.

I have also been working on some new jewelry I’m fairly excited about.  I have added vintage settings to some of my glass pendants, and started a whole new line of earrings made of lucite floral and leaf beads, paired with glass, crystal, and metallic elements.  Though all elements used are new, the jewelry has a very vintage feel since these beads were very popular in the 40s.  I feel that they pair pretty well with my pendant jewelry, and the flowers even remind me of elements of my paintings.  Just had to start experimenting with this before the Christmas buying season was over.  So far I am just selling them locally at my co-op art gallery (Six Days Art) and to FB friends, but plan to be introducing them to my stores, my website, (and etsy) soon.  You can view more designs on my Facebook album here … or, if you are not on facebook, see my flickr photostream (these will be replaced with more professional photos later).

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If you are in Portland, please come to the open house event that is being put on at my co-op studio THIS Friday and Saturday, Dec. 2 (5-9pm) and December 3rd (12-4pm) at the historic Troy Laundry Building.  18 artists will be opening their studios to the public.  Located at 221 SE 11th (between Oak and Pine). 18 artists are participating. Visit me in my studio (#10)  to see what’s new on the easel (or to buy a print or jewelry!)

My recent move to a new residence took the wind out of my sails for a bit, especially since I fell prey to a cold almost immediately following my landing. The necessity of making the bills always prevails, so there’s been more time catching up with web clients and planning classes than in the studio lately. Whenever I can’t get into the studio much, I set myself to achieve at least some small accomplishments there, so I finished this little self-portrait that I began earlier last year (above).  It’s not a perfect semblance, but it feels like me.  The little bird floats above the abstract patterning of dendrites (the branched projections of neurons that communicate with each other through electrochemical stimulation).   My father was a biologist, so I’ve always had a fascination with the subject, though my understanding of it is more mystical than scientific.  (Incidentally, it doesn’t bother me that tree branches are reflected in the glass of this photo, as it seems to add to the theme in this context).

Part of what forced me to complete this little painting is that a collector of my work wanted to purchase it. They also bought a painting that I created earlier in my career:

“The Captive Heart” was created shortly after I finished an artist’s residency in Colorado, so I think the date goes back to 1994-5. I have to admit that I’m a rather poor chronological-er of my own work. During my early career,  it was enough for me to remember to sign my artworks, much less put a date on them.

A little about “The Captive Heart”:

First of all, the theme (as one might guess) is one of emotional vulnerability, of feeling that one’s heart is exposed. The figure of the woman is inspired by an image of a Mexican sculpture of Mary… and I’ve place her in a room flooded with water (symbolic of swimming in an emotional space).  A mocking-bird flies within this captive space, delivering a flower.  The sticks with holes drilled in them are a reference to a little illustration I found in my father’s Scientific American magazine.  The referenced article was illustrating the path of a bird as it collected seeds in a controlled experiment (i.e., the flight-line represents the path the bird took when either collecting or depositing seeds within the branches).  As an added mystery to the story-line of this visual puzzle, a man is portrayed outside the window, collecting branches.  I leave it to the viewer to decipher the meaning of all this personal iconography.

Some of the things that continue to inspire me is the similarity of the patterning of branches and the branching of arteries/veins.   And birds… which are ever-present in my works, for reasons that are not entirely clear to my self.  I suppose I see them as messengers of spirit.

Another important note (for me) about this painting is that it was the piece that signaled a change in my way of working.  Though it is painted on illustration board, the “open heart” and window gave me the idea for painting on layers of plexiglass, which gave me a way of creating images behind images (or images above and below, on separate panels).  Today, I go back and forth between painting on wood panels and painting on plexi.  I love the 3-dimensional layering that’s created in my plexi-paintings, but it is also something that slows me down and forces me to be more precise.  For this reason, I’ve decided to limit its use to my smaller paintings in the future.  When I want to work more spontaneously, I’ll work on larger panels or canvases.

The couple who bought this piece also bought one other earlier piece of my work which was also a step in my development towards painting on different levels, rather than a singular flat surface.  “The Connection” was painted around 1993, while I was an artist-in-residence at Anderson Ranch, in Colorado.

I had a strong desire to break out of the picture plane, so I used a scroll-saw to cut the shapes of the tree , and the aveoli that makes up the woman’s body.  (Alveoli are tiny sacs in the lungs that perform gas exchange, allowing the body to get rid of carbon dioxide and convert it to oxygen).  Her lungs are actually fed by the tree (the branch on the left turns into her veins)… symbolizing this exchange of carbon dioxide to oxygen.  Behind them is a sky filled with stars and a red curtain (the theatre of life)…  a sculpture (borrowed from some cathedral?) that represents the idea that this life can be cut off at any time…. also a man witnessing the scene, and a couple doves with vegetation and flowers.  The woman’s face seems Victorian (if not Queenly).  I don’t even recall how I arrived at this theme.  I tend to be a gatherer of images… and even if I don’t glue them down into collages, I often borrow a “little of this, a little of that” from various sources, allowing myself to re-sort them in ways that make sense to my painter’s hand.  Thus, science, mythology and art history are synthesized within my aesthetic realm.

Below is an image of what’s currently on my easel. It’s not finished yet, but far enough to feel excited about sharing it. I’m continually amazed by how many of my paintings develop. Usually I begin without any real intention for what the imagery will become. Then ideas spring to me while I’m in the process of creating. Images fall into my hands at the appropriate moment… and then the magic happens.

This began with a panel that I found in someone’s free box. It had an abstract painting on it which I painted over with dripped paint and sponging. That sat for about a year as just a “nice background texture”. Once I moved into this studio, I pulled it out. After going through my folders of images, I selected a black-and-white image (around 1 1/2″ square) of a 5th century Indian sculpture. There was something in the expression that interested me, so I painted it. Then I came upon this image of these weird birds. Fortunately I kept enough of the original article to identify them as “hoatzins”. They were in an article I found called “The Strangest Birds on Earth” (I can’t remember the source I plucked it from, though perhaps a Natural History magazine). Why this woman is taking a regatta ride with these huge birds by her side is as much a mystery to me as anyone else. After committing myself to this theme, I learned that hoatzins are an “unusual species of tropical bird found in swamps, riverine forests of the Amazon and the Orinoco delta in South America” (Wikipedia). I also learned that they can’t swim and that they are poor fliers, so perhaps the idea of them taking a boat ride is not so unusual. What surprises me is that they are not (yet) an endangered species, since they are reported to be fairly unwary. Perhaps they have been saved by the fact that they give off a foul smell when threatened, and they don’t taste good (a common nickname for them is “stinkbird”). Now I have another reason to travel to the Amazon river forests. I am very interested in the indigenous cultures of this area, and now I’m totally fascinated by these birds!

Now that my studio move is nearly complete, I can now concentrate on packing, organizing and getting rid of some of my belongings. Moving every couple of years is the only thing that prevents me from becoming a total pack-rat! At the end of this month I’ll be moving into my new home at the base of Mt. Tabor. More updates will come after everything is in place!

For the past month, my energy has been consumed by creating websites, teaching classes, and cranking out jewelry and reproductions for art fairs. In the first week of August alone, I did 3 fairs (in Portland, Sellwood, and on the Oregon coast, in Yachats). Summer is the time for this and I’ve met lots of wonderful people through it, but production work is exhausting, so when the time came for my week of art camp at Menucha, I was ready for five days of focus on nothing but art!

I had learned about the Arts at Menucha programs through Susan Schenck, a student from last semester.  She was solving a color theory assignment with a remarkable collage technique that she said she learned from a class with Linda Berkley.  I knew Linda some 15 years ago when we were both “artists in residence” at Anderson Ranch Arts Center, in Colorado.  I decided to take Linda’s collage class offered through the Arts at Menucha program.  The workshops are located along the beautiful Columbia River Gorge, in Corbett, Oregon.  The name Menucha has Hebrew roots, meaning something similar to “place of still waters”, and the motto of the Menucha community is “Sacred Space, Purposeful Work”.  The place lives up to its motto, as the environment encourages both creative and spiritual growth.

One of my primary intentions in working with collage was to use it as a means of working out compositions for my paintings.  My first experiment was to try to resolve a nearly completed painting of a woman curled up at the roots of a mossy tree. (I’ll share more process photos of this as my painting reaches completion in another  post, since there were many steps involved in its creation before the collage exploration).  One of my dilemmas was that I felt that the painting was too similar to the photograph I had taken for its inspiration.  I wanted to add some more abstract elements, but didn’t know which direction to take it.  Linda suggested that I create a small thumbnail drawing of the painting, then do a quick collage using black and white paper, followed by a color collage of magazine scraps:

The operative word here was “quick”, as she wanted to push me towards my own expressed intention of making more spontaneous choices.  When she said I had “5 more minutes” to finish my color collage,  I hadn’t even found all the colors I needed to complete it.  It was partly from the frustration of not finding the right color that I ended up creating the purple branch that surrounds the shape of the figure.  This part of the painting originally had more grayish tones.  When I changed the branch to blue-purple in the painting, there was an “AHA” moment, in the realization that what it needed was a more saturated color in this area.  I feel that it brings out the yin-yang relationship between the upward-reaching (cool) blue branches vs. the downward flow of the (warmer) mossy green branches.

On the second day of class, it was suggested that we create a collage based on a thumbnail sketch of something drawn from observation.  Linda gave the example of using a plant in the room, looking out the window, or going outside into the landscape.  I decided to go outside since we were in such a beautiful natural setting.  I found a tree that interested me and made a few small thumbnails, followed by a longer study.  I then went about painting papers in the color scheme that I’d conceived (instead of hunting for specific colors in magazines).  Originally, the tree was going to be in blues and purples, with a reddish sky.  I started with the sky but was disappointed when I tried to build the tree with the blue papers.

By the next morning I had another idea when I saw some textured paper sitting on the top of my stack of collage materials.  It was actually a monoprint made with inked aluminum foil.  I didn’t have enough of this texture to complete my design, so I brought it to the copy machine, creating a range of values and magnifications of the texture.  I tinted the ground in green, to differentiate it from the roots somewhat.  I later added a photo of an owl (after creating another collage which included an owl).  It seems to complete the piece, suggesting more of  a narrative.

Our next assignment was to collaborate with a student in the writing class.  We were asked to give one of our collages to the writing department, where it would be randomly paired with a student. We were also given a randomly selected piece of writing to respond to.  We had 5 students, whereas the writing class had 4, so the teacher also participated.   I later found out that the poem that was given to me was by the writing teacher, Ann Staley.

“Ars Poetica” (on the nature of poetry)

It was all fading,
the dream hitchiked to Kansas.
Hot water, eyes closed -
everything too fast.
Six unknowns,
the refrain.
Lovefest in a sacred place.
But, of course,
the fragments in the desert:
broken down truck &
3-legged table,
bicycle tires, mismatched:
what is abandoned,
reclaimed by attention
and her cousin, purposeful work.

I took my direction from the dreamy feeling, and particularly the phrases, “eyes closed”, and “Lovefest in a sacred place”.  I had brought an image of a painting by one of my favorite artists, Odilon Redon, so I decided to quote it in my collage.   The suggestion of a desert prompted me to create a turban from magazine fragments of cloth.  I then made use of my painted papers and xeroxed fragments of my monoprint texture.  I played with putting a pressed flower in the corner opposite the face, but couldn’t commit to it, so off I went to the copy machine again.

At this time, I discovered that the laser copier was also capable of making color copies and reverse images, so I decided to play with a symmetrical composition.  The idea of adding an owl came from the fact that I had a dream that an owl flew at my face.  The dream occurred the morning I left for Menucha, and since I had a difficult time removing the owl from my face, I decided she had a strong desire to be included in my experiments.  I first painted the owl on vellum, then photocopied it in a few sizes to find the right relationship with the composition.  This is, for me, one of the most wonderful aspects of  using collage: the fact that you can choose to move things around, which is not possible once you’ve committed to an image in painting.

The pressed spray of Queene Anne’s lace flowers ended up being a “nest” for the baby owl crying for its mother.  (I realize that I need to add some color to differentiate this from its textured background). If I end up making a painted version of this collage, the 2 dreaming figures will have clasped hands holding the nest. They may transform into a man and a woman with similar features.

On the fourth day, we displayed our collaborative collages and writings where the rest of the Menucha community could see them, in the cafeteria.  My collage was placed underneath Ann’s poem.  Coincidentally, I found that the collage that I gave to the writing class was paired with a response by the same writer (Ann Staley).  Since my collage was not signed, she had no indicator as to its orientation, and ended up responding to the image on its side.  Once I saw it totally divorced from its relationship to my painting, I also saw it with new eyes.  I’ve included her poetic response below:

I was particularly struck by the fact that my absent figure became a rock, and that she even made mention of “who is missing from this collage, and why are they missing?”  I also contemplate the scraps and bits I didn’t use, and the fact that they might be reincarnated into yet another collage or painting.  Perhaps I’ll continue the process and create another collage based on her poem.  Maybe this time I’ll consider the presence of the wind.  Perhaps this is just another new beginning.

With 1/2 day of my class remaining,   I decided to make use of the leftover copies of the dreaming faces.  Again, I played with symmetry, this time creating a triangular composition.  The effect is a bit more abstract.  It takes a moment to even recognize that these are mirrored fragments of a person (it’s difficult to discern the gender, which is my preference).

Now home, I continue to play with my collage experiments by cropping and changing the hues of some of my compositions in Photoshop.  I went with the intention to finish some unresolved paintings, but instead came back with more ideas to generate into new paintings.  I also feel that I have found a new way of working, and a few more tools to explore.

On the morning that I left for art camp, there were a couple other dreams that bear mentioning.  In the first place, I knew within the dream that I was at Menucha , as I was surrounded by a group of people when the owl flew at me.  Although the owl would not get off of my face, I wasn’t horrified by it.  As I struggled to remove it, I told the others to throw some water on its head (I have a vague memory that someone at the center had instructed me to do this if ever the situation should occur, as if it were a likely possibility).  I then went out to my car and found a blue bird flying in it.  At this point, I remember  that that earlier in the day I’d seen a bird on my palette, on the table next to my easel. It was a dream within a dream… not too disimilar to the process of creating in collage.  I still ponder what it all means and what the birds have to say to me.  Rather than answering the question, I prefer to suggest the mystery.

I’ve decided to share some images of mixed media artists whom I find inspiring.  I look to other artists when I’m needing a little jump-start on ideas, so I hope my students and web visitors might find some inspiration in these as well.  I’ve included the website links so that you can feast your eyes on more. (You can also click on images for a larger view):

Teesha Moore: www.teeshamoore.com, teeshascircus.blogspot.com

I just can’t get enough of Teesha Moore’s art!  She creates her collages primarily within the pages of her journals.  She details her process on her website.  To simplify, she first lays down a wash of either watercolor or acrylic, then adds collage elements, then uses water soluble artist crayons. Finally, she draws and writes with markers and gel pens.  I personally love the way the words become a visually important part of the work.

Anahata Katkin: www.anahata.typepad.com, http://www.anahataart.com

Anahata is the creator of my favorite note card company, PaPaYa!.  She explores painting, collage, and digital media in her personal artworks.  I love what she says within her statement on her bio page, so I’ll include it here:

“To me the beauty of so much of the mixed media and journal arts movement is the personal quality of it. How it is often born out of necessity in ones life and continues through a series of impulses, triumphs and challenges. My own artwork is gritty and often unripe. And I like it this way. I like that what I want to do feels just out of reach. That there isn’t a pressure to perform and yet there is great satisfaction in the making of things…and the sharing of things. I guess that’s my own little irony. I try very hard to create artwork for myself and nothing more. And when I succeed in getting out of my own way- I share it with the rest of the world. That’s my formula.”

Cheri Lee Charlton: www.cherileecharlton.com

I “met” Cheri Lee on MySpace, and was immediately taken by her seductive use of materials in her mixed media artworks.  In particular, she has a series of paintings created on doileys (using watercolor, acrylic ink, graphite, charcoal and markers), which integrate fairy-tale like images with slightly erotic connotations. Of her work, Cheri says, “The surface of a painting has the capacity to seduce.  I seek to make art that addresses that very human desire to be seduced; art that provokes the viewer to acknowledge that sensual place between desire and fulfillment”.

Erica Steiner: www.ericasteiner.com

Erica Steiner is another artist who seduces viewers with the surfaces of her work.  She uses her painting to explore her “affinity for beauty, for ornamentation, for excess, and the more turbulent psychic territory that lies beneath”.  She is influenced by a wide range of contemporary, folk, textile and religious art, including “traditional Indian and aboriginal painting, psychedelic art, graphic design, Japanese landscape painting, medieval Catholic illuminated manuscripts, Victorian imagery, art nouveau and more. The work is rendered primarily in oil and gold leaf on canvas, in series of thirty to forty paintings, painted in many layers, over time”.

Patti Brady: www.pattibrady.com

Speaking of rich surfaces, Patti Brady wrote the book (literally) for creating surfaces with acrylic paint and polymers.  Patti is the Working Artist Program Director for Golden Artist Colors. As such, she has had the opportunity to thoroughly explore all of the gels, pastes, and mediums that the company offers, and she’s developed curriculum for acrylic classes for artists and art educators world-wide.

Patti’s book, Rethinking Acrylic: Radical Solutions For Exploiting The World’s Most Versatile Medium covers contemporary uses of acrylic.  It’s richly illustrated with her own and other artists works, and includes much technical info which should be helpful for the experimental artist.

Darleen Olivia McElroy: darleneoliviamcelroy.com

Darlene was also featured in my previous blog entry Acrylic Image Transfers, where I included a video of her demo of how to create a gel transfer.  Also check out her blog, The Queen of Glue!  She has recently posted about her inspirations with rust, background surfaces, and links where you can find vintage images to use in collages.

Darlene states that, “creating an art piece is like reading Turkish coffee grounds – a story becomes revealed as one looks at the surface, texture and color. Moving around the canvas, one can see the past, present and future of the creation.”

Heads up: Darlene (and co-writer Sandra Duran Wilson) is currently writing a book, Image Transfer Workshop, that will be published by Northlight Books. It is suppose to hit the shelves in July 2009.

Gary Reef: www.garyreef.com

Gary Reef is an Australian contemporary artist, who explores mixed media to learn about textures, patterns and layering, and the exploration of his own symbology.  The images above were created primarily through the use of multiple stencils.  “Scratching, carving, digging, sanding, hammering, multi-layering, rubbing, dropping, burning, splattering would be some words used to describe my art practice….the rest, well it comes from the Heart!”

Click here to see a video of Gary working on one of his stencil paintings.

(To view some more artists who work with stencils, please visit my post, Stencils, Stencils, Stencils!)

Kathryn Kendrick: www.katiekendrick.com

Kathryn considers herself to be intuitive/folk artist. She combines painting, collage, and assemblage in her mixed media artworks.  Of her process, Katie says, “I don’t have any clear ideas where I’m going when I begin a painting or project and I feel most comfortable with that. Doing projects that have a theme are challenging for me as they come less naturally. I feel most connected to higher self when I am in the process of creating, and am more interested in the process that the product.” There’s lots more inspiration to see and read on her blog.  Looking back through her pages, it reminded me that I could not complete this post without including Jesse Reno!

Jesse Reno: www.jessereno.com

Jesse Reno’s is a very prolific Portland artist.  His many-layered artworks combine acrylic, oil pastels, charcoal, and pencil on wood or canvas.  Entirely self-taught, Reno decided early in his career to forego formal training. “He generally works on five to ten canvases at once, apportioning equal time to each, in the interest of allowing the thematic content to germinate organically. Open as the artist is to the unfolding of subconscious content, his paintings emerge as pieces of a dreamlike mythic narrative.”

Paula Snyder: http://paulasnyder.biz

I discovered Paula Snyder when she commented on my last blog post, On Being an Artist in a Bad Economy.  Of her process of working with mixed media, Paula says, “I jokingly think of myself as a multiple personality.  If I had to use the same materials and the same techniques with every piece of art I create, then I feel I might as well be making sandwiches at the local fast food place.”

Anastassia Elias: www.anastassia-elias.com

Her site is in French, so I confess that I don’t know much about this artist.  She several series of paintings and collages, but I was particularly impressed with the way that she is able to create pictures from torn pieces of colored paper and text (click images to enlarge them so that you can see the text in these collages). To view more of these, go to her website, linked above, and visit the “collages dechires” section of her Portfolio.

Susan Tuttle: http://www.ilkasattic.com

Susan Tuttle recently published a book on mixed media called, Exhibition 36: Mixed Media Demonstrations and Explorations (Amazon link).  “Within the pages of Exhibition 36, readers will enter a virtual art exhibit featuring thirty-six mixed-media artists whose collage, digital, assemblage, altered and repurposed art adorn the walls and pedestals of this unique gallery. The artists are “present” throughout the exhibit, answering questions, sharing their thoughts, talking about their work and offering instruction.”

Sara Renae Jones: sararenaejones.com//drawings.php

I was particularly interested in Sara Jones’ series, “Outwitting Our Nerves”, which incorporate watercolor and graphite on vintage psychology book pages printed 1921 (if you click to enlarge the images, you can read the text, which is well-paired with the somewhat eerie imagery).

Please respect the copyright of the artists.  These images are provided for inspiration only.  I’ve asked for permission from all of the artists (a few haven’t replied yet, but I’ll remove their images if not allowed).  If you borrow an image for your own site or blog, please also ask the artist for permission.

Pricing is one of the more difficult aspects of an art career because no one wants to sell themselves short, nor do they want to out-price the market so that no one can afford their work.  I’ve never heard a really good explanation for how to price one’s work, and I don’t create the kind of art that can easily be priced by the square inch (or square foot, if I were creating large-scale works).  Nor can I price according to time spent on a piece (as if I could actually keep track of that, since I’m in an altered state when the work is flowing… and when it’s not, no one can pay me for the time spent thinking about and mulling over ideas).  The truth is that I have pieces that I spent literally months creating and others that came pretty quickly, but sometimes after a dry spell.  For me, it’s always a matter of emotional attachment, which is a hard thing to quantify.

The main thing I ask myself when I price my work is “what is the lowest amount that I can feel okay about selling this for”… and then add whatever percentage the gallery takes.  And since galleries typically take a 40-50% cut, I always feel better if I can give the customer a good deal by not having to outsource.  But I’d never get any exposure without public walls to hang my work on, and some venues (such as the Launchpad) are really something to support.  They’re the good guys, are also struggling to keep their doors open, and I’m glad to be a part of this group effort.

As much as I try NOT to be affected by all of the bad news about the economy, it’s hard not to be nervous as an artist trying to make my way on a completely freelance career.  Not that it was ever easy, of course.  It takes courage to even think about making a living as an artist in a good economy.  Perhaps that’s why I wear my three freelance hats as an artist, teacher, and web designer.  I’m not brave (or crazy) enough to rely on just one.  These days, I think it’s important to have several marketable skills to survive in a creative field.

When I went to art school, no one really bothered to prepare us for the cold facts of making a career in the arts.  I went into it in a completely naive manner, knowing that I wouldn’t be happy pursuing anything else.  In retrospect, there really isn’t that much that they taught me that I couldn’t have learned on my own.  At least not in terms of technique.  I think that I had the assumption I was going to get some kind of mentoring.  That didn’t happen.  No one told me how to mix color, what mediums to use, or much of anything about the practice of painting.  Nor did they prepare me for how to present myself to galleries, how to professionally photograph my work, apply for grants or residencies… in short, how to be a professional artist.

Fortunately, I’m a self-starter and figured out my own way with the materials.  Whether I intended to or not, I always found myself working against the grain.  In undergrad school, most of my teachers came out of an expressionist background, so the best advice they had to offer was to “let mistakes happen” and use big brushes.  This ran counter to my nature.  I painted carefully, painstakingly, with small brushes.  For the most part, they congratulated anything that was abstract and bold and warned against creating “illustrative” art.  Representational art had a hard time unless it had the bold brush-stroke to go with it.  That simply wasn’t me.  For whatever reason, I simply couldn’t let the paint drip.  I had a need to tightly control my expressions whether this was a good or a bad thing.  It’s only now that I realize that I am no less expressive because of my particular orientation.  I’ve made it work for me, and now that I’ve formed my own style, I can let it loose when I need to… and sometimes I REALLY need to drip paint!

I entered a completely different universe when I started graduate school. I wasn’t quite ready for the level of art theory and intellectualism that spewed the halls of Cranbrook.  I simply couldn’t get what I was doing to fit neatly into any of the current post-modern theories.  I hadn’t developed enough artspeak to defend my thoughts about what I was doing through my art. My ideas about “art, nature, and personal archetype” seemed nakedly naive, and I felt completely vulnerable when faced with critique dialogue.  I can’t say I produced my best work at that time, as I felt too vulnerable express myself fully.  It was only later that some of my chains fell off and I’ve started to really step into my own identity.

So what does all of this have to do with the tough economy? Well, it’s hard to feel courageous about creating art in an economy that few of us have faith will be able to support us.  I spend a lot more time in front of a computer these days than I do in front of a canvas (or plexi, panel, or whatever substrate I’m working on).  And let me tell you, I know it is sapping the life out of me.  This is a bit of a confessional post, but sharing my feelings helps me to exorcise my fears when I’m in the midst of a non-creative slump.  I have stagnant months where it’s very difficult for me to create because I’m too preoccupied with doing the things that are more reliable for paying bills (especially in the winter, when the bills are higher, and my basement studio is a cold and unwelcoming place).  For me, it’s always better to express something than to silently allow these feelings to grow.

There’s a huge part of me that would love to throw away my computer and live in some third-world country where I can live cheap, preferably in a warm climate.  Wherever I go, I’ll meet a new set of challenges.  There is no escape from the need to support oneself.  Anywhere else is not a better place than where I am right now.  Wherever I am, I want to be of good use, to provide services that are needed.  Art is only one of my skills, no more elevated than teaching or producing web designs.. though it is the one that provides me with more of a sense of inner ease (or to put it another way, if I don’t create art, I am not at ease).  I think this is true for most artists.  Whether we can find a way to make a living through it or not, we simply need to do it.  For most of us it’s enough to create and to surround ourselves with our creations.  For myself, I also need to let those creations go, preferably making part of my income from the endeavor.  There’s a huge part of my self-identity that is wrapped up in that equation of making my living through my art.  Perhaps this needs to be evaluated further, but there is satisfaction in knowing that it’s of enough value to someone else that they are willing to pay for it.

Here’s my prescription for any artist who wants to sell art during bad economic times:  Don’t equate how much you are able to sell your work for as any kind of qualifier for how good the work is.  In general, it might be best to paint more small artworks that you can feel okay about selling cheaply (if this works for you), or to sell only your reproductions if the originals are too prescious for you to part with (if that works for you).  In general, it’s a good idea to let your creations go so that someone else can enjoy them, and give yourself some mental space to create more.  Most of all, enjoy what you are doing.  The myth of the “suffering artist” is certainly one to let go of.  Let yourself be a channel for the creative spirit that moves through you, and don’t concern yourself too much with what the current trends are.  First and foremost, be yourself.  Know that art is needed as much now as it ever was… whether people are buying it or not.  If you put your heart into your creations, it will always have a positive effect…. on you, as well as those around you.  It’s all part of the Love… Feel it, and reel it in!

The image above is a painting created by Jutta Reichardt.  It illustrates the use of an acrylic image transfer, acrylic surface techniques, and stenciled gold leaf that I introduced to my Mixed Media class, taught through Portland Community College last semester. Jutta produced some really amazing work during the class, and I wish my camera didn’t keep running out of batteries every time I wanted to photograph my students works! In this particular piece, Jutta was inspired by learning about a pioneering woman journalist, Nelly Bly, who was famous in her day for traveling around the world in 72 days.  She also revealed the conditions of the working class around the world, and exposed mistreatment of people with mental illness.  It seems to me that having an intense interest in a subject (any subject) can propel the work to its own successful conclusion.

I’m sort of relieved to be on a teaching break til mid January.  It’s good to have some time to get back into my own work more fully, to listen more carefully to what drives me personally… which in the end, I think will make me a better teacher.

I love teaching, as it re-awakens my passion for disseminating information about art.  After all, if making art were just for myself, it would be a pretty selfish thing, wouldn’t it??  The truth of the matter is that the desire to create is both selfish and selfless.  I create because I must, because I am an endlessly frustrated human being if I do not have an outlet for all of the images and thoughts that pour through me.  Whenever I give myself to my creative expression, I return to the most sane aspects of my self.  I become more grounded in my experience of practically everything.  It improves my relationship to myself, to others, and the world around me.  Teaching can also be a very connective experience, and it gives me great pleasure to see anyone grow in their confidence in expressing themselves.

The catch-22 about teaching is that creating art is not merely about having a handle on technique.  Yes, techniques are important.  They are the tools we use to express ourselves visually.  But it’s having a connection to our personal vision that’s most important, and that’s a very difficult thing to teach.  To some extent, we can learn it from example.  I give my students a lot of examples of what other artists are doing, in terms of both subject matter and technique, which I hope might be inspiring to their own works.  This is the reason I’ve posted so many articles on this blog related to various art inspirations (see index for these articles here).

I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of what the class experience is about is providing a space where students are given permission to allow their creative selves to emerge.  I give specific assignments related to using colors, surface techniques, image transfers, etc… but it’s mostly a matter of giving the students a place to create where they feel encouragement, gentle direction, and the immersion of being with others who are also creating, which becomes a large part of the learning experience.  I think that artists need a combination of experiences which include the isolation of working alone, the creative atmosphere of learning from others, as well as a number of other life experiences that provide the ideas that feed their work.

I strongly suggest some form of journaling to record one’s thoughts (both visually and verbally).  Sketching, doodling, or photographing things of interest to you are all helpful in gaining access to your personal sources of inspiration.  Your process of journaling and what to include in it really depends on what ignites your creative furnace.  You might also enjoy gathering things from walks in nature… or gathering ephemera from old magazines, thrift store finds, etc.  If you enjoy textures and patterns, you might collect cloth, lace, or decorative papers that can later be collaged into your works.

I personally enjoy a mixed media approach to creating art, simply because it opens up the range of possibilities.  Practically anything can become fodder for creative exploration.  I enjoy books that provide lots of ideas for how to bring ideas together, giving the reader permission to try anything.

I occasionally check on the blogs of other artists to see what they are creating, and I just found out that an artist I’ve been following has just released a book about exploring collage.  I’ve just checked it out on Amazon, and this looks like a really good one to get my hands on, so I’m spreading the word:

Susan Tuttle‘s new book is called Exhibition 36: Mixed Media Demonstrations (Amazon link)

Susan is offering a free book in her contest for those who mention the book on their blog.  I could really use this book to add to inspiring ideas for my own art as well as teaching, so I’m hoping I have a good chance of winning the book! (see this page of her blog for details on this, if you’d also like a chance at this).  While you’re there, check out some of Susan’s amazing mixed media art.  Here’s an example of one of her assemblages, titled, “I Went to the Woods”:

(Update: I didn’t win the book, but trying for it gave me the idea of occasionally reviewing art books that I think are particularly inspiring.  Look forward to seeing some art book reviews in the future).

Here’s a clip from Rebecca’s artist’s statement for the show:

“In World War II, our country created “Victory Garden” posters to market the idea of growing home gardens to help with the food supply shortage. They proclaimed that people could fight for the war in their own gardens. Once again, we might be faced with this dilemma. Today, these posters instead of growing vegetables to help fight a war would support a local economic structure. Instead of the term, “Victory Garden” I feel that “Local Victory” would be more fitting today. It is similar to the slogan, “Think Globally, Act Locally.”

I was really drawn into these paintings.  When you see them in person, you are more aware of the abstract qualities inherent within the works.  The piece above, for example, has some really wonderful sections which, when you zoom into a closer focus, makes you more aware of the fact that Rebecca is really a master of abstract form.  I learned later that most of her artworks are much less illustrative than this particular body of works.

Another thing that’s not easy to see in the photograph is the fact that this painting was created in two layers.  The bottom layer is watercolor guache on paper, whereas the top layer is acrylic on acetate.  The employment of separate layers also helps the viewer to be more aware of the relationship between “positive” and “negative” space in the work.

One of the things that I learned from reading Rebecca’s blog is that some of the artworks in this show were conceived from photographs from her childhood.  She was raised by parents who grew their own food.  She mentioned to me during the opening that she grew up with the illusion that this was a common experience for everyone, to find out later that few people actually shared this experience of growing up with a close relationship to the earth. In the blog, she credits her father’s gardening journals as one of the impetuses for this body of work:

“I grew up working with my parents in the gardens, but I have not focused before on why they chose to grow certain things. My father chose to grow things to maybe influence growth of other plants or to distract insects. Some varieties worked better than others and with organic gardening there isn’t much time to make mistakes. Once something worked, he would keep working that or try something different the following year. His journals were a way to look back and document what worked and what needed to be changed.”

Of the early photographs, Rebecca  notes, “These are what I consider documentation of my childhood rather than just a nostalgic image. I am not commenting on how wonderful it was, but more how interesting this was for a child. At an early age I knew how things grew, and the work that needed to go into this.”

Just as interesting as the works themselves is the way that the artist chose to display them.  By incorporating the framed artworks into a wall-drawing of posts and shadows of plants, Rebecca created an installation that brings the viewer into the narrative of the garden.

Rebecca also included 3-D props of plant shapes which occupied the floor space in front of the artworks.  On these, she wrote statements and questions that might help the viewer to consider their own relationship to food.

Ben Pink, the founder and curator of Launchpad Gallery, mirrors Rebecca’s concerns in his statement about the show.  Problems such as “rising food costs, mono-cropping, pesticide use, loss of genetic diversity in food stocks and reliance on fossil fuels to transport foods hundreds if not thousands of miles from the farm to the store; Shelly sees the modern-day Victory Garden as a small, yet potent way to meaningfully address these issues, but also as catalyst for relationships, a place to re-connect people with their local community and truly create a sense of place.”

In addition to artworks inspired from the images of her own childhood, Rebecca also directly borrowed from the imagery in the WWII posters which were a campaign to encourage Americans to plant victory gardens, as a way of supporting the war effort.  She combined the imagery with collaged text from gardening books of the same era (click to enlarge any of the images on this page):

These smaller paintings in the exhibit echo the didactic tone of the 40′s propaganda posters, yet she pushes beyond the earlier war-effort message to one which is contemporary to our own times.  The mixed-media and layered approach brings the viewer into the artwork in a more intimate way.  What was before a message of pedantic pronouncements becomes, under her skillful hands, more of an invitation to participation.

I couldn’t help but to relate the timing of this exhibition to the victory of our recent American election.  Living in a politically liberal community, there’s an air of excitement about the changes to come.  Despite the plight of financial and housing markets, there’s a charge of optimism for change.  Though its only a small part of the solution, we see many of us who have already taken up the cause for organic gardening.  A walk through any Portland neighborhood will reveal that many of our neighbors have become urban farmers.  There’s also a taste for bartering and a large population that supports bio-fuels and bicycling.  Perhaps one of the answers to these difficult times is a backward glance at the ways of the past.

Here’s some more installation photos from the show:

I thought it especially poignant when a group of young children approached the artist to ask her questions about the inspiration for her mixed-media paintings.  For me, this brings the message of her work full-circle.  The work is inter-generational, inspired by her own experience growing up in the garden.  Now she shares this with others, including the new generation that is emerging.

In addition to the artistic contribution, Rebecca is starting up a project that involves giving away starter plants to people who may want to begin gardening but may need an introduction to the concept:

“Sometimes I think people want to have a little push to do something. That is why I want to give free plant starts to people…. Already, I have received a great amount of interest in this project. A gift is great and when that can continue to give and inspire, that is probably one of the most amazing things an artist can offer.”

In order to make the work MORE available to the general public and in keeping with the propaganda roots of this project, Rebecca has created accessibly priced limited-edition posters of some of the work in the show (click image at left to view these posters).  They are available through Launchpad Gallery.  The gallery is located at 534 SE Oak Street, Portland, OR.  The exhibit continues through November 29th. (view the gallery’s website for hours, or call for an appointment: 971.227.0072)

View Rebecca Shelly’s body of abstract paintings at her website: rebeccashelly.com
Read her blog: rebeccashelly.blogspot.com
Local Victory Blog: localvictory.blogspot.com

I recently finished a new painting, which I’ve decided to title “Cerulean Song”.  Cerulean is the variety of blue that dominates the piece, and since it was created specifically  for a “blue themed” show, it seems appropriate to give some reference to that.  It also seemed significant for music or sound to be a part of it’s title, since it feels like the pregnant woman is being called by the owl’s song.

The ideas for my artworks are always generated by the process.  I didn’t even know that this would be my blue themed piece at the beginning, as I started with a red background.  I did a photo transfer of a collaged face as a demo in my painting class, then started painting the rest of the figure from imagination.  The red hair is the only element of the background that still exists.  (I painted an umber over it, then scratched back into the previous layer with my palette knife).  Here’s a side by side of the photographic image that inspired the face, with the one that materialized when I applied layers of paint.  The image became reversed because of the gel medium transfer:

I generally begin by priming my panel with a lighter color (in this case, orange), then use a darker acrylic glaze (burnt sienna).  The photo collage of the face was adhered with acrylic gel medium, then the paper backing was removed to reveal a mirror image of the face.  I worked on the figure enough that I decided to preserve it once I changed my mind about the color scheme.  For students and other artists interested in the process that goes into a painting, I’m including a few photos of the next steps that brought the piece to completion (click to enlarge):

(1) I created a stencil to protect the figure.  I then proceeded to drip various shades of thinned blue oil paint from the top of the panel.  If you look closely, you’ll see that there is also a plastic bag pressed into the painting.  When pulled up, this reveals some of the underground painting. This step gives me some patterns to work with.  (2) Since the drips started to resemble trees, I decided to go with that idea.  I clarified the tree structure first by removing some of the paint with my palette knife (again, revealing the red layer beneath).  I uncovered the figure and had to remove some paint that had seeped in below the tape.  Oil dries slowly, so I knew that as long as the paint wasn’t completely dried, that I would be able to easily remove any seepage. (3) I further developed the blue tones, but at this point, the dress is green. (I later decided to move it even further into the blue range by covering it with turquoise).  The foreground tree (with owl) is painted on a second layer, on plexiglass.

Because the image is somewhat static, it was important to get some vibrating colors to liven up the theme.  So I created lots of dots of color graduating down from the sky into the foreground.  The patterns in the trees also helps to activate the space, as does the expanding rings that float on the top layer.

This painting will be part of a show titled “Blue Square”, at Vina Paradiso (located at 417 NW 10th in Portland). An opening reception is planned on Dec. 3rd, 6pm – 9pm.   30-40 artists are involved, and, in case it’s not obvious enough, all paintings will be square in shape and blue in theme.

This is the artwork I am entering into the “Dreams” show at the Launchpad Gallery, located at 534 SE Oak Street, in Portland. The opening is this Friday, October 3, from 6-10 pm. There’s expected to be over 60 artists showing work in the “dreams theme”.

It’s been a while since I’ve created an artwork that was strictly related to the interpretation of a dream, but since I almost always begin and end a painting without knowing my next step (preferring to start with one image and free associate til the painting completes itself), I think of the painting process as one which is very similar to a dreaming process, anyway. In this particular case, I began with the image of the bird, then added the plants. The semi-transparent woman and swirls decided to materialize at around 2 am the night before the deadline to get this painting into the gallery. Deadlines sometimes help to get the painting from dreaming into actualization… and off the easel.