breath

we are losing day light. the season is robbing me of my beloved early mornings. i noticed today how dark it still was today at 6am. absolute black here at the forest's edge.

it's been freezing in the morning too. i will need to get a ski mask so that i can keep running in the winter.

running has become a ritual. breath and blood- pounding pounding, surging. a necessity. and my mind travels through time, through branches, through fog toward early light and shade while i leap across the two-lane highway, barrel down the lane along vineyards, orchards, tenements, and the wide, unkempt fields littered with rotting walnut husks.

stray dogs. squirrels. signs for who to vote for.

i am making a big cup of tea with honey in it. after i enjoy it, i will go vote. exercise my rights and then come home, dive back in to my black graphite, scratch scratch scratch the page, and sit in bed with my Mr. Wonderful- Roland Barthes. it is high on my To-Do List today to re-read Camera Lucida. it's been years. i don't remember a thing about it and that makes me feel too silly to not do anything about it. besides, as i go along, i seem to crave more and more time with Barthes' writing... believing, in a way akin to faith, that dealing with his work truly does make me a better artist. i am sure of this. and in becoming a better artist, also a better person.

i've been singing lately while i work. yesterday, i sang almost all day long while i sat on the living room floor working on a huge drawing. the day moved so quickly. and i felt such a deep stir of emotion while i worked. the swell and release that only the act of singing seems to bring. an exorcism of sorts, i suppose. a reckoning. and i felt like i accomplished something good and true just sitting here on the floor, singing and drawing, all day long.

morning...

dogs are barking. a second pot of coffee is brewing. oil paint all over. black and swollen. depth between depths. shadows seeping. fraying at the edge. my hair is twisted up in a bun on top of my head. i am still in my pajamas. there are words all over the place. all through me. i go back to the canvas, i go back to the page. back and forth, back and forth. it is all in black. ink or type or paint. black against white. fraying at the edges. a knot loosed. a rope unwound. a net or nest or hope.

happiness...

i am on 10 hour painting days. something clicked in to place...

a small turn of the ribbon... a tiny whisker twitching....
whatever it is, i am in the work in a way i didn't expect.

i wake up, make the coffee, and lug my canvasses outside to work in the beautiful, true country morning light. it has made all the difference. i am seeing better than i've seen in weeks. i suppose i'm in love. :) tricks i'd forgotten or let go of have returned to rest in my hands. today, i even impressed myself. ha! i am glad, gladder, gladdest, and the day goes by too fast, far too quickly, and i ache for morning to come back.

the alarm clock has become a welcome sound.

crunch time...

sorta took a little break from all things internet today. i get sucked in way too easily sometimes. i get lost looking at all the sparkling brilliance of the world and then when i finally pick my head up and look at the clock, HOURS have passed. and i've just got too much to do this week. i'm really trying hard to pull 2 of my canvasses together and call them done by the end of the weekend and that's a hell of a lot of work to be done. they're both in the home stretch but, without a dedicated, daily effort, that home stretch can span weeks. and after receiving two rejection letters back to back (one, i knew to expect and wasn't upset at all by it. the other was quite the shock and led to a tear-filled, self-loathing couple of days. someone call the wha-mbulance!), i feel the need to really turn the fire up and paint as if my life depends upon it... and in a lot of ways, it does. you don't work, you don't eat. and so i'm off to keep painting. there's still a couple of hours of light left in the day. i need to use them wisely.

more questioning...

the maids are far enough along at this point (as a series) that it's definitely time to start putting together an artist statement. i've been wracking my brain, coming up with tons of "starts" for a statement but i eventually find myself referencing my own past rather than keeping the statement exclusive to the work itself. the work isn't meant to explain me. it isn't meant to be that kind of vehicle.

drawing from personal experience is a great thing... so long as it is eventually translated in to something more inclusive, wider reaching, encompassing, open. making the work all about me isn't going to leave many doors open for others to have a private experience of their own with the work. it doesn't allow for a wide open narrative or freedom for the viewer to cook up their own narratives. and i want that for the audience. it's why i leave out the faces.

faces are specific. i want the viewer to add the face. the viewer finishes the work. it is a call to memory, the viewer's memories and experiences, that i appreciate and am trying to lure.

and as far as reality is concerned, i am quite anonymous, the audience is anonymous, and the ladies are anonymous... and this anonymity is the site where hope and understanding can spring. it is a place (or state of being) that nurtures a type of fearlessness of approach, a type of acceptance, that labels and class and "perception" don't allow for.

i'm blathering, working out ideas... but it helps to write it out here.

there's something i'm after with this work that goes far beyond my self and what my experiences have been or who/what i am as a person. that's the stuff i need to get to. that's the stuff i want this space to be about- that site of hope where connections are made and understanding is possible. no utopias, just good ol' fashioned human goodness and frailty. a willingness to speak and to hear. embarrassment, brutality, forgiveness, vengeance, poetry and all.

art and wine...

good morning! i've been working on the new maid portrait since about 6:30 and my painting arm is a little tired. :) but i'll suffer through it. i'm really exited about creating a new body of work around this image. and there are a lot of things coming up this summer that i need to be prepared for (more about that later) so i've really gotta pick up the pace on my production... at least as much as my process will allow without becoming a one-woman art-factory. i'm just having so much fun in my little studio lately. my canvasses are last thing i think about at night when i crawl in to bed and the very first thing on my mind when i wake up. i'm on the right track and it's nice.

and speaking of nice... i had such a wonderful time at the wine-tastings we went to yesterday! we went to three different wineries, drank chardonnay out of the tanks, ate strong cheese, and were pretty giggly by the end of it. it was wonderful and i had so much fun! the only down side to drinking wine in the middle of the day though is that by 4:30 in the afternoon i was so drained and tired that i wasn't good for much for the rest of the evening. but magically, i have not even a hint of a headache and was awake and ready for the day at 5:30 this morning. if you find yourself out and about in wine-country, go to the tastings. and a special thanks to Lin at Venge for showing us such hospitality and being so generous and sweet. :)

early...

running on about 4 hours of sleep... sorta messed up my early morning schedule during the weekend by staying up a bit late and waking up a bit late so getting up at 5am today was a bit of a struggle. but thank the lord for hot, caffeinated, brown beverages and canvas to screw around with. i was feeling awake by 6 and started painting right away. i sure am gonna miss these canvasses when i finally drag them down to the gallery. i love them. i don't know exactly why but, looking at them, just being in the same room with them, makes me feel safe and that life isn't all bad.

the sun is back, the rain is gone, and it's definitely warm enough to forget my jacket today.

coffee tragedy...

so...
the WORST thing that could've happened to this night-owl did...
my coffee maker broke. :( and after screwing with it, hitting it, and pushing all its non-specific buttons in a wide array of sequences, the damn thing finally pushed my buttons to the point where i angrily resigned myself to utter failure.

the truth is,
i bought one of the cheapest coffee makers i could find but that was only 4 months ago! arg! so i finally boiled a pot of water and dumped it through the filter and wa-la! i'm drinking coffee and back in action! necessity... the mother of invention: word. i just wish i'd thought of it sooner and saved myself a whole lot of time and aggravation.

but with a full pot brewed (by hand) and a bag full of new art supplies (i went shopping today!), the night feels young and full of potential. i finally scored some more chocolate-colored glitter so i can finish the print edition i started a few weeks back. i've been so caught up in painting and drawing that i completely forgot about the prints! and with only a few more to go!

between that and the big yellow painting (which isn't really all that yellow anymore) and the 4 other canvasses i've got going, this week is pretty well booked. i'll happily give in to the urge to stay up all night painting and playing, lose sleep if necessary, and get a bunch of work done. i don't want any loose ends to tie up, with paintings or otherwise, come the new year and, with only 8 weeks to go, i'd better hustle.

anonymous girls....

Anonymous Girls #3
22" x 15"
ink on paper
2008

this has been a secret series of mine for about a year and a half now. only a few people have seen this work... until now! the gallery took this piece for the november show and i am so excited about it! it's work that people seem to feel pretty strongly about- they either completely love it or hate it more than any thing else. :) which i get a really big kick out of! when i first started this series, i was sort of just doing it to keep my hands busy and quickly ended up having a huge stack of little 8" x 10" ink drawings of girl heads. at the time, i had been really invested in the untitled sisters paintings... portraits of girls cropped at the neck (headless), and a classmate of mine made the statement that maybe this was where all their faces went. i really enjoyed his outlook and decided i'd let these drawings happen as they needed to and to not force them in any particular direction.


Anonymous Girls #4
11" x 7 1/2"
ink on paper
2008

it's been nice to have a low-pressure/secret project that grows and changes at it's own rate. i have so many that still need to be photographed. hopefully, we'll have a few more days of beautiful and bright weather... i've got an amazingly large (and constantly growing) pile of artwork that needs to be documented. i get so wrapped up in new work that i keep forgetting to take pictures! now that this project is no longer so secret... i'm anxious about what kind of reception this work will get next month during the exhibition... documentation will become quite important.

anyway...
any one else see the similarity between this work and the "black apples" series? a pretty nice partnership, i'd say! i really like seeing these pieces together... maybe i should make a zine of my own? definitely something to think about.


black apples (2)
15" x 11"
ink on paper
2008

yellow

brewing a second pot of coffee and listening to patti smith, i'm on a painting rampage today. i started a big, yellow oil painting a few days ago and, unexpectedly, letting a bit of color back in to the work has made me go gaga for the process of painting again. i love that! one small change and the reason i fell in love with painting in the first place is reawakened and i'm a frenzy in the studio. i feel more driven and dedicated than i have in weeks. maybe this change has been waiting to happen longer than i realise? at any rate, it feels great and i'm happy to be working in this manner again: my long-loved realism.