Doors Are Opening

One quiet winter morning last year, I went for a leisurely walk to drop some packages off at the post office. On my way back and en route to pick up a cup of coffee at Slates and my studio, I came upon this door. I have looked at this photograph a lot since, not knowing why I was connecting with it.

This door is now the entryway to my new studio and for our home for Cerulean. The door looks quite a bit different now. The paint chips have been sanded off and a red door has emerged from this blue layer.

We never know at the time when we are being pointed a certain direction but we just have to be open to it.

Life As Usual

Someone once told me that it is believed that Americans are proud of how busy we are. Interesting thought. I never reflect on my busy-ness with a feeling of proudness but rather one of "have I again stretched myself a bit too thin?" Perhaps we all do this, but I do know that I fall victim of myself - I create activities when maybe I should just do simply...nothing. I like feeling accomplished, of crossing things off the list, and of contributing to the world - my community, my family.. This summer I picked up the book "The Art of Nothing" and what I pulled from it was to allow myself to meander (in my art practice). This new permission came to me while teaching a "Back To Basics" painting course this summer at Cerulean, among a delightful group of adults. They too were inspiration and I have found myself since creating a body of works that take a different view to landscape. I collected a large handful of magazine photographs of views from way above and have been way up there ever since. Images to come...
In the next ten days, I'll be preparing for and teaching an encaustics 2 day workshop at Cerulean and preparing for Cerulean's Annual Holiday Sale featuring all of our gallery artists opening on Wednesday, December 8th. Opening ceremonies with the artists on Friday, December 10th from 5 - 7 and Saturday, December 11th from 10-2...

1st Annual Studio Sale at Cerulean

Coming this Friday, October 29th from 5 - 8 PM 

is Cerulean's 1st Studio Sale featuring Artist-In-Residence Janna Civittolo & myself, come on by for hot cider and doughnuts ! Wear your costume and enter a drawing for a free artwork piece by Janna & Helene! We are also having our sale on Saturday from 11-3!

Showing Soon

For the past six years the fall has brought my work consistently to two different different events. Both of these events are great opportunities for different ranges of art collectors to view and select works at a very affordable price.

The "Teenie Tiny Art Show" at Three Graces Gallery in Portsmouth, NH has a wide selection of works both two and three dimensional works. Here is one of my six little acrylic works on paper, 5 X 5, mounted on panel for the sale price of 225. These works have similar titles within "Memories of Italy"...


At Merrill Auditorium on Friday, October 8, there will be a one evening art event called the "Black Frame Sale" . All works are sold for $200. and the show is a benefit for the Bayside Neighborhood Association. If many of you can remember, one of my first public studios was at Running With Scissors when it was located on Portland Street - across from Preble Street Resource Center. Its a great opportunity for me to encourage you to support an inner city neighborhood that has prospered as a result of this organization's efforts. Here is one of my three pieces from my BIRDWORKS series, "Looking Within" encaustic on panel, 10 X 10 inches and selling price of $200.

"From The Cotton Mill" Preparatory Drawing for Old Hallowell Day Painting

I came to Hallowell for the first time in the winter of 1979 from the suburbs of NYC with my parents and older brother in a yellow VW squareback. We were all a bit shocked by living in this small town and a rural state, but made a home for ourselves here quite quickly. The few years spent in Hallowell were marked by many "firsts" in a small child's life including a solitary walk to Boynton's for our family's milk and swedish fish. Hallowell has been my home at three different chapter's in my life, and the feeling of this special place, its charm, and a place to call "home" stays with me. You can learn more about my visual impressions of Hallowell if you come for a visit to my studio where you'll see some of the work I have been doing.

I am completely honored to be this years "Old Hallowell Day" Artist, and hope you are enjoying the image. It's quite funny to be in my shoes now, for when my little artist feet came to this town I remember fondly eating Ham Italian's from Boynton's on the back porch of the Harlow Gallery, where my Mom would gallery sit.

This drawing was done from a variety of photographs I took from the roof of the Cotton Mill in early Spring. And this is where I began....

Stop to Smell the Roses

Life never seems to slow down for me, my work as an artist, and the life shared with my little daughter & husband, but I still attempt to slow myself down. I think life does get too busy but we have to make a conscious choice to walk in the sunshine, to taste a cup of coffee and to look eye-to-eye with a loved one. Although I have had some extraordinary experiences in the last month, I am still happy to return and be home. I am fortunate - to have traveled to England with my dearest friend and to reunite with my English family warms my heart, and to close myself to purely focus on my professional development as an artist at a recent conference on Encaustics - and I will continue to count my blessings and stop to smell the roses. That is where the inspiration begins.

Artist Talk this Saturday at 3 PM!

Come on over to Cerulean this Saturday at 3 PM for an artist talk with me and Bill Duffy! Sweets and coffee included.....

Enough

Whenever I haven't been into my studio enough, I start feeling an artistic withdrawal. This hasn't been the case lately. I can't believe it but as I said to the family today, "I'm a little painted out." Yep, my need for a break from moving this wooden stick around with hair on the end, gobs of paint, finger nails filthy and stained, couldn't come at a better time. In one week from tomorrow I'll be getting onto the bus here in Augusta and heading to London. This trip will be part reunion, part artistic rejuvination, part vacation, part contact making but most importantly reconnecting and sharing time with one of my best friends in the world! I'll share more about this trip here when I return.

Anyhow, in the past month I have been juggling many creative endeavors including the painting to be featured for Old Hallowell Day, submitting my work to juried shows (and I will be in one at the Fairfield Art Council - near NYC) as part of the group I am in called New England Wax, finishing my encaustic and oil paintings for the show opening at Cerulean on Friday with photographer friend Bill Duffy called "Revisiting Old Haunts: From Dogtown to Frankfort" and painting a BIG mural for a neighbor. Now I have taken video of all of these projects and if I can get over my computer fears I will get these on shortly.

Even in the midst of complete chaos, I do find some time to locate some quiet. We walk a fair amount together in my little family here. Most recently on the ocean near a family home in Northport and in the trails behind our house which sweep along some beautiful and neglected apple orchards. Walking gets me to slow down and look a little more closely at the world. I have a bit more time to think, and not do. I look forward to doing this on my trip to England when I walk the banks of Cornwall, a really beautiful place....

Enjoy.

Moving Towards Abstraction

It may be said that you can find the abstract in my artworks, but forms are dually readable as tree, rock, etc. My interests as a painter rely heavily on basic ideas of rich surface and color, engaging composition, and tangible idea or source. Sometimes my hand moves away from the subject to make playful and gestural marks but I do come back to the form. When preparing to create my works for the Cerulean's current show "Unpinned: The Abstract Response", I found myself continuously making works that felt too contrived... and I had to leave a couple of paintings out on the way. Even with the deadline quickly approaching I found myself willing to start over, and so I did. In one manic evening I ripped apart some silkscreen prints I did a number of years ago out at Haystack and used them as a beginning to create these four little paintings on paper. Using gouache, watercolor, caran dache crayons and india ink I set to work and had a marvelous time. Here are the four images that resumed.

What are they? Mental landscape, physical landscape, kandiskism? Until this evening I did not
know. Now I am playing with the idea that they represent layers - possibly the complex and busy-ness I live on a day-to-day. Perhaps if I create some more at the end of May, they'll feel a little quieter.

Anyhow, I encourage you to come on down to Cerulean to see this show. Its really lovely and I am very pleased with all of the work we have done to improve and jazzy up our spaces. Show runs until May 8.

This Friday at Cerulean!!!!

Come on out this Friday for some lovely eye candy at Cerulean from 5 - 8 PM for "Unpinned: the Abstract Response"!

Response to "Cycles"

This week I focused most of my energies to finishing four works for a collaborative project titled "Paper Exchange" with the group New England Wax, which I have been a member of for two years now. The title/subject we were to toy with as each encaustic artist created four panels each 10 X 10 on 300 lb. paper was "Cycles". My response to this playful "assignment" brought me to new understandings of this luscious medium and time to bring back together my creative writing musings and my artworks. Enjoy the following works and creative writings still in progress. Artwork titles are: "Daily Burden" "Freeing the Lost Sock" "Fruits of Labor" "Freeing All Of The Lost Socks".

Some folks have asked me "Why do you write?" and quite simply it has always been a way of channeling my artistic thoughts to some coherence and even direction, my writing much informs or relates to my narrative artworks. Neither do I have desire to get published, nor am I searching for others to applaud it for its elegance or wit. I think my writing is really for - me, to feed, heal and another way to play.

Writings to come... they are giving me some trouble getting here...

Momentum

Its a well-known understanding that once you establish some momentum in anything you do, its easier to keep going. My studio work has a lot of energy now but its spread among many projects, maybe even too many. I have shared with you a collection of photographs that demonstrate what I have been doing lately including researching ideas and "places" for the upcoming Old Hallowell Day - which I am honored to be doing this year's painting for promotional activities, a small series of encaustic paintings on heavy paper titled "If I Only Knew What I Knew Now" for a project with the group New England Wax, more birds, and a series of paintings in both oil and encaustic featuring one of my favorite areas to paint - the blueberry barrens and glacial landscape of Frankfort / Prospect, Maine Show for a show at Cerulean with photographer Bill Duffy. Enjoy. And more to come soon!

3 Minute Artist Talk January 22 2010

Little Spaces

It seems that in my busy daily juggle I find little "spaces" to fill my creative side - whether its exploring books on the library shelves or listening to jazz music. These spaces help to balance my intense need to create but nothing replaces this act other than doing itself. This time of year for many marks its days with cleaning out our houses, setting resolutions for the year, and plans for yourself and your family. I add to this list my career goals which can seem a bit overwhelming but by writing them down seems to solidify them even without having to reexamine what they were in the first place. I do want to clean my studio, continue to organize and orient myself so I can locate things among my large art material collection, found objects, old photographs and fiber elements. However, this will have to wait a little longer. I need to get messy, put my ideas to paper, draw, turn on the wax and gather my creative juices for a productive and rich artistic year. I am excited to share with you via my blog what I have been up to. I have set some goals and as the time passes I will reveal how i am doing on them --- more to come! Anyhow, in my studio I am in the beginning stages of a few projects. One is a collaborative project with a group called New England Wax which I am a member of where we are doing a paper exchange project of four pieces. I am working on a series of paper encaustic pieces that plays off the quote, "If I only knew now what I knew then________." I am using views of domestic objects and their relationship to mundane household chores juxtaposed with childhood propos that symbolize play, freedom, and a place to escape to adventures. I am also pulling together another series that focuses on my continued fascination of the area of land located just North of Bucksport, Maine, the blueberry barrens of Frankfort, Prospect and Winterport. These works will take form in both encaustic and oil. And the last project I am beginning is a small works collection for beginning collectors of works on paper that are small in scale, and affordable in price. They will be examinations of my everyday - more to come. And of course, more BIRDWORKS to come too! By popular demand there will be more to see of these at the upcoming Teenie Tiny Show at Three Graces Gallery in Portsmouth, NH in mid-February. And if you haven't stopped by to Maine Cottage Furniture in Yarmouth lately, you'll now see more of my BIRDWORKS collection there. Happy New Year!

New Beginnings

Aren't we all pleased to have a new year to unfold and stretch into! I am for sure. Cleaning and sorting and planning. Here's a little piece on me for the University of Maine at Augusta's webpage. Enjoy! http://www.uma.maine.edu/helenefarrar.html