States of America, I'm not sure how much I'll feel like going in December. But, it's still in the plan, I'll play it by ear.

Just gonna get to work on what's bursting to get out here in the studio. Fall is such an internal time for me. So, I'm just going to go there in my work.

I think I'll stop posting for a while and see where that brings me. Of course, I might change my mind.

Just rambling on here.

Here is a happy little drawing from the summer.

Dog in the Pink

Moderately proud.

I'm moderately proud of myself today. I've managed quite a bit since my last post, in spite of having a cold, Christmas and all it entails (though thankfully mine is modest and quiet), working my usual 3 days a week at the dayjob, having a couple of minor crisis that got me up in the middle of the night, causing days in zombieland. Then there is the studio in the kitchen, I'm still working and nothing will stop me. It will be good to get back to a separate studio in a year or so.

It's 1:45 on a Saturday. I should be eating lunch and then going to Opus, the local art supply and framing shop, to finish off 4 small frames and buy some more foam core in order to finish off 2 larger ones. Instead I'm typing this briefly then going. Once I get those frames finished I bring them home and wire them, That will take today and tomorrow (if I fit in a big dollop of doing not much and making dinner etc.).

Then it's down to making labels, a list of work, a statement to go with the work, sending out invites, maybe doing some press outreach...  Will I make it? will it all get done? Stay tuned, and show up on January 22 at 5:30 to see what happens (I think I said 5, in an earlier post so change this on your calendar if you've already marked it down).  I'll be reminding you again.

Accidental meaning.

Hard days recently but now I'm able to get time to be outside in this perfect weather, go camping, hiking, swimming, floating and recover from the recent move as well as find time and energy for the studio again. I've been feeling so much about what's really important. It's really important to work, to give, to make art that is meaningful to you, to have people you love around you, to support yourself and be independent in your art. I've been taking note.

All these words are inadequate. That's why I make things, really, I make things up, some times it's drawings, sometimes paintings, sometimes other things to try to communicate. I make things that can, accidentally, have meaning for me and I hope for someone else.

Right now I am working on two series that feel very connected and more so the more work I make. Besides these two series I'm making drawings at the beginning of each studio day. It seems that the pieces are all working together. The drawings feel somehow ahead of the works in oil paint on paper and the works on mylar. The works on paper feel somehow ahead of the work on mylar, but sometimes a work on mylar feels as though it has jumped the cue.  I'm noticing the drawings at the beginning of the day sometimes don't have obvious figurative elements in them like the other work does.

Here are three examples:

I accidentally meant that
24 x 18"
ink and collage on paper

Unknown 

24 x 18"

oil on mylar

What am I not seeing
10 x 8"
oil on huile paper

Cohere

Here is a photo of one drawing I'm happy with in this new series whose working title is Today's Lesson Will be in Life. It's drawn with oil paint, ink and pencil on matte mylar. I have things travelling through my mind that I am inarticulate about, things that come out in these drawings. When I try to talk about some of the things going on in there I see eyes glazing over.

People tell me they get these and they don't get them. That's a good thing. Just make it up as you go along.

As mentioned in my previous post, right now I'm working on coherence in my art making.

Procrastination and Completion

It's Sunday night.  I spent the weekend procrastinating. Sort of.  Yesterday, I managed, after all day, to complete a drawing for a painting I want to do. 

It is from a photo of my mom and my father's mother having a conversation in the living room of my home, for a short while, in Holyrood, Newfoundland.

My mom died when I was 24, and my grandmother many years later.  They had a relationship which I describe as complicated but they probably would not.  There is something about this photo of them that is compelling to me. Maybe it is only that they were so distant from each other in my memory and here they are, in this photo, looking like they have an understanding of a kind and a relationship that is ordinary and maybe even real.

Here is the photo:

I can't believe how wonderful my mother looks. She has had at least 10 of her 11 children at this point.  I know that sounds extreme and over the top and all that but it is true, a reality. 

I am working on making a painting of this. Lately my work has been of landscapes and flowers. This is  so different but every so often I go back to 'the figure' or a "portrait".

We'll see where this goes.  Once I post pre painting, it sometimes doesn't work out because I don't have enough privacy to complete the painting. Maybe it won't be like that this time because, I don't have to finish it, do I? I can just forget about it if it doesn't work out.

Next day:

So, I thought I would post the next stage:  I started the painting on a 12 x 9" Watercolour board in acrylic paint.

Here is the photo of where I got today.  I wonder if I can keep up the tension and the loose way of working without it getting lost. We'll see, I have some day-job type stuff to do tomorrow so may not get back in here but I will try.

Yesterday I only got a couple of hours in the studio to work on this, so not much done.  We'll see if I can get it to work to my satisfaction. Drawing and redrawing as I go. Excited and tense. While pushing through to something new.

Below is the next iteration of the above in progress painting.  I went through the frustrating loss of things and gaining of things, and loss of things again, in the figure in the blue dress (my mom).  I have spent a lot of time trying to bring the right gesture and expression to the head.  It is not there yet.

The wall in back, ah heck, everything needs lots of work. This painting helps me see I have learned lots of things about process in my years of making art, what my friend Nomi calls the "experience of painting".  That's what it's all about for me; what I learn while I paint, about myself, about painting, about materials, about why and what for.

Below is the 4th iteration of the painting. I've spent a lot of time on the figure in blue and need to move away from it for a while and bring up the rest of the painting.  Back and forth, back and forth, until it's as good as I can make it.  I am wanting, at this stage, to keep the drawing aspect in evidence in the end, but not sure that will work so am trying to keep an open mind.

Next.
I worked on the painting for a few hours yesterday. I have to stop after a couple of hours and take a break, or I find myself getting obsessive and tight, then I go back for a couple more hours. A lot of the work so far is about drawing and redrawing the figures in paint and just trying to get it right (according to my understanding).

6th installment of progress on this painting.
The photo below is closer to the right colour than above, above is warmer in colour than the real painting.  At this point I'm feeling the pressure of posting as I'm trying to leave any imagined expectations out of the painting process. That isn't easy, but, it is interesting.  If I can just work and ignore the voices in my head I will have developed just that little bit more.

I was getting stuck, overworking parts, not feeling the gesture so had to turn it to the wall for a couple of days.

There was nothing for it but to paint out the troubling part and start fresh.

After 2 more sessions I brought it back to here (below).  I had to take time away from posting in order to not feel too much pressure to 'get it done'  I'm looking at it at this stage to see what has to be done and what gives enough of the feeling I want without being tampered with.  Tomorrow is another day, perhaps I'll be able to work on it perhaps not (office work, gardening job calling).  

A likeness may be there (though we all see people differently so that may be only for me) but that is not the important thing for me (I know it is not just like the photo, I would have to be a camera for that to happen and I already have a photo. What I'm trying to make is a painting).  I'm not trying to make a likeness. It comes as I work because of the way I'm working.  What's important for me is that it feels right.

This is a tough one and I'm going to work on it till I think it's as good as I can make it (with all its flaws) and move on.  Posting it here has been a great motivator to keep on trying with it. Thank you everybody who commented here and on facebook and to people who shared with their friends. Stay tuned for more painting drama, or, hopefully, not.  Maybe it'll be a breeze from now on!

7th installment:

Below is the painting as of this morning.  I worked on it for 2 afternoons since the last installment.  Getting close.

And today I brought it to here (see below).  I think it maybe as good as I can make it.  I'll sleep on it but it seems to be done.  I will let it go probably and start thinking about the next painting. I have loved working on it. I feel I learned so much doing it online like this. Now I will go back to my hidy hole for a while and come back with something else exciting (at least for me) sometime soon.

Tomorrow I will post it on my small works blog and my website if I still feel it is done. 

Final update:

Below is a slightly better photo of the painting.  It's done, sold, wrapped and ready to go to one of my 4 sisters. Thanks Tish. And thanks everybody for all the feedback and sharing here and on facebook.  I am  happy to have had such lively interaction with friends, family and strangers while making this.  I'm going to do at least one other version, and maybe even some drawings from this to see what I've learned in the process. To make more solid the understandings I've come to.  I'll keep you posted in future blog entries.