Open Studio

Here are two newly finished nest paintings that I’ve previously shown in earlier stages of development….

Both 24 x 24 inches, mixed media and acrylic on canvas.  I just finished the embroidery on these this morning, while drinking my coffee.  The top image was painted from a nest that my husband’s parents found in their wood pile.  The second, from the nest found outside my studio. I’ve been working so much in encaustic lately that these two poor things have been sitting, forlorn, in a corner, waiting to be finished for a few weeks now.  Sometimes I think I enjoy paintings more after not looking at them for a while.  It was nice to come back to these after a break, and see that they held up.  A little space can be a good thing.

However, sometimes a little space can turn into too much space…. that has been the case lately with my husband traveling for work….. (sigh).  Can you tell that I miss him?  It’s been several weeks, this trip, but I am very happy to say that his company is flying me to spend some time with him in……Thailand.  Yes, that’s where he’s been working, and that’s where I’m going, for two weeks.  I’ve never been to Thailand, but it looks like a lovely, wonderful country, and I’m taking my sketchbook, two blank art journals, and my camera and anticipating lots and lots of inspiration.  Not to mention my sweetie, and our 15th anniversary.  I’m hoping I’ll be able to keep up with my blog while I’m away, and share some of this with you all, so stay tuned!

Okay, so It’s not all beeswax and canvas and painting around here.  My kids and some friends went to an anime convention this weekend in San Jose, and we spent some quality time sculpting with- hairspray!  They dressed up as characters from a favorite video game, in all of their dramatic, weird glory….. we had a lot of fun.  

My daughter, Allie, is devoted to her own drawing, so it was great to visit the “artist’s alley” at the convention, and see artists sketching, and look through the sketchbooks that they often had out on the tables.  I was extremely impressed with some of the work I saw there.  So much talent.  

Ian and I also went to the San Jose Museum of Art and saw the “Robots” show, which I wasn’t expecting to enjoy nearly as much as I did.  I especially enjoyed the work of Thomas Zummer, Michael Mew, and Jeff Soto.  

So, after much over stimulation, we are settling in for an evening of watching Juno in our PJs and eating decompression food- aka ice cream.  mmmmmm……….

As I was cleaning up in the yard the other day, getting ready to mow the lawn, I saw this….

I didn’t even know right away what it was, and I think I stepped on it.  It is a hummingbird nest, about the size of a golf ball.  You can’t see in this photo, but it still has tiny egg shards in it.  The lining is some really soft fiber, like a cotton ball.  I am starting to think my studio is a nest magnet.

I love the way each bird chooses completely different materials, carefully constructing and arranging.  This one used redwood from our mulch, and some of the moss that grows on the dead pine trees in my neighbors yard.  

At least for me it is.  I resisted this for a long time, though.  I think I was afraid that if I let it be too personal, it would not be taken seriously.  So I detached myself from it, instead focusing on experimental landscapes that felt safe.  I was a young woman, trying to be taken seriously (and trying to take myself seriously) while having babies and generally being overwhelmed.  I love a lot of the work that came out of that time period (my mid twenties to early thirties)….. it’s just that it didn’t have that much to do with what was actually going on in my life.  I was full time with kids, and all of the craziness and immediacy that ensues, and didn’t have time to be out photographing and sketching for afternoons, or to come back home and create the large landscapes that I longed to continue with.  Finally, as Julia Cameron would say, the well went dry.  My paintings felt empty and overworked….. the painter’s equivalent of writer’s block.  It was like chewing on cardboard.  

Then I stumbled on a book that tripped me out.  It was Spilling Open by Sabrina Ward Harrison.

 She’s written/painted a few books since then, but that first one is still my favorite.  It is artistically and visually stunning, but what really got me was how personal it is.  It just shot right through me.  This was new to me- the idea that good art could be personal and feminine, and raw,  and just plain tell the truth.  That I didn’t need to distance myself from my experience, and add several layers of hazy intellectualism, in order to make a painting.  It was a new concept, that when I come to the canvas, I am enough.

So then I started asking myself new questions… like if I could paint anything, what would I paint?  If I could use any medium I wanted, what would I use?  I know this sounds silly- like why in the world wouldn’t I be asking myself those questions before?  But I had not let myself think this way in a long time, and it was new.  It has really changed my painting.  And my attitude. Nowadays, I can’t wait to paint.  The resistance I used to feel (you know- that gut churning feeling that procrastination brings on) just isn’t there.

And so much work has flowed from those questions.  The dress series, to begin with, and the nests, and this blog. And I’m finding that if I let my life and desires lead me, the complexity of meaning is still there. Really, so much of desire is universal. And even a dogged kind of intellectualism tags along behind, offering explanations for the symbolism in my paintings.  I like that the explanations don’t come first, though.  The painting comes first. 

I started with dresses.  I think I’ll end with them, too…..

For more about my dress series visit my website.

As many of you know, I am fascinated by nests. If this nest looks familiar, it’s because I’ve painted it several times…. isn’t it beautiful?

This last winter, as my studio was nearing completion, I noticed a nest lodged in a tree that overhangs one of the skylights.  It was way out on the end, perching there, looking like it should have fallen out long before. It looked stark out there by itself, without even the leaves of the tree to put it into context.  I thought about getting up onto the roof to look at it, but decided that it was out of my reach, a bit too high up for me to get to.  If I stood in the right spot in my studio, I could look up through the skylight and see it. 

One night, the wind picked up, and we live out here on the Northern California coast, which means that it really picked up. It was absolutely howling, all night, with driving rain.  A few times that night, I woke from the noise of the storm, and looked out my bedroom window to check on the nest, and each time was amazed to see it still hanging in there, swaying like a crazy thing on the end of that branch.  In the morning, I checked again, and it was still there.  Amazing.  By then, the wind was dying down, and I was relieved to see that the nest had survived.

Later that morning, I went out to the studio to make sure that the skylights had not leaked.  Everything was fine, and as I was leaving to go back into the house, something caught my eye. There, on one of the wet flagstones by the door was the nest, still clinging to a little section of the branch, looking for all the world like an offering.  

It’s really weird to me how life seems to simultaneously speed up and slow down when I get sick, as I was this last week.  Flu. Not fun.  My tendency to stay vertical and moving doesn’t help things. So much to do!  So, you can imagine, not much going on in the studio.  But I did work a little in my new journal. I’ve been thinking and writing about where “deep well”  inspiration comes from. Where new ideas that pop into my head come from. I think it’s different for all of us, but I think for me it is about creating stability, a base, an internal home, to come back to and act out of …a place where the seed of authenticity and singularity can grow.  Fertile ground, inside. Without it, my ideas seem to lose their initial brightness before fading away. For me, the integration of routine (action) and introspection is key.

Another new thing:  A table for encaustic. It will be so nice not to be hunched over when I’m working anymore. My father built this table when I was a kid to hold his photography equipment. He and my mom are moving out of the house I grew up in, and I was very enthusiastic about adopting this table. It is truly perfect. I’ve been itching to start some large encaustics, and now I have the space!

Also, this week I’ll have new work up in Atlanta.  Huff Harrington is featuring new work by gallery artists in their show, Wet Paint. You can check out the announcement here.

One of the things I’ve been trying to do is look at creativity in a more global way….to try to be more aware of  the creativity that is woven into my life and of the way that feeds into more creativity.  As my awareness grows, so does my tendency to plant little seeds of creative potential as I go, and then watch as they build upon one another- sometimes in unexpected ways. The most obvious way is this:

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The first is a stack of cut plywood, waiting for sanding, and the second is same plywood, covered with paper, and waiting for the first coat of beeswax.  A lot of the time I don’t feel like doing the prep work, like this. It’s tedious, or boring. Not nearly as exciting as painting.  But if I don’t take breaks from painting to do work like this, I run out of painting supports, and it breaks my painting momentum.But it isn’t always so obvious.

Here is a table in our family room…..in all of it’s glorious, messy, chaos. Talk about creative potential! A lot goes on at this table- worlds are created, characters come into being, objects are built…..and having the space set aside for this creates the potential for that. It’s an important part of our home life.  And my creative life.  It’s viral, creativity. It’s essential. And, honestly, does it get any better than this? 

 This is actually what I made the most progress on today.  I know, I know, It’s not painting.  But would you believe me if I told you that it is related?  Because of course it is.  There is something about digging in the ground that gets my creativity going.  I think this sort of work creates a little mind space, so that my ideas can bubble up without strain, without too much intention.  Just flow.  So, in that way, it was a very productive day.  I cleared half of my future vegetable bed and dug in some soil conditioner.  I am only planting a few things - mainly for the pleasure of growing something- because we have a CSA starting in May that takes us through October and is truly abundant and splendid.  I will have more veggies than I know what to do with.

The studio has seen some action this week, too.

This….

and this…

and this.

 The last one here is a journal I am working on.  I use the Molskine Japanese albums, which are a little hard to find, but I love them.  The first thing I do is put several layers of color, gesso, and maybe a little random collage in there.  Sometimes I sew into them.  That is all so that I don’t have to face a white page.  It primes the page, so that ideas flow for me more easily.  These are small enough that I can carry them with me and add things as I am inspired.  Pretty great.