life gave me lemons

Actually, these beautiful meyer lemons were a gift from my friend Pam.  Yellow is such a welcome color this time of year in the otherwise black and white landscape.  They reminded me of a big yellow painting I did a number of years ago.  It was actually started in Baltimore, where I was living at the time, and then finished in California, where I lived before moving here to Maine.  The painting is aptly named Moving.  Depicted in the painting are paths of flight, wings, homes and plots of land.  It is full of the ever present sun of California-which proved to be too much to take, hence the move back east. 

but I'd love a little sunshine today...

El Anatsui

Read about these exquisite wall sculptures here  and here.

You can't get there from here

True to the saying here in Maine, there is about 15 inches of very heavy snow standing between my back porch and the studio door.

In the meantime

We are off to Vermont for a few days of family and skiing.

art journals

Last spring I learned how to make a book in an 'art journaling' workshop.  I was feeling a little stale in the studio, so I took some good advice from my friend Julia and tried out a new medium.  Disclaimer: I am not good at the whole measuring and neat stitching thing.   I admire those who have the precision to craft beautiful bindings, mine remain utilitarian at best.  What I did find was that working in a book format really opened up some new directions in my own work.  First of all, work in a book is probably never going to be work on a wall, so it takes down the barriers of what might be shared with an audience-more on that later.  It became for me a place to try some new ideas without committing to stretching canvases and preparing surfaces for paint.  My work felt immediate and fresh, intuitive and experimental.  I liked that. Here I could combine observational drawing, printing and transfer techniques, painting and stitching.  I have kept up with the practice of working in a book in my studio throughout the year.  So far I have filled two books and have almost completed my third.  Here are a few pages from that first book.

Negative Space

Low tide ice flow at the harbor

Ever since those very early drawing assignments were given, I have been drawn to finding the negative space in a scene.    I like being able to define an object in space, simply by describing the space around it.  By looking at the negative space surrounding an object, you are less likely to depend on what you think you know of an object and rely more heavily on what you are actually seeing-an important rule of painting from observation.  Often it is the shape of the negative space, and the edge of the air up against form that I look for in a painting. It is through painting the negative space, that the surface of the picture plane becomes an interest in and of itself rather than just the support for the 'subject' matter.  

RED

The RED Show in Belfast opened on Friday night!  There was a big turnout despite the cold icy weather.  It was good to connect with other artists in the area whom I only occasionally see.  If you click on Aarhus Gallery now, there is a slide show of the exhibit.  You might recognize my two paintings and two prints from earlier posts.  I will try to get good digitals of them posted soon.  In the meantime, here are a few details shot in my studio.

its not easy being green

I have been experimenting in the print shop a few more days.  It has been fun to revisit a medium that I'd left aside for so long.  These prints are tiny, about 4x4".  They are a combination of two plates.  The black intaglio is a drypoint on an acrylic plate.  The color is an etched solar plate inked as relief.  I used oil based ink for the intaglio, but I was introduced to AKUA-Kolor inks which are non toxic water based, and those I used for the relief.  The colors roll out and blend easily which I like.  There are a number of mediums that alter the viscosity, so they can be used very successfully in doing mono prints or gelatin prints.  They also do not dry out on the plate as quickly as do other water based inks, and may be used on wet or dry paper with different results.    I  have only used them once, but am considering an investment for my own studio.  

truth more beautiful than fiction

I came across this image in the January issue of Smithsonian Magazine.  It is a salt making site in northern Niger photographed by George Steinmetz.  More photos from his essay 'Africa on the Fly' are here.