Time Piece I and II

On the bottom, Time Piece I~Deconstruction/Reconstruction. On the top Time Piece II~Corporation Orchestration. Each is 8 in x 24 in and 4 inches from the wall at the center niche construction, with a graduating down as you move to the edges. These are on canvas with polystyrene packing being the base for the architectural aspects. 

     Here's the thing. These took years for me to complete from the time I saw the printer packing pieces that together formed a niche and dug them out of the trash. There was the inspiration. I love niches. So then I found the other polystyrene forms to continue the building-like look. Then at a garage sale a year later, I found the plastic scrolly parts. I mounted it all on canvas. And they sat like that for months. Maybe a year. Over that year, I futzed with what to put in the niches. Some things appealed to me, but nothing quite communicated to me. 

     Finally, I focused on a couple of travel clocks that I had. Time. That drives me crazy--time does. So I started to take the clocks apart. But I didn't get very far with that. One needs special tools for that sort of thing. But I had the parts of the clock I had managed to separate just lying in the niches when another artist came into my studio and saw my construction/destruction under way. She had a bagful of watch parts she had been planning on turning into jewelry years ago but hadn't. She generously offered the parts to me. 

     Yes! Just what I'd been wanting to come my way. So I started laying the watch parts into the niches. But then what? How to make a statement about the artificiality of time? That's when a winged scarab came into my life. The winged scarab to Egyptians was a symbol of eternity. The Egyptians saw the actions of the dung beetle as analogous to the sun being pushed across the sky. AHA. Artificial time in all its destruction juxtaposed with a symbol of natural time. The winged scarabs are photocopies that I had to waterproof. I added them to the niches and added watch parts to the place where the wings touch at the top part of each scarab. 

     Now, what goes at the apex? I had one engraved watch back. And lo and behold a watch face that would fit into a watch face surround I had. And that watch face is a mighty representation of corporate America, which tries to orchestrate time and all other parts of our lives. So I put a minute hand into the palm of that symbol of corporate America. Does it make a statement on the artificiality of time? Does it make a statement about how we have to negate our own circadian rhythms in order to feed the corporate maw?

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (to steal a title from William Blake). Began as Excel Hell. Because I'm always in it. Always working the cells of a spreadsheet. Where I don't want to be. Maybe that's an image of me peeking out through the cells. And Excel? It's a blessing and a curse. Much as I imagine a marriage between heaven and hell would be. The interesting part of this painting, for me, is what emerged at the base of it. I used a piece of wood with circles cut out of it. Smeared black paint on it, and those figures came from that. Crazy. Stamping with tools always produces a surprise. But it definitely gave me forms I could storytell with. I think this is something like 36 inches by 12 inches. I can't remember the price I put on it, either. But I will know in time for the studio tour.

In the Twilight Garden of the Phoenix

(no longer in inventory)

I believe this painting is 30 in x 15 in. Mixed media on canvas--metal blanks collected from the floor of Uncle Bill's metal shop where he makes groovy art. The metal and the metallic paint are tricking the light. There's actually a little more green and copper in this piece--just can't quite make it read that way. This was another that I worked 180 degrees from how it is oriented now. I liked what's at the top when it was at the bottom, but couldn't relate to the rest of the painting. Finally, after struggling a bit too long, I turned it this-a-way, and it spoke to me. First of all, the red and red-oranges made me think of The Phoenix. I've always related to this bird of mythology--that pyre thing...burning the self up...pulling out of the ashes the essential parts of oneself...that whole idea of little deaths and rebirths...very relevant for me. Then there were these two figures relating to each other. This made me think of art of India, of friends/lovers in a garden. Once I had those points of reference, it was simply a matter of darkening what is now the bottom. Question now remains...is it a twilight garden or a garden at twilight? I like the idea of the former.

At the Confluence

(no longer in inventory)

This painting is 18"x20" on canvas, and she was quite illusive. I struggled with this from the beginning. I was afraid I had lost it--whatever that is that brings the inside onto the canvas. The color was wrong, everything too controlled and tight--so I sprayed a lot of water into the red and black--had to lose control. Finally, I could exhale. I hadn't lost it.

But then, I had trouble with the light. I couldn't make a commitment. I decided it had to come from the back. Okay, but how did it move through the painting? From the bottom right? Blast out the top? Where? What marks? What did the light look like? What color? What's the dynamic it creates with the dark? I worked it and worked it, and it kept taking the wrong shape, not really communicating anything to me.

Then I had a moment to look at a magazine while at the dentist's office waiting to get a temporary crown made. From the stack, a National Geographic cover revealed itself. And there were the answers to the light questions I had. On the cover was a rendering of moons colliding. Light was blasting out of the spheres. I told my dentist, "The answers to many of my painting questions come from the universe."   I borrowed the magazine. It just may inspire another painting--I mean, moons colliding? That's compelling.

I do believe I've pushed this one as far as I can--for now, anyway.

At the Conjuring

(no longer in inventory)

This painting is 18"x20" on canvas. It was an experiment in using gesso heavily applied on stamping tools. After the heavy marks dried, my first layer of paint was blue; then I added the compliment of orange--to make a shade of brown that I rather liked. I moved the paint around letting some of it go thin in places so the canvas texture showed, then let that layer dry. I went back in with orange in the foreground on the left. And used Nickel/Azo Gold to bring up the heavy gesso marks. Lots of flowing and swirling--and the idea of a conjuring of sorts.

Whatcom Artists Studio Tour 2013 (part 3) Paintings move into the hallways at the Waterfront

Whatcom Artists Studio Tour 2013 (part 2)