In the Studio

We’ve been remodeling our house – every room, it’s been going on since March & it has been a bit of a challenge to live around-not to mention finding space to keep creating. Some time in July, I had to move my last studio surface & transitioned to a card table. The limited space forced me to work small so I started experimenting with collage, drawing, ink, and acrylic washes. About this same time, fatigue of politics was also setting in. I had also been creating monotype’s of cactus and desert scenes on the gel plate and working on my lawn-chair series of paintings. I’m a bit multi-threaded when I create – I need to have multiple things going on at once.

While moving my studio contents (yet again) I found a book of old political buttons that I had been holding on to. I decided to cut cactus pads out of the pages of the political button book and collage them onto randomly painted pieces of paper that I had used to explore mark making. This led into two threads, the Invasive Species series of landscapes and a mixed media thread involving the feminine experience in the political realm (with a few lawn chairs thrown in for good measure). Here are a few examples from the Invasive Species series:

Invasive Species addresses frustration with the political process (and likely fatigue from repeatedly moving things from room-to-room) and the unwanted intrusions into our daily life from ads, commercials, texts, emails, mail, door-to-door and the news cycle (political, commercial, or otherwise). As the pieces evolved, I began to explore generally, unwanted intrusions into nature and solitude. This is an ongoing series (as are most of my series). They’re not yet available for sale, but will be posted sometime after January 1.

The other thread followed a similar train of inquiry with an emphasis on the female experience in the political realm. The female figure is prominent in a lot of my work and the mixed media pieces in this series represent my reaction to yet more “talking heads” (politicians, the press, etc., from ALL sides of the political spectrum) telling women how to think, act, live/behave and grouping (and judging women within each group), and chastising, criticizing, name calling any deviation. Here are a few examples of this thread in my mixed media explorations.

I discovered the gel plate in December 2022 while doing a Zoom art session with my niece. Once I tried it there was no looking back. Early on I challenged myself to create portraits, initially a series of five 8×10 images for each subject; lately (examples: Daniel and My Mom), I’m focusing on getting a single larger 14×12. Although the paint application varies, the process starts with an image that I transfer to the plate followed by application of acrylic paint.

When I’m done with a series (or something else I’m doing on the gel plate) I’ll experiment with the leftover paint on the palette by creating freehand faces. I call these my “grotesques” and use them to test out color combinations, textures, layering, paint application, and seeing how far I can push the image. They are a lot of fun, and you can see the variety of results from the examples below:

I wanted to do something for my best friend after her Mom passed away. As we were inseparable, I spent as much time at her house as my own and vice versa) so I deeply felt her loss. Her husband’s Mom had passed away as well, so I took on a double portrait – challenging because it was a surprise and I was painting a person (her husband’s Mom) who I had never met from a picture I swiped from Facebook. I did finally have to break down and ask some questions about ta few details. It’s now in itis new home, I’m told, overseeing the culinary activity.

Latest in the Lawn Chair Series, we all have that one (or more) relative or friend that tells the same story every time you get together. Like The Horror, this one is oil over acrylic on roofing felt–I’m drawn to the texture of the gessoed felt, it’s stiffer than canvas but more “velvety” than prepared paper.

Side note: I’ve decided on a sub series of this theme, my goal is to create 1,000 of these (nothing like hammering home the repetition)! We’ll see if I make it, going to work on these around my other works.

Finished the most recent in the Lawn Chair series, The Horror. Flashing back to the stories we share when we’re with family and friends, some more palatable then others. . Coming from a large family, webbed lawn chairs were ubiquitous—they were at every family gathering, little league game, picnic, concert in the park—whenever friends and family gathered, the lawn chairs were there. In this series, the chairs take on a life of their own, superseding their function, as they bear witness to the more subtle undercurrents of the dynamics of those gatherings.

This piece was a bit of a change in technique, with oil over a pretty well developed acrylic underpainting (vs. Judgy, also in this series which is completely in oil).

All artists approach their work differently. I spend a great deal of time time experimenting and evaluating — and, not everything turns out how you’d expect (that’s where you find the magic) or even worth keeping (there is a lot of trial and error but you always learn something). Typically, I’ll have an idea (such as the lawn-chair series, see 11/19/23 post) or wonder “what if” – today’s post is about the latter. I’ve been working on portraits and wanted to try out some disrupted reality and different palette combinations. I started by creating an abstract background using nearly every color of acrylic paint that I own. I then painted my Dad’s portrait emerging from that background. I then did a second painting, this time limiting the colors to 1 red, 1 yellow, 1 blue, black & white (I used very little black & white). Both studies appeal in different ways – the vibrancy of the first resonates with my current preference for brighter colors and more looseness and movement in my work. The second resonates as it also captures my desire to work loosely but also has a more calming vibe (expected due to the color harmony). What do you think? Which do you prefer?