Symmetry and Storage

My eyes are crooked.  Seriously, my eyes are slightly misaligned - the right one is a millimeter higher than the left.   I have been aware of this since I was a teenager when it dawned on me that the reason why I could never get my eyeliner to look right was because one lid was shaped with a little more of a slope and the other eye was a little higher...so it goes, but it makes for some frustrating asymmetry when drawing.

The current work is a triptych of self-portraits...my internal monologues with Goya.  Each drawing is about 18 x 17 inches:  smaller, straightforward self-portraits with concentrated and candid observation.  I will post these drawings as I finish them.

At my husband's insistence (via repeated suggestion), I have rented a storage space for my finished and framed drawings.  I suspect that a commercial that we saw for the "Hoarders" show on A&E was the catalyst ("Hey - that looks just like my studio!") but, in truth, I cannot organize the studio supplies that I use because I can barely navigate the framed drawings I have stacked in my studio space.  I cannot even shift my chair to the left or right more than a couple of inches...it really is that bad.

Plus, there are little frustrations such as the day that I spent 45 minutes looking for the circle template (the second one that I have purchased this year) and as a last resort I ended up tracing glasses out of the kitchen (and not the exact circle size I needed) - a particularly exasperating instance when I knew that I owned something but I could not put my hands on it at the moment when it was desperately needed.

I suppose I could stop doing such large drawings that need to be framed...but since this drawing thing is a compulsion, that is not going to happen unless heavy medication is involved.

I remember asking one of my studio art professors what he was going to do with his stockpile of 15 x 20 foot paintings after his death...oh wait, digression:  I really am not that tacky or insensitive to ask an artist what they were going to do with the paintings that did not sell during his/her lifetime - this professor, both self-absorbed and eccentric, held one very open-forum class during each semester that was an "ask me any question about my experience as an artist, anything, no holds barred" so he encouraged this sort of dialogue.  My other question during one of these forums was whether or not women and men painted differently because of their actual physical differences (the innie-outie question), which, oddly, he shied away from answering, but the death question got him very excited...his answer was that since he owned the old high school gym in town (the only space large enough for his paintings) he had already made a stipulation in his will that the building would be sealed with his paintings left inside, protected, until anyone cared or bothered to get them out.

Alas, I do not think I will find a spare gymnasium anytime soon.  So, it is time for a good cleanout, a good system of organization, some fun trips to Ikea (oh Swedish storage paraphernalia, how I do love thee), and then I can at least move my chair around...perhaps I will even get one of those rolly-chairs since I will have some room for momentum when I wheel myself around the studio.

Goodbye October

I LOVE October.

Every year around this time I find myself longing to be a landscape painter...fortunately for all, this feeling passes as soon as the leaves have fallen from the trees, though not usually in time to prevent me from grabbing some gouache or watercolor to make truly pathetic attempts at painting trees and sky.  (In my mind I picture myself painting sunset and moonrise landscapes in the style of Maxfield Parrish, but I know that this is totally unreasonable and leaves me destined for failure).

Alas, I have resorted to photographs to cure my urge to paint landscapes.

I have found that the tree color this year has been nice enough, but the sunsets have been exceptional:

Oh, October, how I will miss thee.

I have finished the grandmother/magnolia/cotton drawing - which is conveniently titled "Cottonmouth and Magnolia" - but I will not post the final photos until I have a professional photographer make proper photos of the piece next week.   It is too subtle, too large, too cumbersome to get a good photo with my point-and-shoot digital camera, and, though it is tempting to post, I will not spoil the final unveiling with lousy photos.

I have not been posting as many blogs:  although I am constantly writing  in my head, finding the time to put my thoughts and whims into any concrete form has been nearly impossible this month.  And then, wouldn't you know it, whatever profound or not-so-profound thoughts wisp away into some subconscious netherworld.  So it goes.

The next drawing is already up and running: a self-portrait with ancient fish and bubbly-cells ~ swimming with the coelacanths...

Currently listening to:  The Jesus and Mary Chain Psychocandy

My newest studio companion, the adorable Minnie: abandoned at our doorstep, she was six weeks old but was the size of a three-week-old kitten (hence her name).  She likes paint brushes.  I wonder if she will be one of those cats that paint!?!

Macro Fun in the Garden II

Alas, I am still plodding away on my latest drawing and counting down the days until my kids are in summer camp (which of course means exponentially more time in the studio). The odd thing is that the less time I have to draw in the studio, the more time I have to disconnect and think and sneak a few sketches.  With all of this repressed creative energy combined with thinking, I have no less than four drawings that I have started to compose (sketch, plan, resketch), three of which are elaborate narrative portraits.  I think this is a record for me...usually I only plan one or two drawings out from the one that I am currently drawing.  I do not work in a traditional " series " where I explore a single idea - rather I evolve through a continuum...which means that one or two of the planned drawings may be scrapped or totally altered by the time I get to actually rendering the final pieces.

I have plenty of studio time on the horizon, so I know the drawings will emanate soon, but out of frustration I am feeling the need for instant gratification visual stimulation this week, so here are more macro garden photos.

Clover:

Thanks to all the rain, there is a fungus amungus...and this one looks like the classic toad stool to me:

Hey, Hey, Hey, is it me or does this mushroom look like Dumb Donald from Fat Albert?:

More daylilies...they are so beautiful and sensual...I thought the veins in this one were rather womb like:

Nasturtiums, again...the red ones are also quite suggestive and have an almost prodigal lushness:

Macro Fun in the Garden I

Although I do not usually chitchat about weather, I have to say that the rainy weather has been a touch ridiculous.  Out of the past three weeks there have been 3 partial-days of sun.  This is not Seattle, so I have come to expect a little more warm and sunny spring/summer weather during the month of June.  As a result, my yard has been getting out of hand and the wisteria has begun an aggressive creep into the neighbor's yard (yes, I do know that this is the worst of the non-native plants to put in your garden, but I absolutely love the spring blooms and I usually keep it pruned back). My garden has been the source of many reference photographs for drawings, and I use a very low-end digital camera to photograph plants, bugs, and rocks.  I have discovered that it actually makes very nice macro shots and with a little practice I can really push the quality of the photos.  This is not like a digital SLR where I can manipulate depth of field and all those other good photog tricks (which have become a little hazy since I put my 35 mm in the closet a few years back), but the results are not bad.

Since my drawing has been at an awkward stage for over a week (in other words, it is not at a point to show in-progress images), the next couple of blogs are macro photos of the micro world in my garden.

Geranium:

Daylily:

Nasturtium - this is one of the yellow ones; I have a spectacular little display of red ones that I will post in the next few days.  Did Georgia O'Keeffe paint nasturtiums?  I do not know, but they certainly have a certain, well, suggestive quality:

Rose (I was photographing the rose for an upcoming drawing...planning ahead, working out the composition...)

This little guy (some sort of small parasitic wasp) was hanging out on the rose bush:

A newly emerged baby grasshopper - he was so delicate and small that this was just a lucky find since he happened to be sitting on a leaf right next to the thorns that I was photographing:

While I am working in the studio, progress has been very slow ~ the usual distractions around the end of the school year (oh, and that whole adinovirous-swine-flu-tummy-bug thing that has kept a rotating schedule of stay-home kids to pamper...such a studio time killer).

More macro photos soon.

Tau

A big welcome to the Tony Smith sculpture Tau! Thank you to all of those at the Pierro Foundation who worked so hard to bring the work to South Orange - it looks fabulous!

Hooray for The Arts in South Orange!