Monthly Newsletter

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  “It’s about time”, Mixed media on panel, 17.5×10″ $180

The other day I responded to a question on Facebook by Renee Phillips of Manhattan Arts International. She asked artists to comment on the post “Dear Artist, What’s a favorite art supply, material or medium you love to use most and why.”  People mentioned the richness of certain watercolors, the quick drying advantages of acrylics, the feel of wet clay among others.

I was in the process of designing a piece of art in response to the Collage Artists of America’s themed online show ‘It’s about Time’.  We had been asked to interpret the phrase any way we chose.  Bearing in mind the timeline on which this show was announced, I anticipated they expected may entries about the timeliness of the recent changes brought on by the #BLM movement.  My thoughts however went to the words of a friend who is currently on a journey with cancer.  She has progress and setbacks.  Some things held in check, new things popping up.  Extraneous issues like being self employed so ineligible for disability, annual changes in carrier by her spouse’s employer, who provides the health insurance, and of course the threat of covid.
The artwork incorporates some of her steps in the numbers on a handless clock, the extraneous issues in surrounding teardrops, and on the  rods of the pendulums, her quote that inspired me: “I know that the  cancer will take me, I just want some more time.”

So back to the question on Facebook.  My response was that my favorite material was my imagination, it allowed me to create art in response to such inspirations and challenges as the one mentioned.  Serendipitously in today’s reading from 365 Tao (Deng Ming Dao) is the paragraph: “Why concern yourself exclusively with the mechanics of a situation?  That is like seeking an artist’s genius in the brushes; it is the mind of the artist, not the tools, that is responsible for the beauty of a painting.”
When I went back to find whether anyone else had posted an answer similar to mine, I found my comment had been removed.

I guess I think a little too far outside the box.

Aside from the fact that I’m slowly putting a lot of art up on my Etsy site (it’s amazing how much time it takes to pull everything out, photograph it in various poses and edit the results) I’ve been working on a fun book-length poem about hognose snakes, with illustrations.  I can complete this amount of work because, it may not surprise you to learn, everything else is cancelled. 

La Mirada talk and demo

Last week I went to the monthly meeting of the La Mirada Art Club to talk about my work and demonstrate part of my process for them.  I was fortunate that one of the members agreed to take some pics of me working while I was assembling the refractured watercolor.

Here’s the empty room, just when I’d set up.

After having watched me brutally hack up my painting, I start by assembling the horizon. 

I usually am looking at the sky the ‘right way up’…..

…and I usually start with the top of the sky….

Now it’ starting to come together.

Sliding some deeper blue under other pieces.

Well folks, that’s all we have time for tonight.

This is the layout that I created at the demo, but I just picked up the pieces without marking their places.

This is the final product

The poem in it reads:

Dawn leaves me speechless

These gold and turquoise jewels

precious beyond words.

 

Monthly newsletter

Ha – got so busy for a while, I forgot to post this month’s newsletter!

 

Another fun class

Four students had a lot of fun at sm’Art Studio on Tuesday creating artworks and cards in my Watercolor Collage class.  I’m going to run the class again next month (date TBD – let me know if you’re interested) at sm’Art, but it’s also running next Wednesday at Yuma Art Center. (sign up here).

 

Sonnet Challenge #32

I get inspiration when at art fairs from my neighbors.  At the SouthWest Festival last weekend the booth across from me was selling metal cacti and palm trees. It inspired me to write a sonnet about the real thing.

Cacti

Cacti protect themselves with spiky skin
from critters that would like to eat their flesh,
but on account of that protective mesh
of thorns, cannot get to the juice within.
Cacti may bloom when given sufficient rain.
The pincushion creates a sudden flower,
bright in the sun, until another shower,
with nectar got bees spreading pollen down the chain
of life. Some cacti hide their spikes inside –
the poison pencil’s not the one to chew.
Others make buds that drop and roll and root anew
and spread their kind through desert far and wide.
So if your home’s where little water went
it’s probably best to be a succulent.

Newer work #83

“Heartrise” is one for the raising of the saddened soul – the words are written first on a lower heart, then on a couple higher ones.  It was one that I thought was appropriate for the competition “Gateway to Imagination” for which it is entered.  I won’t find out if it is accepted until late August, though.

#1355 Heartrise. Mixed media on panel, 12×9″. The words painted into it are: “My heart rises each dawn into possibility”

Here you can see the texture.

Monthly Mailing May

Here’s my monthly mailing newsletter – reaching out to everyone with whom I cannot reach out face to face.

Indio Chalk Festival, Day 3.

I awoke to a cloudy sky.  There had been a forecast of possible overnight rain, and I had put a tarp over my painting, though it was not big enough and I could only tarp about 60% of the finished part.  As I was starting to get ready to leave, it started to rain.  There wasn’t any time in which to hurry any faster.  It rained a little as I drove the 40 miles to Indio.  When I got there, Mamun (the city planner) was walking out to the parking lot.  He said to me ‘It rained hard here overnight, it’s a disaster, it’s all gone.’  $%&#$%^. Then he confessed he was joking.  $%&#$%^, Mamun!

We did have some sprinkles during the day, much of the morning I had most of my work tarped, even under the canopy.  It cleared up in the afternoon, though there is still a forecast of rain overnight.    Here’s the progress.

Some clouds and a bit of space going in.

All the sky is done now.

Here come the clouds – in more ways than one.

I’m hiding it from the rain here, some is blowing in under the canopy.

Space is finished, now to add space objects.

All done except for those cracks I found I can fill with chalk easily

Some of the crowds, some of the clouds. It actually got a lot** busier than this, but I was busy at that time.

Totally finished. “The artist as part of the environment”. 8’x8′, chalk on blacktop.

Let’s go check out some of the competition.

Competitor 1

Competitor 2

Competitor 3

Competitor 4

Competitor 5

Competitor 6

Competitor 7

Competitor 8

Judging is at noon tomorrow, but we have to be done by 10am.

 

Folded Flamingo

Teach’s Folded Flamingo.

Many years ago I went through a bird-painting phase.  A couple of these have made great subjects for my Monday afternoon class.  This Monday just past, I guided the group through creating a flamingo that had folded its long neck up so it could hide its beak in its wings.  Here’s the group having completed their versions of Folded Flamingo.

Seven more Folded Flamingo

The oldest studio

I always figured that the oldest known art work was the paintings on the caves at Lascaux, but it appears there is another category in the ancient art world – the studio!  Or perhaps it is best described as the paint manufacturer.  I think many people forget how much chemistry there is in art – here’s an article about some of the pigments that they worked with about 42,000 years ago.

It seems though that they hadn’t gotten into being muralists at that time, likely just body painting.  So that classifies it as time-based art.  Or beauty products…..