Monday Mind Mining

Well can't give you a good reason why I just can't seem to get here every single day. I certainly have the time. There is just this part of me that wants to pour the words in here and just say whats on my brain but .. then you can't take it back. I don't think it matters that much but mining my mind can sometimes dig up some pretty strange things, thoughts, ideas or words. I am always wanting to share my feelings but then I guess in some ways it's like sharing paintings or sewings or writings .. you can either comment or not. I think I just want to say the words so they'll leave my mind mining less cluttered or messy from all the feelings that seem to want to stick to the inside of my heart. Maybe thats it .. just obscure the thoughts or feelings in really silly rhymes or just paint them or shoot them with a camera. Maybe some day I'll just figure it out and let it be what it needs to be.

I can't seem to pin down one single theme of work. I struggle with this notion that I should focus on one or maybe even just two different things to create as an artist. I love to paint different subject matter or with different mediums. I enjoy doing things with cloth and texture and discharge and dye. Sewing and stitching and writing stories.

I sometimes really just get out of the box in my former mindset and do some things that I would have never done. So here is a painting that I did on the top of some discharged fabric. This really excited me because I can't seem to stop looking at it. I never know why these things occur or if they are just my very own personal fascination with texture and the way that I can use paint. I am thinking a series of these would be very interesting.

Tuesday Today is a New Day

Well it's been a while since I have posted. I got sick with a bad cold and I just didnt have the energy and sometimes inertia slows and momentum fails .. and the pendulem swings back the other way .. so I've been out for a while. I have however still been creating while laying around. I can't go long with out creating something .. I have too .. I just do. Lately, I have been obsessing over white and white dots.
I like the look on her face and just stylized her hair .. anyway .. i enjoyed doing this.












The baby on the right .. just wanted to have the white on white look .. it was an experiment. It looks better in real life then in the photo.

And below are more white on antique paper. I love that shade of yellowish brown as the ground for painting images.

And I still can't go with out using the walnut ink. I've been doing these too.

So that's all I got right now .... I've missed posting. I have other things that I've been doing. I'm hoping the momentum will start me moving more into posting. It gives me some proof that I am doing something with my time. Thanks for looking.

Monday Mindful Menagerie

Finally the snow has dissipated enough to get around and generally get back to normal ... it was a long long week last week. I loved having a forced time to be at home with no possibility of leaving. I used to feel alone when I was by myself and there are times I feel lonely but for the most part I find that I am finally able to be free to be creative and just let my mind wander with the creativity. I painted every day and all day and sometimes into the wee hours of the night. I finally took photos of everything that I did during that time. It's kind of a menagerie of images but still in the theme of trees and outdoor images. I love how beautiful the snow makes the world look and I'm very grateful that it never lasts very long here. This past ten days has been the longest. And even though I love to be alone I was really looking forward to being with people. I had several fulfilling conversations. As always these images are my original paintings. Thank you for looking.

Friday Frigid Fragments

Well .. finally I have decided to post when I can and not be so upset with myself for not doing this every day .. I think I will try to work up to it. I have been stuck inside here all week due to weather .. yep snowed in. I've been ok with that because I've been painting alot. I did make up two rolls of composted fabrics but .. I'll talk about those later. I really do prefer the warmer weather for dying and such things but I did manage to extract some nearly rotten walnuts from my back yard before the snow hit. When we had one day of nearly 60 degree temps .. i thought it was practically spring. This week .. we've had 6 -8 inches of snow and cold cold cold .. So I did boil up my walnuts for a bit of walnut ink which I used in some tree paintings.

I'm hoping to get out of here tonight for a little bit. I'm just a tad lonely from no human contact for about 6-7 days. Above is the street that I live on .  Below is one painting that I did several months ago .. I'm not sure if it's done yet .. but it was stimulated by all the fiber artists that I see in blogs .. love all of the influence they have had on my creativity. I also find that I am really attracted to all things fiber and eco dyed.

 I think I enjoy the details of this painting more then the whole painting.

I really enjoyed painting this .. and I have noticed how much I enjoy the varying shades of white over different colors. I guess I will keep with this style of painting until I'm done with them.

There is one other work that I did a few weeks back ... when every one of the fiber artists that I follow were weaving fabrics .. I've been saving something I generate every day .. and that is coffee filters. So what is below here is cut up coffee filters that were woven and glued to a walnut dyed record album .. haha. Using what I have. and then embellished with the wonderful colors from Prismacolored pencils.

Ok .. better go before its too late. I'll post my snow day paintings tomorrow.



 

Saturday skipped a day or two.

... two days gone and I can't take em back. I didnt post. I am still wanting to do this every day . but I also wanted to combine it with new work .. or at the least something new that i've recently done. So I have some new works but .. no photos yet. So I'm going to look and see what new photos I DO have .. for I think that all things go better with something visually to see ..
The image here is only part of a chalk pastel that I did nearly ten years ago. This was a lesson in how to use the imagery that we see in our lives and expand on it. It's a good way to give yourself food for thought and composition as well as how you keep some parts and throw away the rest. I had this in a pile of other works that I have kept in my studio. I was going through these a few months ago and did a post of some other earlier works and this is another one. I"m sure you'd be surprised to know where this image was seen. Anyway when I saw this I realized how life sometimes changes how you see things. My taste in color and various things are always changing and this top section of the work here just seemed to GRAB me .. it grabbed me for the colors and had a strong feeling to me spiritually .. it seemed deeper than when I originally created it. So I just find it interesting to notice how older works can affect new work when you haven't seen them in a while.
I am thinking I need to create more work. I have finally decided on a new years word or two. I decided not to have a list of resolution but a theme to the next year. I guess it's best to put it down so that I can go back and see what it was and if I adhered to my own goals for the already passing year. Those words are Risk and Release. I intend to take more risks that will move me more into the directions that I wish to go. And I call them risks due to the fears I have about what I need to do. And Release is to let go of material things that are cluttering my spaces and my life and perhaps keeping me from living fully in the way that I want to live. SO there you have it. Not sure how much of this I will post about but .. i might.

Wednesday Mish Mash

Ok here's the second post of the year. I'm about to run out but am trying to get a foothold into keeping up with blogging and being optimistic about making art and the future. I do a lot of work that I never post. But also I post a lot of things that are different so sometimes I wonder if it's a mish mash. I can't seem to follow the "focus on one thing" suggestion due to the fact that I have so many varied interests but .. gallery's like bodies of work. So .. perhaps I just need to pick a theme... I'll be mulling that over. This is something that I experimented with a few months back but wasn't sure that I was finished with it. I still have a lot of trees left in me but I really love roots and rocks and rust and this painting below is a combination of those ideas although there aren't any real root feelings here .. but I did take rusted cotton and glue it with clear acrylic and then painted a variety of organic shapes on top. I worked on it for a while but then just got to the point that I wasn't sure it was finished or not. So I've had it sitting on a bookshelf where I can look at it from time to time. So .. I may add more things but I may not .. So here it is. The top photo is the whole painting which is about 11 x 14 and the bottom photo is just a detail of the lower left corner. Thanks for looking. Now I'm off to help daughter. Ps. You know now that I see this here maybe I'll just do a series of these. Where does the time go?

Tuesday Two Thousand Eleven

Well today is the first Tuesday of the year. I am going to try not to SHould on myself for not having blogged more at the end of the year but .. I wish I had .. hopefully this year will be more productive and always at the beginning of the year is hope. So heres hoping for the future.

Once upon a time a dear friend told me to never dismiss what people come into your life where ever and however and what they bring to you. Not physical things but words. Things that they say to you that may or may not have meaning. Sometimes I imagine some great orchestrator in the sky who is the great puppet master... and not that I think all people are like puppets but you never know. Anyway .. i imagine him trying to perhaps communicate to me through people with out directly telling me with his own words and so those people are the clerks, friends, strangers and that I happen to interact with from day to day. I don't always listen.

One such person that seemed to tell me things about my craft/art/creativity saw my purse (one that I've decorated and painted on) at a holiday party. I was in the kitchen chatting with people when I noticed this woman carrying my purse around asking people, "Is this your purse?" and i was kind of surprised and so I said .. "It's Mine!" and laughed. She proceeded to shower me with lovely affirming comments and then later as we talked and I told her about my situation she said .. what do yo love to do most? She said .. focus on that and gave me some other suggestions. I would like to make art for a living. Also on this same line of thinking I was reading a book and read a passage that sometimes the fear of success could be fear that the success will not be as grand as one has imagined. I'm not sure if I have the problem but clearly I have avoided posting my work in a place where people can purchase things that I create. Normally, I would say that I don't really create to sell but rather to satisfy some internal need to process the life that happens around me. It gives me great satisfaction to just find that I have skills to reproduce images or to create a mood and or sense of some emotion in some work that I have created. TO tell about what moves me or hurts or share my pain or my joy with the images. To create a connection to others in a visual way. I have mentioned before that I have found lots of satisfaction in giving away my art too. So... some of these gifts are what I give to family and friends for holidays, and birthdays.  I finished painting a wolf on a purse for a friend that requested it. I was so pleased that it turned out as good as I thought it did. It gave me great satisfaction. And she loved it. That was the best part. Here below is a picture of her gift. She wanted a wolf on a purse. I added the trees to cover some of the leathers indiscretions.

This is a leather purse.

Here is a photo of the back side.
This then is a blessing to me as much as it is to her.

Also here are some photos taken around my house. They involve the weather that we've had here lately. Much of this and the holidays has kept me away. It is my intention to be more attentive to the blog and my creativity and trying to make a living being an artist. Seems like a daunting task.