Grad School

I forgot to mention anything because it was a whirlwind. But I'll be going to UMass Dartmouth next year!!! It looked like a great program with a balance between conceptual and traditional painting techniques. AND I may get to go along to Sicily for three weeks as a teaching assistant. Yea!!!

Lacrimosa 24 x 48"

Perhaps you can't see this very well, but I have begun another large panel. This one has three crying finches on it. For the moment the birds are vehicles for autobiography - stories about my family and about illness. The subject seems more down to earth to me than earlier ideas about evolution; and I think there is a certain spiritual meditation going on here that will allow me to access and incorporate religious references. We'll see. I did my thinking and this is the path I am walking down right now. While I do it, I have to put the thinking aside and use my intuition instead. Stay tuned...

Improvements

Remember this one? It went from this....

to this..

Beginnings...

Pulmonary: 11 x 14"

I sat down to work on this for two or three hours yesterday, and I'm getting a good start.

Pulmonary

Pulmonary: 11 x 14"

Above is the first sketch of a new painting I am beginning. I am thinking of using the birds in the fashion of Mexican Catholic "milagros" - the word means "miracles" in Spanish. Small charms are fashioned from metal in the shape of ills or trials about which people may offer prayers to God. Small legs, ears, or even children are made to represent illness, disability, or the wish for a baby. I am thinking to introduce tiny beaded milagros on the bodies of the birds which indicate the ares where I pray for the health and safety of those I love. Perhaps capitalizing on the altar idea uncovered in this month's critique.

Buttons and finches

Buttons and finches: 8 x 8"

Above is another variation on the sketch theme - a small painting where I can quickly play with an idea. I am deciding to sand down the larger Darwin's finches piece and instead am using the imagery of the finch heads in this smaller piece - perhaps to work out how best to employ them. This painting is borrowing from the more structured compositions of the earlier Warbler experiments when I worked with orzo and beans.

Sketch paintings

I have been busy lately - too busy. But I am working in the studio as well as flying through my life and hanging on. Below are a series of small paintings wherein I have been working out ideas on abstraction and collage. You may recognize the last image as having been posted earlier. The other three are an expansion on the idea of brainstorming in beads and paint.

sketch 2: 6 x 6"

sketch 4: 5 x 5"

sketch 3: 5 x 5"

sketch 1: 6 x 6"

Fishing for show titles

I'm just putting it out there, but it's time to start coming up with a title for my August solo show. And well, you know how well I do with titles...If I were a wordsmith, I would be a writer not a painter. So I'm looking for ideas. So far I'm considering "Songbirds". I expect to include the two large panels I completed recently - Hunger and Hope/Heal; as well as the four square bird paintings made during the fall - sparrow, oak warbler, chickadee, and house finch; and the small warbler project paintings with the pulses adhered to the panels. That will give you an idea of what you're naming...

Teeny tiny sketch painting 5 x 5"

I bought a few small panels with the idea of working towards an installation painting, as I'll call it. (A series of small pieces installed on a wall in an organic arrangement.) But here I've used the panel to play and work out the new materials I am beginning to incorporate into my work. I'm smitten.

Amazing little embroideries

I beginning to explore the possibilities of textiles in my paintings which makes stumbling upon these very exciting. I like the combination of materials; and the humor in the pieces makes them particularly fun.

Darwin's finches 48 x 24"

This painting is not going well. And the more I work on it I believe that I am fighting the underlying grid I set up with the repeating pattern of birds heads. I have brainstormed lately about the concepts that interest me and I've come to some ideas about science and metaphysics that I would like to explore. The current piece Darwin's finches uses diagrams of the heads of finches that Darwin discovered in the Galapagos which led the development of the idea of evolution and natural selection. Thus far I am awkwardly bridging the gap between thought and it's visual expression; but I am sure after some more time and experimentation I will hit upon a good visual articulation of this idea. The painting is also unfolding quickly which is resulting in some muddying of the color. I am considering putting this aside for a while and allowing it to fully dry before reworking the piece.

Unfinished warbler

Click here to find a wonderfully strange unfinished painitng of a bird I stumbled upon. The text is what makes it intriguing...

Hope

I have tried to open up with this piece. I haven't built up the same layer of paint that is at work in the sister painting, but I am focusing on not letting that be a hindrance. I began tracing the sparrows in this painting then moving them around the composition and transferring them onto the surface of the painting with carbon paper. The result is a nice graphic outline of the birds hidden within the paintwork. They are a type of second generation image. I am also beginning to work with the birdsong. Birdsong came up at the Mass Art interview, and mention of it made me realize that I had yet to explore the attributes of the birds I was so keen on including in my work. So here I've taken the first portion of the Savannah Sparrow song tititi and transcribed it to Morse code, dash dot dash dot dash dot. It is sprinkled throughout the composition.

Maybe now it's called "Hunger"

I apologize for the inexpertly Photoshopped image. It fell victim to my camera work and perhaps I should've reshot it, but I was eager to post the image online.

I had my grad school interview with Mass Art on Tues and it brought up some interesting issues for me concerning my work. It was suggested that I had not really achieved a dialogue or integration between my painted images and the abstract substrate of my paintings. And I agree. The birds are somehow seemingly superfluous. I am thinking on why I incorporate them and what I may be hoping to ask or investigate with them. Formally, I am beginning to allow the paint to violate the borders of the birds. I am also continuing to introduce new realistic elements throughout the entire process of the painting hoping that this will be a start to better integrating them into the many layers of mark. This piece was already on a trajectory to go "over the top" visually, but an issue that I voiced during the interview was that I was seeking to make my work opulent or gaudy. I know that I haven't quite pushed it as far as I can go - so here's my latest effort.

Hope 4' x 2'

Heal

Can I pay someone to name my paintings?...Really. It's a task in which I feel I come up short.




So here is an Untitled piece which I began working on again today. It was very simple, I set aside four hours for painting and wrote the schedule in my day planner. And what do you know? I stuck to it!

The consensus in the critique was that this piece functioned really well albeit without a focal point. Previously I had given up on it not knowing where to go. And while we sat in the studio talking about it I realized it raised the question of complete abstraction for me. The background texture and complexities are really what concerned me most in making this painting. The birds were including through force of habit. I think I found a happy resolution to that situation today by taking the dive and painting out two of the birds; and developing the problem bird in the bottom right of the composition. I think this allowed me to fully explore the intricacies of the abstraction while creating a focal point. I'll take a few days break so that the heavy paint can dry and see what I think.

See the last photo of this painting that I posted here. (It's a bad photo, sorry.)

Panel no. 2; 4' x 2'

I am already well beyond what is pictured above. I have fully articulated the third bird pictured here as only a drawing. And I began working with doilies to build texture and weight at the bottom of the composition. This panel is much drier than Heal and I am not sure if I will keep or lose that aspect. So far it feels neat, perhaps pastel. There is text throughout the work. They are phrases from a radio show I listened to while working. The show talked about various imaginings of the afterlife. The particular snippets I chose struck me as very poetic; "brief twinkling", "recycling of souls", "when your name is spoken for the last time".

Heal

I worked in the studio last night which is unusual for me. I generally spend my days painting. But I think there is something to be said for the change in routine to shake things up. I went a little wild and began pressing stuff into the paint to affix it to the panel. I'll take a breather to see what I think, and if I like it, I plan to build it up more. For now there are some lengths of lace, a few buttons, and strands of thread dotting the picture. Perhaps like the materials a bird would use for a nest...

Heal, 4' x 2'

Here's the first of the three two foot by four foot panels I am working on in the studio at the moment. I remember saying I was stuck when I began the last "sketch" Flutter. I suppose now I am considerably "unstuck". The painting is lurching and reeling towards something right now. It feels awkward, but positive. I am opening up to the possibilities of accident and mess and the grotesquely beautiful. When I told this to my husband, he mutely nodded and left the studio. I suppose he was confirming the "grotesquely beautiful" part (in the kindest possible way). No matter. I think I'm onto something.