"Struttin' Their Stuff - Chickens and Friends" Coming to Artwalk Gardiner December 6th!

Coming Soon to Water Street Cafe in Gardiner soon!!!!!!

White Pullet  30 X 22 inches Encaustic

Chicken with Green  22 X 30  Encaustic

By the Barn  12 X 20  Encaustic

Hen Eating  5 X 5 Encaustic

Fast Food  10 X 10  Encaustic

With White Flowers  5 X 5 Encaustic

Standing Tall 5 X 5 Inches Encaustic

Returning to the Tent  12 X 20 Inches  Encaustic

With My Mama  10 X 10 Encaustic

Orange Fringe  5 X 5 Encaustic

Skinny Chicken  10 X 10 Encaustic

A little background to my chicken works and other BIRDWORKS

My journey into "Birdworks" started about eight years ago. I was sitting in a rental car in a New Mexico parking lot with my dying Mother. She pointed out the window, “Look at those birds. They are just so lovely. Here, give them my hamburger bun and let’s just watch them.” As they swooped down for their dinner, their flying and fluttering forms forced a moment of quiet and observation in an otherwise intense and painful period in my life.  Birds from that point on became something else - a witness to life’s events and cycles, portraits, commmentaries on life and relationships, and a generous slice of humor.

Birdworks and chicken paintings alike have also become explorations in developing a rich color experience and rigorous surface. Most of them are created in encaustic (a molten beeswax paint dating back to the Ancient Egyptians). The texture on these are heavy and many push limitations of what painting is. Painted surfaces are created with a variety of tools (from ceramic to dental:) and you have to work quickly while the wax and support are still warm. I both carve into the wax surface and build layer upon layer (some paintings have 30 - 50 layers of wax).  I also work with varying the heat on top of the surface. Encaustic is an old Greek word meaning to "burn in". Hence, every layer is heated into the one prior to create proper connections. I use a combination of a heat gun and a torch to do this. My original interest in painting chickens evolved from a colorful conversation with one of my young students about her family chickens arriving in the mail. 

NYC. On my mind.

Think the city has been on mind ever since.  I’ve made the trip so many times now. As a kid on the greyhound or Long Island railroad with my Mom and brother, as a young adult via the Chinatown to Chinatown express bus, and now racing down in my little car in 6 hours flat from my door to Cousin Ilene’s in Washington Heights, the top west side of Manhatten. Phew. We moved to Maine, the year I started kindergarten – many chapters started and ended since then. But I seem to find myself there, whenever I can spare the time and money.  A gift it feels like to be surrounded by visual stimulants, where the ugly is beautiful and each person’s face and dress is information laid for a design and suggestions of a personal journey.  I look back sentimentally at when I was a new mother, scattered, tired, and attempting to find ground. We worked out an opportunity for my "ticket to ride" to the city for an extended weekend. I “landed” in Penn Station late on a Friday evening. Remembering now how I felt when I stepped onto the sidewalk for that first time again, looked up at the lights and the intersection. If I was to close my eyes now, I could almost go there again. Such calm brought by the loudness.

I am home now. Last night I made the same journey in reverse arriving with a few hours left to sleep before starting again. It was almost two days in the city seeing and soaking in, alongside with my  now seven-year-old daughter, and two days at the Maker Fair in Queens. But I am so happy to have NYC in front of my senses these days and now its on my mind (and all that inspiration in my pocket). Here are some fragmented pictures from these days. Enjoy.  

Central Park, 2:30 PM Thursday

Flowers Near 58th Street

Storefront Window, Oversized Mushrom Interior in Fiber

Rockefeller

Architectural Love-liness

From Flushing, Queens. Good Morning!

Human sized Mousetrap at Maker Fair

HUGE Needle felted Dino at Maker Fair

Toaster Upgraded to Puppet

Austin Bike Zoo!

Doing the ComposiMold thing! Father and Daughter!

Just a few questions...

Where do you find your inspiration? 
I've never really considered myself in search of inspiration but rather always being "open", giving myself permission to play, and receiving energy from my environment via supportive / positive family and friends and / or being in nature and in tune with it.  I am a deep observer of the landscape, of people, and of ideas being shared. My sketchbook and a favorite pencil is always at hand, even jammed in my purse so that if I see anything or come up with an idea, I can record it immediately. I don't look back all the time but when I have a pause in my life or feel like I am stuck, I go back for energy and as a resource. I also use my sketchbook to journal about my art practice or maybe to record in words where I am physically or in my mind. I am fortunate to be an energetic person and to be able to use this energy as a fuel for my artmaking. I've had a practice of working in my studio one evening a week for over 10 years now which can take me into the wee hours of the night, but this time is rather sacred. Although I am tired in the morning, it reboots me like nothing else. You could also say that I am committed to a creative lifestyle. Thanks to my own Mother's efforts, I don't know any other way. We have always been ones to make art, share and see art together as a family.  Our family had its own gallery in the basement where we'd put on little shows together and even have art nights where we'd look at old films and slide shows of trips.  That's a whole story in itself....
How do you keep yourself motivated?
I get OUT of the studio!  Travel, paint with someone else, read, spend time researching a new or favorite artist in the library, drink lots of coffee and the Beastie Boys. They always help in particular.  I push myself through the long days when I just don't feel it in me. I make myself just start and like working out, once there I continue, and before I know it its time to meet my daughter at the school bus! Momentum is not easy to acheive but I try to keep my art wheel going...I put some projects on the back burner until I feel ready to get them going again or I'm not afraid to abandon projects that didn't feed me enough. There's a reason for the struggle, and I have to explore if the payoff is around the corner. I set goals and attempt to stick to them. I often hang up in my studio a timeline for getting works done. That is very helpful to have these visual reminders.... I also have a big commitment to creating community and a being a part of community. Thats why I have situated myself among students and those eager to learn and be on the art path. Its didactic.
How do you approach goal setting?
My methods have changed on this front. They have become more simple because a lot of basics I've done and I have systems in place for self-promotion.... Some suggestions I do have for artist's goal setting is for one to consider creating goals that reasonable with set start and end times, also that one's goals "match" where they are in their careers too, using monthly and yearly time periods can help, but also balancing your comfort zone but also giving yourself a good firm kick in the butt.

Painting With Nancy, Kate and Kitty

For a couple of years now, I've been fortunate to paint with two artist friend's Kate Buhner and Nancy Keanan-Barron on a monthly basis. We often gather at Nancy's house in S. Gardiner, and we sometimes take our artmaking on the road, where we sketch and quickly work with pencils and other dry media. When the weather is warm or on a vacation day our children will play together, so there are often interruptions of performances or laughter. This particular day we  had additional company from Nancy's new kitten. 

 

 

 

                                        Kate contemplating her cupcakes

My artistic and personal relationship with these two women have had quite a profound impact on my artmaking.  Both have taught me such wonderful things, and not always things one can put words to.  

 

Our days together are often productive, although one of us can often be "off". And although that may happen sometimes, but you can always feel that a day working and talking together was worthwhile. The energy of that community can remain, the comments, ideas, the techniques shared can be happy and helpful memories back in your own studio.

 

 

On this particular day, we paid tribute to one of our favorite artists Wayne Thiebaud.  I brought over some cake forms and we collaborated on out still-life set up and cake decorating. Quite fun!      

 

 

 

Nancy's Set Up with Work in Process

Kate and Nancy getting started

View of the Still - life from Above with my drawing on top of an old painting

There's an old painting of mine that I had been toying with painting over.  Yes, I do paint over old paintings.  But not without some contemplation. This one I brought home and hung it in my bedroom.  It was pretty clear to me with in a few days that this one was on its way out.  You can see here the old one received a somewhat orange transparent-glaze and then I drew on top of it with a white colored pencil. Still unfinished in the studio today but I will work on soon.

Kitty Visits

lemon cake slices

with sprinkles

with two raspberries atop

As for using photographs.....

 

The use of photography by painters as tools and sources for their artistic work and for documenting their creative lives has existed since the post-Impressionists in the later 1800s.  Its hard to believe that my living and working as a painter 150 years later, my practices in the early 21^st century have not strayed from these original uses of the camera. And much like the artists who first used their camera to capture many things including family life, models, landscape, they would also not have considered themselves photographers. I would also never consider myself a formal photographer, although one rarely finds me without somesort of camera nearby. I love that I have the opportunity to “click” away on something I find fascinating visually that would have otherwise been impossible to pull from my memory or to stand and sketch or paint. Taking photographs and documenting this way is an integral part of me living a creative life.

En route to Virginia, I had heard this unique story on NPR regarding the urban legend of shoes being strung from inner city power lines.  I had always thought this had an association with gang affiliations and crime. However, NPR demystified this narrative by sharing stories of children being released for summer vacation and throwing their sneakers up in celebration. The story stayed with me and when we arrived in the village of Carytown (a playful and boutique / café laden walking part of the city) in Richmond, I was drawn to this spot where a little turquoise house had been wedged between a couple of commercial buildings. The directions of the lines of the trees, the verticals of the buildings, the pulsing of the bricks and then the strong horizontals of the power lines... I fell in love with this composition.  Well, I don’t habitually use my photographs as a direct source. I can and I do sometimes, but for teaching sake I did for this one. 

....Lets start in the beginning.  Here is the original photograph. It doesn’t matter what my support is for my work or the medium but I always do a little underpainting first. This one started with a soft pink color. It is a mix of several layers of gesso that has been tinted and painted on panel. Before any drawing took place,  I played with the shape of the composition and its relationship to the surface I was going to use. Then with willow charcoal I lightly located on my photograph and panel the centers for horizontal and vertical edge, and drew a few graphed lined on each to make sure the photograph and painting would be aligned. I use willow charcoal (this is a very soft drawing stick which come in a variety of thickness - I choose the skinny). I love it for its "forgive-ability". You can wipe it away. Let it slide into the paint without being noticed. And it just feels good between your fingers. In this step I was most concerned with placement, compositional design, and where edges between visual elements met i.e. where exactly do the power lines cross the house etc.  You can see the size of my panel is about 14 X 20 and I am using a table easel. For various reasons I can go into later, this is the max size I would use on a table easel too.

STAGE 1

STAGE 2

STAGE 3

For the next stage, I mixed up some mid value ranges of the colors I planned to "block" in the painting with. I then applied the paint mostly with a straight-edge palette knife and used a smaller flat brush for smaller areas. This process was very quick and wanted to also use the knife to scratch back into the surface while the paint was still wet or drying to allow for some of the pink underpainting to come through. The paint at this stage was applied rather thinly..

In STAGE 3 I began to observe the sense of light in the painting more and began to work both the values and the cool / warm variations of the forms to reflect that light source. I also started developing some of the details including the shoes, the contours of the windows. These parts were painted mostly brush but I also used rags, a spray bottle to keep or get things damp, my finger, and the palette knife to work the surface.

STAGE 4

You can see the tree starting to extend up as well as more description added to the building in the distance. My own studio windows are extremely light filled...can you tell? No complaints here but sorry about the triangular light falling on these ones.

The Painting Set-Up

I've never believed that artist's needed expensive set ups or supplies to make good work. But I do believe in good paint. My favorite acrylic brands are Golden's Fluid Line and Amsterdam. My paint palette's are often tupperware containers, paper plates and I ziplock ALL of them in the zipper locked bags. Its amazing but those bags can keep my acrylics wet for weeks! I don't have the advantage of spreading out my chosen colors like I do in other mediums but I can pour out a generous amount and not feel like I have to use it right away!  Acrylics can dry in minutes. One of its bittersweet qualities.  I also use mason jars for water because they clean well, rarely tip over, white cotton rags I buy from Goodwill, and a water spritzer from home depot. My acrylic tubes are stored in an old sewing machine table's drawers. My palette knives are: ones with straight flat sides but one comes to a point the other to a squared edge.

STAGE 5 The details

In this stage I am still refining colors and redefining edges. Here I am using a small long round to place some of the tree branches.  These trees are variations of mauve and ultramarine.....and with touches of warm pink. I am so still pushing and pulling the colors all across the board - making the brick building bounce a little and adding information about the structure of the turquoise house - bricks, wiring.  This step takes the longest... and as I am doing this I am asking myself - is this painting doing what I originally wanted? and if not, what is it missing? 

THE FINAL STAGE

Here its. Was this ...interesting? helpful? what?