all things seen and unseen

all things seen and unseen
encaustic on clayboard
6x6 inches

My family came to visit this past weekend. It was a full and noisy house with 3 kids running up and down the hallways. After everyone left I managed to catch a nasty cold and am still on the tail end. Been feeling pretty run down lately, but thought I'd write up a little post while my son naps.

I worked on this little piece much longer than I usually do. It was one of those struggles. But then I happened upon Lisa Kairos' blog and she jsut happened to write a post sharing a technique called Intarsia...which I had done a long time ago but completely forgot about! How does that happen?!

Anyway, so I decided to experiment with it on this little piece as I had in my previous painting "Patterns and Cycles"- the red line was done with the intarsia technique as well as the little "o" shapes along the bottom. I really enjoyed rediscovering this technique. Ever since my ceramics class I really have been obsessed with surface. Not like I wasn't already. But it's been tweaked a bit.

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I am so excited to share that three of my encaustic paintings were juried into the Milwaukee Avenue Arts Festival in the Logan Square Connections exhibit! The show will be at the end of July. I will post the details as the date approaches. My first show in Chicago...hopefully the first of more to come in the future.

I still have a few small encaustic paintings at Sacred Art Gallery in Lincoln Square, here in Chicago. They have asked me for more paintings and I've been working on it. Hopefully by the end of this month I can replenish what I have there.

patterns and cycles

patterns and cycles
encaustic and mixed media
14x14 inches
-sold-

Life has been busy lately, but I'm still painting away. It just takes me a little longer now to document my paintings and then post. When I was in the middle of working on this painting I received an email from a reader in the U.K. who is so kind to periodically email me. In this email she asked me a couple of questions about the nature element in my work. She brought up some of my earlier paintings about the moon and its cycles. I drew upon moon imagery throughout my "Expecting" series where I was delving into my pregnancy and expecting my son.

After I read the email, I went back to my painting, brushed on payne's gray at the top and carved in rough moon shapes. Thanks for inspiration H.! I could have left well enough alone, but right now I am really all about exploring symbols, my personal markings. Actually I am starting to feel like if I don't leave a little symbol in my painting, then it's naked.


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Last night was my last handbuilding class at Lillstreet Art Center with Marjorie Woodruff. Oh, I just love her! Her work is inspiring and she is such a warm person. She gave me a big hug when I said goodbye last night and I hope we will keep in touch.

I am not sure I will be able to continue with my idea of combining clay with encaustics as the fine and gross motor skills needed to handbuild is messing with my joints. We'll see. I can't just let my arthritis dictate what I can and cannot do in my life. It is frustrating.

But I am so glad I took this class. Clay is a such a magical medium, to me. From the earth. Transformed. Especially with handbuilding, it's all about surface. I found that my tinkerings in the ceramics studio affected my encaustic work. For me, encaustics can be such a great medium to play with surface.

Last night we got to listen to a slideshow of resident artist Momoko Usami. The link is not her web site, but a blog of someone talking about her work. Her ceramic work is really intricate and fascinating. She not only takes into account form and meaning, but how it interacts with light, shadow, water, reflections. What I really enjoyed was how she shared her thought process with us. She had a photo of a marbled piece of steak. And said the marbled fat reminded her of lightening....and then she incorporated that into one of her pieces. Or she had a picture she took at the beach of a bunch of different colored pebbles. And then next to that was a photo of an urban scene where the colors and patterns of the people rushing by matched the pebbles. And then how she incorporated that into another piece. So interesting.

lesson plans

I spent part of my Sunday studio day hanging out with Haley Nagy who not only makes books, but also works in encaustics. We're like twins separated at birth! It was so much fun sharing ideas and tips on the two art forms. Haley brought me a little present too. It was a cake of medium she made herself. Of course, I can't remember the specifics but it is different than the encaustic medium that I use, which I buy from R&F. It has a yellow tone to it and when it was melted, a sweet honey smell filled my studio. Thanks Haley!



lesson plans
encaustic
8x16 inches



I tested it out on the piece above that afternoon after our visit together. You can see the top part is warmer than the rest of the piece. Although I should have put my other medium on top of the white underneath to really see the difference. But I did that on another piece that is not quite finished yet. I will point it out later.

This painting is actually two 8x8 wood panels attached. I was working on both of them at the same time without any intention of joining them. Just by chance, I had the bird piece laying above the nest piece on my work table. The edges happened to be touching, looking like the one continued into the other.....and I thought, "hey, that looks interesting......" And so now they belong together.

Numbers and letters are finding their way more and more into my work lately. I think it's because the majority of my days are spent with my 2 year old son and our days are filled with alphabet singing and counting. Alphabet and number puzzles rule our days. His two favorite books right now are Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and Chicka Chicka 1, 2, 3 . Counting steps, counting crackers, counting counting counting. It's no wonder numbers are infiltrating my work!



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Yesterday I posted Tuesday's journaling tip over at amanobooks.com. Make sure to check it out as it features the amazing journal pages of Seth Apter.

art fair

This weekend the Old Town Art Fair took place down in my old neighborhood, or at least one of the places I lived years ago. Back then I lived in a teeny tiny studio apartment that really could not fit more than 3 people in it. It was my early twenties and I was never home except to sleep. It served its purpose.

We went late Saturday afternoon as it poured that morning, but I am glad I was able to go for that little bit. The quality of art there was fantastic and the crowd seemed to be a buying crowd, which makes for a festive atmosphere. I, of course, was on the lookout for encaustic artists. I found three booths, although there may have been more.

Cheryl Toh
Natalie Salminen
Patricia de Leon Alfonso- she has a web site currently under construction, I believe

This mixed media artist's work really pulled me in:
Erik Nelson His works must be seen in person. He works with a variety of material-such as joint compound, house paint, tar, etc. etc.

Rasa Pranckunaite's work is so ethereal and just beautiful and haunting and.... She had several pieces with tree imagery, so of course my heart went pitter-patter. She also had stiched a bunch of tea bags together in one of her pieces. It was amazing.

There were several painters that really tempted my wallet. Their styles were in the folk genre. I am sure there is a better term for it, but I can't think of it for the moment. I think that the style is sometimes referred to as primitive art, or evoking primitive art. Whatever it is, I just love it. Love. The rich symbolism is what gets me.
Nathaniel Mather
Chris Roberts-Antieu-Her work is actually not painting, but sewn fabric.
Justin Robinson from Alabama- will have a web site soon, just noting this here so that when I lose my little slip of paper with his information, I will have it saved some where. I really really wanted all his paintings.

Those were my personal favorites. As I said we went late in the day and it was crowded, I am sure I missed other jewels. All in all, an art fair that I will definitely look forward to in the future.

another reworked painting

What We Pass On
oil on canvas
16x20 inches

A few posts ago I mentioned that I have been pulling old work, dusting them off and painting over them. This painting is another reworked piece. But it's not as old as the other ones I have been repainting. The original was painted in 2007 for my Expecting show. I liked it and had it hanging in our bedroom, right across from our bed. And so every morning I would wake up and see it....I think that may have been the problem because i started getting that itch to take it down and change it. I resisted, but finally I caved. It's different, for sure. Better? Worse? I don't know and I'm not really interested in that answer. The itch has been scratched and now I can move on.


detail- working out my symbols



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Tonight is my handbuilding class at Lill Street. My plan as Haley Nagy asked in my last post, is to add encaustic wax to the clay after the first bisque firing. I'm excited to see what comes of my experiments.



This is a photo taken on my iphone when I was Lill Street on Sunday. It's a wall of test glazes. It looks like colorful honeycomb! I love pottery studios so much. Everything about it. The fresh earth smell, the clay pieces in different stages, the big kilns, the glazes. I wish I could still work on the wheel, but my arthritis prevents me. Just throwing those 2 pieces last Sunday sparked a minor flare. Ah well, I don't need anymore distractions, now do I?

virtues undiscovered

virtues undiscovered
encaustic
6x6 inches

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


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Instead of my usual studio day today I went to Lill Street for a makeup ceramics class (I missed my first class on handbuilding on Tuesday night). The only class they could fit me in was Beginning Pottery. We made pinch pots and threw on the wheel. It's been almost ten years since the last time I worked in clay, but it was amazing how my hands remembered it all. I threw 2 pots, but ended up adding them back to my clay supply. I want to save my clay for my handbuilding class.

I ended up helping the women next to me with centering the clay and pulling the walls. I remember the days when I first started throwing on the wheel back in high school. My teacher made us make 20 vessels....then cut each of them in half! It made us gasp in horror, but it was such a good lesson. Of learning to let go. Of letting yourself take risk in order to grow. Of learning that it takes a lot of ugly little pots to make something better. We had to look at the bisected vessels to see our mistakes so that we could improve our techniques. We had to learn that with ceramics, disaster can strike at any step, so it's better to not get too attached and be prepared for anything.

I was coaching the woman next to me with centering and making the well in the center. When she was ready to start pulling the walls up, I said, "ok, you're all set to start pulling". She looked at me and said, "Oh no! I'm scared." I told her that it's ok, it's her first time on the wheel, it's just about practicing right now. But she decided to not pull the walls up and that she wanted to take it off the wheel. She said she wanted to have something that looked like a vessel for today's class. I said that that was perfectly fine and showed her how to take her little vessel off the wheel.

It was interesting being an observer in today's class-seeing fear and excitement in approaching something new and different. But how that discomfort can freeze us, inhibit us from taking the next step. I'm still learning those lessons too, just a different manifestation of it at this stage in my creative process. But art making is all about risk taking. My biggest leaps are always when I try something different. I actually feel like I learn something new from each painting I do. It's all about the seeking and the searching. And the letting go.

from darkness comes light

from darkness comes light
encaustic on clayboard
6x6 inches

Back to my small paintings. I made a few small ones in the past 2 weeks, and only have one left from my stash.

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I've been having a lot of computer problems lately. It is aggravating and frustrating, but it's also been a nice break. With Facebook, twitter, blogs, web sites, emails, ay, ay, ay, it all adds up to too much time. I used to do all my computer stuff at night or while my little guy naps. But lately I have been just too tired. I think my body is trying to tell me something. Rest!

I was wondering the other day what life was like before the internet....I got my first email address my freshman year in college and was one of the last people to do so because the computer lab was sooooooooo far away. Not really, but it seemed like it. That was only 15 years ago and the way we communicate has changed so much since then.

I apologize to anyone expecting an email or response from me. I hope to tackle my inbox soon!