Just started this painting a couple nights ago, and it’s progressing quickly, but not quite finished. The color scheme wasn’t entirely deliberate, as it was determined primarily by the fact that I had a panel in my studio that was pre-primed in yellow ochre. As it developed, I decided to elaborate on the yellows, contrasting it with red-violet shades in her facial shadows and clothes… then adding veils of turquiose blue to cool the temperature and add more balance.

For now I am enjoying continuing a theme of women with flowers and/or birds in their hair. It allows me to focus on all three of my favorite subjects at once. This lady was inspired by a small vintage photo that I found online. An ornithologist friend tells me this is an English robin that’s perched on her head (apparently the red breasted robin is only in America?) The flowers are entirely from my imagination, and are likely to change soon.

I’m attempting to work a little faster than my usual mode.  For one thing, I tend to get so caught up in the details that I feel that sometimes my finished pieces lack the spontaneity that exists at the beginning of production.  I want to keep some of that initial excitement of fresh paint instead of getting too bogged down in my usual tendency towards over-refinement.

Update, May 31: Though most of this painting was created during April, I have finally pulled this one together by adjusting the colors and refining some details.  I’ve decided to call her “April’s Crown”, as a commemoration of Spring.

* Two of my artworks have been published in the recently released 2011 WeMoon Datebook, and one was selected for the wall calendar!  (“Aquabird Dream” was chosen for the month of April of the Wall Calendar, and it is also represented on page 149 of the Datebook.  “Blooming Meditation” is presented on page 146).

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* My business plan for my art reproduction company was approved and I received a matched savings grant to help me pay for the printing of thousands of prints and cards of my artworks.

* I received an RACC (Regional Arts and Cultural Counsel) grant to help me pay for a brochure to advertise my new company to over 1000 stores.

* I co-designed the brochure with my graphic designer (fellow artist, Amy Livingstone) to create a 4-fold presentation, which required new photographs of my work and many hours of diligent consideration.  If you’d like a brochure, email me, and I’ll be glad to send you one.  Also, if you know of any stores that you think would be interested, please send me their address!  Here’s a web version of my 2-sided, 4-fold brochure:

* I personally created a new website, dreambirdart.com, which is now almost finished! I just need to finish setting up the shipping info and add vouchers which will allow new customers to receive 10% off their first order (as well as a way of offering wholesale pricing for retailers). The site is expected to launch by October 10th, but anyone can log in to register now and add items to a “Wish List”.

* I had an opportunity to move out of my shared art studio into one which offered me around 3 times the space.  I’ve already started several paintings there… and recently finished 5 new ones.

* I am currently the “Featured Artist” at my artist co-op gallery, Six Days Art.  Here’s a snapshot of my display:

One of the paintings not displayed above is in the gallery’s window.  It’s a favorite which I titled “Emergence”.  The image began with an experimental method of creating texture by painting first onto a plexiglass surface, then transferring it to the paper.  When I pulled the paper off of the plexiglass, it created a most amazing rippling effect.  Within this texture, I saw the image of an owl… so I articulated it further.

I find it interesting that, without any direct intention, 3 out of my 5 recent paintings have focused on the subject of owls.  I had actually intended to respond to the theme of next year’s WeMoon call for art, which is supposed to respond to the subject of “Chrysalis”.  But these are the images that were flowing through me, so that’s what I needed to follow at the moment.  All 3 of the owl paintings still respond to the theme in a tangential way, in that they seem to be about “protection”, or a sense of ‘guardian spirit”.   I did create one painting in this recent series that spoke more specifically to the “Chrysalis” theme.  I called this “10,000th Incarnation”:

To see more of my new series of paintings, please visit the Paintings 1 gallery of my website. (I also lowered prices on several of my paintings by up to $200, to help stimulate sales… as a result of the economy and the fact that I’ve had very little cash flow while I’ve been concentrating on starting my new business!)  Please also visit my new website for Dreambird Art!

It’s been most of a month since my move, but the physical requirements of making it all happen put my body in such a state of exhaustion that it’s taken me this long to get back on track. First of all, I am not one who can live out of boxes for any amount of time. The aesthetics of place (and the sanity of knowing where everything is located) is simply too important to me to let myself rest. So the feathering of the nest began pretty much immediately… followed by a near-total collapse (and I’m still recovering).

I’ve only had few visitors since the move, but immediately upon seeing this little attic space, the word “sweet” always comes up. We are situated on the third floor of a lovely home west of Mt. Tabor, which is my new favorite Portland neighborhood. Here’s my favorite part: a panoramic view from the window of the enclosed porch that I’ve made into my office:

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!

Months have led up to a recent “breakthrough painting” that I feel really proud of sharing with everyone. I feel like a lot of synchronistic events led up to the birthing of this one. A recent impulse led to taking a solo trip to the Oregon coast. As soon as I began walking the path through this particular forest, I felt this was the place that called me here. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is places like this that called me to move from magical Taos, to a place that was closer to my birth.

Soon after discovering this place, a friend from New Mexico came to visit me, and I just had to share this special forest with her. She had the same kind of magical response to it. When she saw this hollowed out tree covered with moss and ivy, she acted on her impulse to curl up underneath it. She settled into this most perfect pose within a minute. All I had to do was take the picture, and I knew immediately it would be a wonderful subject for a painting. In fact, it was SO perfect that my biggest challenge was how I would go about creating something that could rival the photo.

I decided I wanted to work on frosted mylar, as I love it’s smooth, translucent surface. First, I made a very general sketch on an 18 x24 sheet. After getting the basic composition in, I added the first layer of acrylic paint… and then a more specific sketch of my subject with colored pencils.

I decided to begin with glazes of paint, pressing plastic wrap into them to obtain a random texture. Once that’s done, I started adding more textured details using a combination of sponging and impasto texturing.

The detail below shows that at this point I am working in a very abstract manner, allowing the paint itself to suggest the texture of the leaves and moss:

I continue to add more layers, but eventually get to a point when I’m not sure where else to take it. Other than adding more detail, what can I do to bring this in a direction that’s more personal than copying the photo?

It was fortunate that I happened to take a collage class at this point. Creating a small collage helped me to decide that I needed to create a color shift of the branches, changing the grayish limbs to a purplish blue brought out more of the fantasy element that this scene inspired within me. (I make more specific mention of the collage process in a previous post).

Now that I’m on track with what the painting is asking of me, I have more energy to devote to its completion. It also happens that I’ve been asked to do a show and since I’ve decided that this piece will grace the invitation, it creates more energetic fire to stay up til 4 or 5 am for several nights. My creative juices always seem to flow much better in the evening.

I had a lot of fun adding details to the moss and leaves. “God(dess) is in the details”.

I also had a lot of fun with the patterns in her skirt.

I was amazed when I enlarged my photo of Olivia to discover that she had wrapped her prayer beads around her hand. This little detail adds more meaning to the picture. When I contemplate this pose, I think of nesting… resting in the womb of the earth. She feels sheltered, embraced by the roots that wrap around her.

It was hard for me to decide on a title for this painting. I had an idea of what it meant to me, but putting words to it were eluding me, so I queried many friends to see what they thought. It was enlightening to hear how many suggestions alluded to ideas of nesting, the womb, Gaia (mother earth), cocooning, and gestation. The image reminds me that deep within the forest I feel a natural home. Walking through an old growth forest, in particular, I feel awakened to a sense of magic… an awareness of how ALIVE the earth is. This awareness enlivens my senses, brings me out of the doldrum of (too much) activity…. and reminds me of my ancestral belonging.

I’ve been craving a bit of solitude lately.  Speaking of this need to a friend, she offered me her place for the weekend, while she was out of town.  After sharing houses for years, this small break was like heaven for me.  I decided to make it into my own little creative/spiritual retreat.  The focus was to read, write, walk, paint and meditate… and nothing else.   I highly recommend this to anyone who feels overwhelmed by the pressures of the everyday.  Whatever it is that engages you with your higher self, focus on nothing but this for a day, a weekend, a week… whatever you can afford to give yourself.

At the outset, I decided not to judge whatever I produced.  This is time for me, not for pumping out salable artwork.  Sometimes the pressure of that is itself debilitating.  I wanted to flow with whatever came up for me.

I started the painting above a little before the retreat, but brought it along to have at least one thing that already had a beginning.  It was the freshest thing in my studio.  It began with star-shaped flowers…. then the swirling sky.  I started to see a bird in the sky, so I painted that.  Then I saw the woman.  It’s not finished, but I sort of like it this way right now.  When I come to a place where I don’t know what to do next, I stop.  I feed my senses with something else until the next step announces itself.  I read, walk or I paint something else.

I was at a loss about what to paint next.  Mostly, I give myself too many choices, so my biggest dilemma is making a decision.  I got up to make some tea and looked at Joy’s walls for a little while.  I found myself staring at a madonna image.  Mind you, I’m not a religious person (in the traditional way, at least), but when a little voice in my head told me to “paint myself as the goddess”, I decided to do it.  The result is less goddess than peasant, but there’s something I like about it.   One problem I had was that the only mirror I had with me was a two inch magnifying mirror, so I can’t see my whole face in it.  I can see one eye, a nose, my lips in isolation… but could not see the whole at once.  So I decided that was my challenge, to figure out how to make them work together. I struggled with the proportions.  I’ve finally come to a place with it that I recognize myself, though there is some odd distortions.  It still needs some work, but I don’t want to overwork it. I want to leave it partly unfinished.

(When Joy came back, she was surprised, and told me that she put that madonna image up for me, and wondered if I would see myself in it).

I started a couple other little paintings which are still in their beginning stages.  In both, I started with a textured background by pressing plastic wrap into wet paint.  It was easy to see trees, branches and leaves in this, so I took out my oil pastels and started to define these shapes.  Not too surprisingly, a river formed in both of these paintings as well.  The image of water and trees is something that bubbles up in meditation frequently these days.   I visualize this body of water (a stream or river more than an ocean).  At first, I am only aware of the reflections on the water.  The water reflects the sky and shadows of trees above.  I feel gently pulled into it.  It’s like I am on an invisible boat.  I don’t have a body, but I sense myself being pulled along the river.  I am lost in the motion of ripples, the reflection, the shadows.  This is the archetypal landscape of my soul: water, trees, sky…

I realize that I want to paint from the source more frequently.  To go outside and paint what I see in the reflections of the water.  But it was a rainy weekend, so I decided “the source” was whatever I could pull out of what I saw in the paint.  These are timid beginnings so far, but I see the potential already.  Again, I like looking at the work before it’s been fully realized.

Another thing I thought about painting (but didn’t) was a pomegranate, based on images that have come up in both meditations and dreams.  But when I opened the fruit, I was confounded by the complexity of hundreds of seeds.  I decided to do a photographic study instead, to help me decide how I wanted to approach the subject before I try to paint it.  The night before I went out to purchase the pomegranate, I burned a candle that overflowed.  I picked up the wax and realized that it also resembled the pomegranate, so I posed it with the fruit, which seemed to emphasize the sense of oozing.  I ran the image through some Photoshop filters to see how different colors affected the image.

In my dream during this retreat, I was eating the pomegranite seeds (sharing it with Joy, who was sharing her home with me).  I looked down on my plate and was surprised to see that the seeds were glowing like little light-bulbs.  I knew it was about embracing the feminine archetype… to learn about and hold this power… and to realize that my connection to this world is through the senses, to embrace that also.

A still-life is also a great starting point for the imagination to interpret what it sees.  Setting up objects creates a perfect situation for studying the effects of light, shadow, and color… and the fact that you have the opportunity to arrange and rearrange the composition allows for more freedom and control than practically any other subject.

Before beginning on a still-life, I feel that it’s a good idea to look at the masters of the genre… those that were able to transcend the subject of “objects on a table” into a work of personal and subjective relevance.

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839–1906): “Apples and Pears”

Cézanne was interested in the simplification of naturally occurring forms to their geometric essentials. He is one of the first artists to be spoken of when referring to the idea of the “dynamic” still life.  If you look closely at almost any of his paintings, you will notice that he chooses a rather precarious balance to his themes.  There are a few things to notice in the example above.  First, the horizon line is only slightly tilted, so that there’s a feeling of stability, yet not quite stable.  The plate is also tilted, and the fruit look like they might easily fall off the table.  This isn’t completely obvious to the casual observer, but even these slightly unstablizing factors prevent the composition from becoming totally static.  I’ve added a detail of the painting to help the student see the texture of the paint.  It also serves as an idea of abstracting the image further.

Cézanne’s explorations of geometric simplification later inspired Picasso, Braque and others to experiment with ever more complex multiple views of the same subject, and, eventually, to the fracturing of form (cubism).

To view more works by Cézanne, visit this link.

Paul Gauguin (French, 1848–1903): “Still Life Fete Gloanec”

Paul Gauguin’s artworks are frequently characterized by an intense color palette.  His most famous artworks were interpretations of an idyllic life of peasants in Tahiti. His still-life paintings are less known, but were consistent with the rest of his work in that they tended to simplify the subject and key up the colors into somewhat unnatural hues.

A Post-Impressionist, Gauguin’s bold and colorful paintings significantly influenced Modern art, especially artists Matisse, Picasso, Braque, and Derain (including the movements of Fauvism, Cubism, and Orphism among others).

To view more of Paul Gauguin’s artworks, visit www.paul-gauguin.net

Vincent Van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890): Sunflowers, Irises, and Lemons

Vincent Van Gogh’s artworks span the subjects of landscape, portraiture and still-life.  He worked at a feverish pace, producing almost 900 paintings between  a span of 9 years (1881-1890).  He painted quickly, deliberately, and almost always from live subjects.

“I can’t work without a model. I won’t say I turn my back on nature ruthlessly in order to turn a study into a picture, arranging the colors, enlarging and simplifying; but in the matter of form I am too afraid of departing from the possible and the true.”

Van Gogh firmly believed that to be a great painter you had to first master drawing before adding color. Over the years he clearly mastered drawing and began to use more color. His early works were shadowed by the dark color themes of Dutch realism, but after viewing the works of the French Impressionists, his color scheme shifted to the tints and tones of a brighter world.  In time, one of the most recognizable aspects of Van Gogh’s paintings became his bold use of color.  The energetic use of line and brushwork is also a trademark of Van Gogh’s work.

To view more of Van Goghs drawings and paintings, visit www.vangoghgallery.com

Georgio Mirandi (Italian, 1890-1964): the muted still-life

Morandi was the master of monochromatic compositions of subtle power.  He tended to emphasize the shapes and profiles of his objects with gentle shifts in color, unified with an even-handed, brushy application of paint.  He preferred matte surfaces and neutral colors. Boxes and bottles were stripped of labels and sometimes painted white or gray to destroy reflections and homogenize the materials, reducing them to essential forms. In this way, his still life paintings became studies in abstract geometric archetypes.

To view more works by Giorgio Morandi, visit this site.

Georgia O’Keefe (American, 1887-1986)

Georgia O’Keefe’s studies of natural forms are generally viewed less as still-lives than powerful expressions of abstracted realities.  She did occasionally set up objects on a table, but more often there is no reference to man-made forms in these paintings.  Sometimes (especially in the case of her bone-studies) she would float the subject agains an expansive sky.

Wikipedia says, “O’Keeffe has been a major figure in American art since the 1920s. She is chiefly known for paintings in which she synthesized abstraction and representation in paintings of flowers, rocks, shells, animal bones and landscapes. Her paintings present crisply contoured forms that are replete with subtle tonal transitions of varying colors.”

Patrick Chi Ming Leung (born in Hong Kong 1953; resides in Canada)

I actually know very little about this artist.  I discovered him by wandering the web, researching artists of the still life.  I immediately recognized something very powerful in the way that he abstracts natural forms into circles, lines, textures, and shapes.  It makes me realize that it’s possible to push the possibilities of each, simultaneously !   I’ve enlarged a section of the above painting in order to focus on what is happening, at a spatial level.

I’ll soon write to the artist and see if I can gain any insight into his process and thoughts (and to obtain permission to use his image).

For more images by Patrick Chi Ming Leung, visit gallery site.

Joseph Plasket (Canadian, 1918- ):

Another discovery from browsing the web, Joseph Plasket actually has quite a renowned reputation and I’m surprised I hadn’t come across him before.  Joseph Plasket comes to us from Canada.   He’s a gem (and I want to meet him!)

What I appreciate most about these compositions is that the still-life subjects are rendered in a lively attention to detail, seeming fairly realistic, yet slammed against the plane of rectangles, squares and octagons.  It’s as if two planes of dimensional space have intersected or collided with each other.  Brilliant!  In some ways it goes further than the discovery of Cubism by Picasso.  Picasso smashes space up into a bucket of glass and puts it back together into a less recognizable form.  Joseph Plaskett has performed a trick on our perceptions also, but it seems a friendlier place to me.  It’s the kind of world that I would like to step into, with all of its pure hue, elegant shapes, and colored light.

I love how he can take the same basic forms and, combining each with a different light and temperature, creates completely different atmospheres!

Reflections on Turning 90, by Joseph Plasket:

“The ecstasy I feel as I survey  work I have done I want to share with the world – not the whole world  which couldn’t care less, but my private world, which is my country, Canada. An aged painter cannot help but accept the fact that his work belongs in the past. Younger painters have leaped into the phenomenon called contemporary, where it would be foolish of me to try to enter. But I can claim my own phenomenon, the existence of a public that loves and is moved by what I do, and this public even includes my peers some of whom are young and contemporary. I now paint works that I would previously have not been capable of painting, works that take me by surprise and leave me in a state of wonder and amazement. When I see older work that has stood the test of time (not everything I do does) I cannot recall how I have done it. At a certain point the painting seems to have painted itself without my help – what I have called the “eureka” moment when a sudden daring intervention has worked a miracle.”

In my personal opinion, the worlds that Joseph Plasket has created is just as contemporary as anything else I’ve seen.  I see that he has fractured the world into 2 planes: the receding objects on the table, and the flat plane of the table, which has a shifted perspective.

To view more paintings by Joseph Plasket, view his gallery webpages.  Here’s another, with more : www.gallery78.com/jplask.htm

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Note: Most of my posts related art instruction, art history, and classes are being posted on private pages, instead of within the main frame of this blog.  Here’s an index of the class-related pages I’ve created so far. You can also view them on the sidebar, under “Pages” (between categories and blogroll), arranged in alphabetical order:

Painting Subjects

Staging a Simple Still-Life

Masters of the Dynamic Still-Life

Contemporary Botanicals, Mixed Media

The Interpretive Landscape

The Interpretive Portrait

Mixed Media/Painting Techniques:

Textured Backgrounds

Acrylic Image Transfers

Combining Pattern and Realism

Color, Space, Repetition

Golden Inspirations: Gold Leaf Painting

Stencils, Stencils, Stencils

Color Theory:

Mandala Color Wheel

Color Wheel Masking

Creating Harmony in Color

Color Shift from a Photographic Source

For a more contemporary inspiration, I turn to an artist whom I discovered online, Thaneeya McArdle.  I find it interesting that Thaneeya divides her creative focus between completely abstract pattern paintings, photorealism, and what she terms “composite realism”, which combines the worlds of abstraction and representational painting.

The painting at left is part of her ZenPop series. The abstract background is actually an archival giclee of one of her original abstract paintings. This series relies heavily on a stream-of-consciousness method of allowing images to arise and suggest themselves. After selecting an abstract starting point, she chooses a specific image and builds the painting around the image (in this case, a fluffy white sheep). After meticulously painting the sheep in a photorealistic style, she added a decorative abstract border to the top and bottom of the painting.

Thaneeya divides her composite realism works between her “spiritual” and “animaux” subjects.  For this post, I’d like to focus on the animals, which provide the main focal point for the composite image.  I’m including a number of her images here for inspiration (click to view enlargements).

Thaneeya is very generous in illustrating the steps that go into making some of her paintings.  Her Iguana is a particularly good example of mixed media techniques, since she utilizes a collage of book pages, gold-leaf, and acrylic paint.

To view more of her artworks and learn more about the artist, please visit her website at www.thaneeya.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.

The cast was very bumpy when I picked it up, still revealing the gauze that was used in its creation. My first step was to mix up a new batch of plaster and smooth it over the entire cast, let it dry for a day, then thoroughly sand it. I wanted the outside of the form to reveal more of the details that could be seen within the inside, so I added details such as nipples, which are an important element of a pregnant woman’s form. I then applied several layers of acrylic paint, starting with blue, then turquoise, then metallic gold for an iridescent effect. I decided to paint the form of a tree, bending along the curves of her form, to symbolize the growth process. The branches wrap around the belly and breasts, signifying the gentle movement from seed to maturity. In addition, the branching itself reflects the structure of the vascular system… the blood that brings oxygen into the fetus, sustaining its life.

I feel that it is a triumph to get anything at all done in the studio these days, so it’s actually good to have a deadline on something occasionally. Plans are still on hold for the move to my “art house”, and I’m still going through all of my stuff. Organizing and packing takes forever for someone like me. I have a lot of stuff I’ve collected over the years. Part of me wants to throw it all out just to save the trouble of moving it. Another part of me is still pretty attached, knowing that everything I’ve collected has some purpose and can be used in future artworks…. some day. So I’m taking the middle road. If I’m not absolutely certain I’m going to use something within the next year or so, I’m giving it away or throwing it out. My goal is to get rid of at least 1/3 of my possessions. The process feels a bit like giving birth.