When Mark and Helmi Came to Visit (12 in x 36 in)

(no longer in inventory)

Part I: I have loved Mark Tobey's white writing since I first saw a photograph of one if his paintings with this element. Before my friend, Margo, moved from Seattle, we went to SAM to see an exhibit of the Northwest Mystical Artists. I studied and studied his work, but left, appropriately, mystified. I so wanted to be able to create using white writing.

Part II: Last summer, when my friends Mary Jane and Grace came to visit, we went to an exhibit at the Lightcatcher of Helmi Juvonan's work. She had been completely in love with Mark Tobey, who she knew, to the point of creating a story about that love. She, too used a white mark-making technique in compositions surrounding in dark. I was still mystified as to technique.

Part III: Answer the question: which comes first, the dark or the light? How does the artist maintain the white marks while moving in the darkness? I did the only thing that, at the time, I could think to do--I called in Mark and Helmi. Then I started playing with a technique I remembered that I knew how to do--I could make the light marks rise above the dark. So I used a thick coat of gesso, mixed in the teeniest bit of perfect grey to grey the gesso down a bit. Then I used stamping tools. I had recently acquired the plastic button cover of a fax machine and loved the shapes it made. I used the spiral and serpentine arm band Christina had given me, and parts of parts to other equipment that had come my way. I am always intrigued by and, therefore, examining ancient texts and writing of other languages. I like it when letters from those languages appear in the painting--I do not want to copy them, however, mostly because I am interested in connecting with the human need to write, to communicate, and to connect to that need more intuitively. Once the foundation layer was dry, I floated in dark grey. a little violet, a little blue green. I did a little sand-paper scratching and then patina-ed it with azo gold quinacridone nickel. I look forward to many more visits from Mark and Helmi.

Note: This painting is one that hangs well in the horizontal or vertical orientation.

If Kandinsky had had a Computer (each of the three pieces, made of four stapled on the back, 12 in x 8 in)

(No longer in inventory)

Two years ago, I moved to a very small apartment. I no longer had room for items such as an obsolete snowball iMac. So I called the local store: how much to destroy my hard drive and recycle the thing? $90! Oh no. Not I. After being counseled by Gregg Coad, IT extraordinaire, I purchased a tool kit for deconstructing the computer for $20. See how that works? I'm $70 ahead. And I started taking the thing apart. 

Once inside, I saw potential. The screws were so many sizes, the circuit boards were aerial views of cityscapes, there were knobs and magnets, a prism, cd turner knobby thing, copper tape, and things I had no idea about. This ignorance led to only one scary moment when I had to come home and google a warning phrase to see if I was doomed for delving into parts unknown. (I wasn't.) Then Gregg gave me a few items that he had culled from computers he'd had to deconstruct. I started arranging parts on each cluster of canvas. And got a back and neck ache gluing the parts into place. 

At some point in this process, probably before the trip to the chiropractor, I lost my way. What was I doing? How is this art? How is this an expression of my truth? Suddenly, this activity seemed meaningless. So I did what I often do when feeling this way, I started looking at the images in my Kandinsky book. I realized that these shapes had a lot in common with some of the intriguing shapes that Kandinsky had made in his abstract paintings. I had it. The title for the series: If Kandinsky had had a Computer. He'd have taken it apart an used it...maybe...maybe his arrangement would have been more spontaneous than mine. But once I had the title, I could move forward. And truthfully, this is a part of my truth. I look at things and ask, what else is it, how does it relate to the other else thing I'm looking at. How is it part of a different whole. 

Garden Mythologies (each 8 in x 8 in)

(one of these no longer in inventory)

This was me playing with a heavy layer of gesso, mark-making tools, and a sanding to bring the light back in and for texturing. It was great fun to discover the effects that sanding the painted surface had on the painting--particularly for restoring the light around the edges--that area that threatened to get too dark for meaning-making. Always the challenge for me when working in a series of three is what color to have predominant and complimentary. I have quit being so thoughtful about it when I begin and have just started diving in and seeing what emerges. Both methods have their issues. So, of course, do I.

To Those Who Enter In (24 in x 12 in)

So when you love the print made by an old license plate with fiber paste on the raised parts for emphasis, you just gotta go for it. It's especially loved because it turned into a doorway. A doorway depicted in shades of grey. Because, yes doorways hold a certain mystery and promise with a little bit of anxiety--not enough to paralyze the spirit, just enough to know we've acknowledged crossing the threshold from what we know into what we don't know. Because of this, I honor those who have entered in...

Behind the Chamber Door

(no longer in inventory)

This is 12 inches x 36 inches. Acrylic on canvas. It started out a vertical painting. But it was looking too much like clouds. I am not a cloud painter and really don't have any desire to become one. Not that I don't take inspiration and an understanding of light from skyscapes. In fact, these colors and light are often seen in the sunset over Bellingham Bay. One of my favorite things ever is a sunset that holds yellow, yellow-orange that moves to red-violet and different shades of blue in the background.
     It is rather a mystery to me how this painting happened once I turned it to a horizontal. I love the forms and just followed them with color. Then it felt like it was some kind of ritual that I was capturing. Perhaps in a cave. A chamber in a cave with participants gathered round, dancing, storytelling, well lit by a fire. But then I added door to the title. Then it seemed that there is some serious problem-solving going on but laughter is invited, too. So is it a secret ritual transpiring behind a chamber door? Or a clandestine meeting?

Pictems I and II

(Pictem I series and the last painting in Pictem II no longer in inventory) 

I think of these as two pieces, each made of five 5 inch square canvases. Hence Pictem I and Pictem II. However, I really am selling the pieces separately. Because the canvases were two different brands, there are 5 of one size and 5 of a slightly different size. The biggest difference is in the profile away from the wall. That was a frustrating day when I made that discovery. I'm just grateful that I had five of each brand. 

     These were quite the process. The marks happened very spontaneously, using a calligraphy pen. But I had wanted the ink to bleed like it does on paper when I went over the marks with a wet brush. That didn't happen the same on canvas. So first I had to add absorbent ground. Then make the marks. Then the ink bled out a different color from when I had done it on paper. Then it smeared more and not in a good way when I went over the image with matte medium to waterproof it. So layers and layers. When all I wanted to do was to make the marks with ink and go over it with a wet brush and not have it be on paper and, therefore, need to be behind glass. 

     I am a bit surprised by the images that reveal themselves just by moving a pen on a surface. Crazy how lines come together to tell a little story. And for me, that's what makes them pictems. 

(note: originally, these were titled Totems, but I have since learned that I would be co-opting that word and concept. So they have been renamed)

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?