Lost for Words

In the last post I was looking at where I'm going with the latest paintings. Wanting to pick a lane to travel in for a while. I seem to have picked a lane. Some photos below. I'm not feeling very articulate about these, a bit lost for words.

All the text and the language has disappeared from what I'm doing in the studio, even titles are mute. Maybe I will look at them all later and they will tell me what to say, and how to name them.

Sorry State of Affairs

So much for *not* the best laid plans. It's been more than two months since I darkened the blogger door. The summer has been about travel and being in the studio. Lots of little trips, hiking and camping, swimming and recharging. Lots of work made and posted on Facebook, please follow me there for all the latest in this messy process. You will find, a painting on mylar here, a contour drawing there, a plein air drawing (not from life) in another place, some dabbling in collage, some studio drawings in my sketch book etc. See, messy.

The piece I posted in this blog in June has been reworked once again. I posted it here. I think you can see it even if you are not on Facebook.

When I say messy, I do mean messy. The whole process is messy for me. It's taken me the summer to get my head in gear, and my body recharged, only to have life just go on and on, requiring more head work and body recharging. You know how it is, one thing done, another thing crops up. One of life's curve balls dealt with and another just around the bend. This is not a complaint, this is just life. A sorry state of affairs sometimes, a glorious adventure others, and sometimes both simultaneously. A little health crisis here, a big loss there, a move over here, a birth, a death, a lovely trip, a brief fall into despair.

Some exciting news: I will be in another show in January, a small group show on a well respected and beautifully curated website with 5 other artists with whom I am thrilled and honoured to be exhibiting. Stay tuned for details.

Below is a look at my messy process: This is a piece I'm working on as part of the series (started last year) posted to my website on the page  Paintings on Paper. I've been meaning to get back to this series, and now I have.

First stage:  I don't like that Tim Burton face, and overall it feels wishy washy. I started with a light pink/white/blue background and painted in the green cloud and the blue bottom, then I globbed on some piles of paint from left over paint and responded to that, yes there are some sparkles in there.

oil painting on huile paper using leftover paint and fresh paint, stage 1

Next day I looked at it and decided the face had to go, I scraped it out and reworked the background, that figure is too blatant, or something.

oil painting on huile paper using leftover paint and fresh paint, stage 2 

Then I added more pinky purple in the top, integrate the figure, repaint the face, make that oil spill hand more globby. Hmm, I don't know, 

No, not right, redefine the figure, bring up that fence at the bottom a bit, more intense colour by the head to the right etc. Look at it tomorrow.

Sorry State of Affairs, in progress.

Edited to say, reworked and reworked again and  retitled

Can't seem to lighten up

Back to full time in the studio!

Since my show in February (see previous posts), I've been hibernating. Working 3 days a week and all the other demands of life meant that I had to prioritize art making and personal life over blog writing for a while. I am back in the studio full time now (yaay) and returning to writing here about this and that.

A long time ago, in 2013, I wrote this blog post. It was about the painting posted below. I was happy with it at the time and became unhappy with it later. It happens that way sometimes. So I've done some more work on it. It's still in progress. I have to see if it continues to sit well with me.

Cohere
14 x 12" mixed media on mylar

Just a re cap of what's been going on around here:
In 2013, when this piece was started, I returned to my earlier way of painting and drawing. I had taken a few years to explore painting from life and it was not giving me what I wanted. Every painting was too literal for me. Attempting to move them into abstraction made me feel all over the place. I need poetry in my paintings and drawing. Some people can do that with representation and abstraction, I couldn't. I needed to go back to the humour and pathos that I have always indulged in with my work.

Less than two years later I had a solo show and am putting together submissions to show even more recent work. We'll see where that goes.

I'm taking things one day at a time, trying to live every day fully, and not get ahead of myself.

The show is up.

The opening of the show at the Firehall Arts Centre was great. I was nervous about it, but thanks to all who came out. It was so good to see you see what I've been up to for almost 2 years now, well some of what I've been up to.

Here are some photos:

And some installation shots of the work taken this week:

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.

Putting paint to paper.

I should be painting, but I'm having a hard time getting at it. Too many distractions lately. I'm determined that today I will put paint to paper. Working three days a week at the day job has put a crimp in my studio time. I plan for at least 2 seamless studio days each week. When making plans one forgets that there is a lot to do in the remaining two days a week that is part of being alive; getting things together for the upcoming show, cooking, eating, shopping (for food, and necessities only for the most part), seeing friends and being with family or at least keeping in touch occasionally, walking the dog, exercising, helping others and the occasional crisis that sucks all the life out of one for awhile. Then there is making time for rest, or doing none of the above. Not excuses, just facts. But I'm managing to make art every week too and that is something I'm very happy about, I have a life and a big part of that life is making art. But, it isn't everything. That's just fine. Now I get back in there and get to work.

A sneak peek at a detail of another piece for the upcoming show.

None of the above
(detail)

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

Where Does it All Lead?

I'm painting again. And here's where it's going.The first is oil on mylar the second is oil on paper. They are small, first one 12 x 9", second one 7 x 101/2". I just re-watched the film Herb and Dorothy. I approach these paintings the way they do collecting. It is something I want to do, enjoy doing, something that gives me deep non-verbal fulfilment. The years of practice, patience, education lead here. Not to greatness but to the ability to do what I want to do.

I Give Up

Now that I'm making a little money on the side, I'm giving myself a break and permission to stop feeling pressured. I'm just painting. Making some paintings whenever I can.

I read this today, it made sense to me.

"And if the work can touch or ignite areas of my psyche that I am not normally aware of, then someone looking at it might come in contact with areas of their psyche that they are not normally aware of. It doesn’t have to be the same areas as mine. The great Italian painters of the past had to illustrate biblical stories to an audience that couldn’t read. Maybe today we need artists to keep us in touch with our visual, non-literal consciousness. In these areas of our consciousness, wars do not start and prejudices do not exist. They are areas of our psyche before the I, me, you, and it."

..Bill Jensen from John Yau interview in Bomb Magazine.

This painting is definitely from non-literal consciousness. You can find more here. The other series is still ongoing but needs something that I'm finding in making these. Throwing myself into it, following its train of not thinking. For now. This might be a bit bright at the bottom. I might need to dull it down. Oh, oh thinking. Well, really, it's feeling, it feels not quite right, but maybe I'll let it live, keep it around, next.

Starry Eyed

12 x 9" oil on prepared paper

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.