Sunday, January 28, 2007

Out of the Studio

Bad Bad...........yeah, I gotta own up to it, I have not entered anything into the blog for a week. Not so bad really, as I did have to go out of town and that got me out of the studio. Getting out of my groove so to speak but sometimes it's hard to get back to something that you left "in process". It beckons to me, that work waiting in the studio.........but I just put it off and put it off as I don't know where I'm going.

I know I said before I was giving myself permission not to go where I first thought I would. But I lied. I still want to do the initial conception...........now to figure out what exactly will get me there since there are several roads at least to the end of the process.

But back to my trip last week. I loaded up 21 paintings to take to a gallery in Big D. The gallery owner is a lovely woman and she liked my work. We're going to give it a try to see how it goes with her representing me, at least through the summer so we can both decide on continuing the relationship. She and a designer up there for a large townhome/condo complex are going to use some of my work for their model home. Crossing my fingers here that everyone just loves my work and wants it.........or something similar commissioned anyway. The gallery is the Norwood-Flynn Gallery on the south shore of Bachman Lake near Love Field. It is only open until the first of April by appointment only until some remodeling is done. Call if you are in the area. They seem to be keeping the amount of artists they represent to about a dozen or so....that's a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

I also met with another artist friend I'd not seen in some time. We had a lovely lunch, talked a bunch and visited a gallery in Snider Plaza. This is also a new gallery named Cerulean Gallery. They were hanging a show for an opening on Friday night. I hope I didn't get in the way as I talked to the owner/director and one of the artists who came in to hang her work. I especially enjoyed talking with Liz London, the artist hanging her work. She had some really neat light boxes that had been painted in layers behind the plexiglas and also collaged. Really neat looking at the ones that had been installed with the light coming through. I would hate having to see after getting all the lights to work though if it was me.

I also ran down to the Marty Walker Gallery down in the design district on Farrington off Manufacturing St. Really interesting work there and I met the gallery owner there as well. It's fun to go into new galleries...all the personnel are right there ready to talk to you about their love of the work they show. Marty Walker used to work for the Conduit Gallery (another of my favorites in Dallas)as a curator for their small gallery room for new artists. This gallery also has a few artists studios there in the complex area.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Book Covers


Two book covers............I'm so pleased that two of my paintings were chosen last year to grace the covers of poetry books. I'm not sure they are in stores or available quite yet but they have been printed and I have my copies.

The Dauber Wings by Theodore Worozbyt, is the winner of the 2006 American Poetry Journal Book Prize. It is published by Dream Horse Press. My painting is titled Pieces of Red 5. It's available from Brunner Gallery in Covington, LA.

J. P. Dancing Bear's, Gacela of Narcissus City and Other Gacelas, is the Main Street Rag's Editor's Choice Chapbook Series.My collage titled Aftermath is the cover art work. This work is available through my studio.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Finally

OKAY...........back to work, finally. I just had to let go of my "conception".

Actually, not let go exactly..more of adjust to let what comes,come. I know some people know what they want to do and then just "do it"............for me that's okay when I have a commission and something to start with. In this case, I've been staring at a new substrate and a new concept all at one time. It was keeping me out of the studio..........too much thinking and not enough doing.I still know my basic conception for these pieces and if it works out that will be good, if not, then on to what will work in the end.

I got a couple of layers of paint on the panels, then I got stalled with thinking of the direction I wanted to go.........I know and I don't know...ha-ha, do you know what I mean? For one thing I don't want to get bogged down in doing the same old thing, so no texture under these pieces to start off. On top of that, these are smooth panels. Good gosh, every nuance shows immediately. Finally I got out the charcoal and just starting making marks.........on all 9 at one time. I'm so used to working on large pieces that I could get piddly with these things with little brushes, too........so I tell myself to just go for it. After all, I can cover a whole lot of territory and a lot of layers with this small a panel. I finally got the opaque paint out and went for one of them.....there went all that beautiful transparency. It had to go, it just wasn't my mode of painting now. That's one of the things I learned a long time ago............cover up that pretty transparent texture stuff up before it takes over and ruins the whole painting. For some people that wouldn't work; for me it works as transparency is not my style.

Nothing to show yet............later.

Monday, January 15, 2007

DO IT!

Gathering information is always a solid strategy, but it can also bring in a paralyzing amount of irrelevant information. I read this statement today (along with another one about over-analyzing) in my horoscope.

Yeah, I admit, I do this A LOT. Gotta get up off my rear and just go to the studio and DO IT.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Tape and Edges

Okay....so I know you're wondering "why in the world is that cobalt blue around the edges of the panels"? in the previous post picture.

Well, if not, you should. I NEVER put a strong color next to my work or it will influence it.......but I didn't have any other two inch wide tape and so I'll see how it goes. For a year now I've been sick of going back and painting the canvas edges. I used to paint them in layers as I went but somehow I got off doing it and it is a real PAIN to paint them all later, especially on large work.

These are Ampersand panels with a nice birch side framework so I figure this is as good a time as ever to just not paint the sides. I may change my mind later but for now I have blue tape.

It has already influenced me......I kept walking past with not a clue what I was going to do color wise with these pieces and kept seeing "BLUE" .........so why not three blue, three yellow, and three red? First layers rarely show up in the final pieces anyway. The other three are for the negative sections...........will discuss that as it comes later.

Right now I've got a couple of layers of color on these pieces with not a clue where they will lead me. Well........a clue about structure of these pieces...all dozen of them into 3 separate art pieces ........But other than that, it will just have to be relationships and processes leading me, with the concept as structure. I don't want to be totally locked into my plans for this work so ultimately the work will tell me where it wants to go.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Labels/schnabels


Labels/schnabels..........

Good gosh, all I wanted to do was update the blog with labels and the new template Blogger wants us to use.

It wasn't too bad... but I did copy and paste my links ( not too many) into a .txt document and saved them just in case. Then I updated and got a new template that looked similar to the background of my website. Sure enough, the links to the other websites I had on the blog were gone. So I put them back in one at a time.

Then I moved stuff around. Good thing I noticed Nita Leland was labeling her blog as well and someone on her blog mentioned how we could do the labeling without uploading every page over and over. Bad thing is I don't really know what I want to label all these entries as.........So I had to think about how I wanted to label each entry.

I started with the oldest and am progressing slowly..........and I mean slowly.

In the meantime, I'm adding paint to the small pieces I'm working on in the studio......Procrastination is my middle name it seems.

Friday, January 5, 2007

Relief

Am I bad? For feeling relief that the last grandkid is out the door just now. I love them all dearly but back to school they go on Monday and my life is back to a normal routine, I hope.

I've got six pieces on paper on the work table trying to get the matting/framing done. One frame (for the 48 x 48" canvas) was damaged in transit so will have to be re-cut and sent again sometime in the coming week. Did I mention??? I HATE matting and framing works on paper. Every time I do it, I remind myself....how about just gluing these down on panels and not framing or just paint on canvas or panels in the first place. However, I seem to not heed that advice and just keep on working on paper while traveling, etc.

On top of that I couldn't help but tweak one of the square paintings I'm going to frame........so I had to haul it back outside for some slides after the tweaking. Framing will put an end to that.

During the time the kids were here I decided to get all the tax stuff printed out and piled up ready to start on soon.........soon I promise. No sense in putting it off too long or I won't be able to get anything done with a clear heart/mind for thinking of it. Everyone says...."take it to the accountant"..........my husband says, "you can do it" so I keep doing it. I will say that by doing it yourself you do learn about how to do things you would never learn on your own. Just picked up a new 2" thick "Your Income Tax 2007" as mine was old from 2003 and I figure they've changed a lot since then. It's actually easier to find some of this stuff in the book than it is on the IRS site unless you have specifics to look for like a form, etc.

All I can say is "thank you, thank you, thank you, to whoever invented the internet so we can look up and research just about anything that comes to mind.

The weather people promised sun and 70 degrees today but they missed it, as is fairly common. Maybe for awhile tomorrow before another front comes in. I can hope as I feel sunlight deprived although I know we still need rain.