Open Studio

Now, I like a good, creative mess as much as the next artist.  But there comes a time when it just has to get cleaned up.  My studio is very, very small, and it gets cluttered very fast.  I thought it just needed a tidy.  Then I spilled about a pint of wax all over the floor and work table.  Then I  had a good look around, and found an old coffee cup that you really don’t even want me to describe.  Really.  And with a two week trip just around the corner, I wanted my studio to feel good to come home to.  So I launched into cleaning mode:

Scraped the table down, then the floor, dusted all my shelves and my palette, emptied the trash, cleaned all the glass, generally put things away, and….. voila!

A shiny, happy studio, ready for work when I get back.   

Okay, I have to admit that not a lot has been going on in my studio, but I have been working outside my studio!  I ran into some problems with my wax, and realized I’m kind of sick of it at the moment, and needed a little tantrum, er, I mean break…..  so gardening it has been, for a few days.  Getting my hands dirty always seems to have an (ironically) cleansing effect on me.  A few days pulling weeds and planting things, and I’m usually ready to tackle other things again.  So I thought I’d share a few pictures of the ongoing miniature garden plot.  This is really just a theraputic garden for me.  We subscribe to a CSA (Blue House Farm) that delivers a beautiful, bountiful box of organic green vegetables 6 months out of the year.  So technically, this garden isn’t necessary.  But growing things just really does something for me.

I dug the weeds out another 4 or 5 feet, and added a bean teepee, and some poppies.

I also added some permanent plants- some thyme, sage, and Tarragon, to keep the Oregano company.

As for that pesky wax, I had a large batch of it turn a deep brownish yellow in my crock pot. This batch of wax was already a little more yellow than it normally is, but having it in the crock pot totally ruined it.  So let my experience serve as a cautionary tale:  Clear beeswax does not like to be reheated, and does not like to sit for hours in a crock pot!  It even started to smell bad- pungent and strong. I had to throw the whole thing out.  I contacted R&F and they told me to only heat as much wax as I will use in one heating.  And maybe my crock pot heats hotter than I thought.  It is very old and does not have a temp gauge on it.  Ah, well, live and learn, eh?

Has anyone else out there had this problem with their wax?  I’d love to hear about it, and what you did to manage it.  In the mean time, I think a good studio cleaning is in order, and another try at this batch of granulated  wax. Wish me luck!

Working large in beeswax is a different animal, altogether.  I’ve been working on this piece for days now, and I’m just amazed at how different the process is when I scale up.  I guess I thought it would be a lot like doubling or tripling a recipe- just add more of everything and get more cookies!- but it’s not. The largest I’ve worked before in wax has been 16 x 16 inches.  This baby is 28 x 28.  Almost four times the size, and more than four times the work.  It’s exponential, I think.  But what is curious is the way the techniques actually behave and work differently. 

   Take fusing for example.  I usually fuse with a heat gun, and occasionally a travel iron that I picked up at a yard sale.  Fusing with a heat gun on a large piece of encaustic is really different- the wax behaves differently, with the pooling becoming more apparent than on smaller pieces.  Also, the pitting that looks interesting on a small piece suddenly becomes overwhelming on a bigger surface.  So I’ve been adjusting my technique as I go, scraping with a razor blade in between fusings with the heat gun to smooth out the surface, and smoothing the excess pitting with the travel iron.  I’ve been also using my light that is mounted on a stand to lightly fuse thin layers.  It has a 150 watt bulb, and does a good job of warming the surface and fusing delicate areas.  Also, laying down layers of beeswax is more difficult, because the wax starts setting about 10 inches into the stroke.  I can’t make it all the way across the panel in one brushstroke!

    It is so much more challenging, but I am figuring out some things, and learning a lot.  I think that in order to be happy with this medium (encaustic), I have to be willing to embrace it’s limitations and abilities, and keep working with what it is, rather than trying to force it to be something it is not.  When I just go with what it is, the rewards are so great. It always forces me to think of painting in completely new ways.  I’m really liking the way this larger piece is coming out.  I’ve just tried to emphasize translucency, and let the medium speak for itself.

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.  

Have I mentioned that encaustic painting is addictive?

So is working so small.  It’s like bite size art.  

I am painting, painting, painting for….a show in August, at Enso Gallery, here in Half Moon Bay.  I’m very excited to have a local show.  I’ll be showing these encaustics, and some new nest paintings.  Enso is a little gem of a gallery here on the coast, and they are great about supporting local artists.  They also have a wonderful yoga studio there, where I take classes sometimes…..I’m so pleased that I’ll be hanging this work there.

My sweetie back from Thailand and China…I love the tiny Buddah he brought back.

Finishing a sweater for my son…finally.  I haven’t been knitting much, so this has only taken me…uh….8 or 9 months.  Incredibly patient, that’s what Ian is.

Banana bread….

And my new encaustic panels.  I just made two new ones- 28″x28″- out of a hollow core door.  They seem expansive after all of my little 8 inch squares I’ve been doing.  It has been quite a project, just preparing these.  I am trying to work out how to attach a hanging wire to the back .  Since they are made from hollow doors, they are incredibly light and smooth.  I can’t wait to get going on these.

Some new work…..

I’ve really been enjoying working in this small format (8 x 8 inches) in such an open ended subject area.  The only criteria for them is the dominant color must be white, and that the subject involves repetition.  I’ve been playing with different ways of layering the wax, and applying it.  I also discovered that paint pens do just fine layered in with the wax, and am experimenting with a fine point white paint pen.  I got it for journaling, but it’s opened up another world with the encaustic, being one more way to create precise lines and imagery.  Encaustic is difficult to control, and generally takes a lot of deep breathing and letting go from me, because, well, I can be a control freak like that.  But that is also what I love so much about this medium- it keeps me on my toes, keeps me loose and open to possibility as I work, and it is such a rapidly evolving medium right now, with artists finding new ways to work with it all the time.  Each piece is a wild card.  

Here is another piece I finished the other night- sorry this photo is not sharper.  It is difficult to see the texture here- one of it’s assets, I think. The embroidered circles are doing a lot for these nest paintings, adding some unusual texture and relief to the image.  This, by the way, is the nest I wrote about a couple of posts ago. This is also a small piece.  I have been warming up to this painting small business.  It used to be that any painting under 3×4 feet seemed like a waste of time, but there is something so satisfying about being able to finish a painting in a relatively short period of time, and then being able to hold it in my hands and look at it….. instead of having to stand back 8 feet just to see it properly.  The small pieces are more intimate that way.  

Well, I’m off to make more tea, go to a friend’s baby shower in San Francisco, and then come home and paint sets for the play.  And maybe embroider more paintings…….Whew!

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.  

Nice and messy.  Just like I like it……

I’ve been getting a little more work done the last few days.  Mostly painting on canvas.

This first one here is just a detail from a two panel piece I am working on.  I am just working on messy layers right now, building up a rich surface with collage and paint.  My paintings are such chaotic scribbles before I start layering more recognizable imagery on there.  I really enjoy this stage of the painting process, because nothing can really go “wrong”, I have absolutely nothing to lose, and if I do something that I don’t like, it just becomes a puzzle to solve…..”how to work this in?”  Sometimes I just do a color wash over the whole thing, and keep going.  One of my goals has been to try to keep this frame of mind as the painting progresses, and ideally until it is finished.  It is sometimes more difficult, though, as the painting develops, because I become attached to something or another, and start wanting to paint around it, which almost never works.  

I wish this were a better photograph.  I’ve been having some trouble, lately, photographing my paintings because they have so much contrast.  My photos are washing out the whites.  What you can’t see in this photo is the different subtle whites that are surrounding the nest….light blue whites and golden whites.  I am liking the way this nest is coming along.  Maybe I’ll post it when it’s done.  I’ve got quite a pile of almost finished paintings that are awaiting the needle and embroidery floss.  I’ve got my work cut out for me this weekend.

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.