Still Reworking--Still Point:Gestating

So here it is again, after gold-gessoing out the bottom right and upper left and putting in the colors of oil slicks and peacock feathers. Still not finished, though. But my balance problem of leaning to the right is mostly resolved. I hear that the lower left quadrant is not quite working, and frankly, it was troubling me, so I'm relieved that's confirmed. I think I need red there. And I have yet to be successful in completing the top of the gold that runs over the two circles in the middle space. I've painted and repainted that area. The painting is still trying to tell me what goes there. 

Reworked Version Still Point: Gestating

I'm still reworking this painting but feel pretty close to finished. I resolved the split personality that happened when I added green after I'd been working the copper/violet. I think I need to come in with a little more gold in the space above the three circles. But after the red was added, I could feel myself smiling--a smile that started in my toes. That's often how I know a painting is finished or very nearly so. 

Now I just need to learn how to use my new/first digital camera along with the cropping tool. There's always some new technology nipping at my heals. It provides such a challenge.

Abstract Composition Upside Right (Still Point~Trichotomizing)

I thought it went like this:

(no longer in inventory)

But Peggy Zehring, my teacher, showed me how and why it was a better composition when rotated 180 degrees. The way I was seeing, the viewer could not get down to the lower half of the painting. The attention was drawn to the gold circle in the top half. I still need and value her instruction. I've gotten so many more positive comments on this piece now that it hangs this way.

Still Point~Trichotomizing 36"x36" (no longer in inventory)

Peggy Zehring: Teacher and Mentor

I just registered for my 14th week of "Experimental Drawing and Painting" taught by Peggy Zehring through LaConner Art Workshops. Yes, this will be my 14th annual saving-my-life-in-five-days pilgrimage. It's not just that my passion and, at last, commitment to painting has saved my life, but I have had found a mettlesome mentor in Peggy. 

I first observed her teaching when I worked at Coupeville Arts Center. I was impressed from the first, but after witnessing her art of teaching for one week each of two years, I vowed to not let another opportunity to paint with her guidance pass by without participating. What I saw in Peggy's method is a way of safe-porting artists in their risk-taking. I had seen many workshops happen in the three years that I worked a the Arts Center, but I knew that since I hadn't any fine art education beyond high school art class, she was the only one that I could trust to meet me where I was and challenge me to the next level. 

What happened for me 14 years ago was the beginning of an on-going dialogue between the canvas and my spirit with Peggy Zehring as my guide and mentor. The first seven years, I only painted during that five-day, annual workshop. Peggy was very patient and each year, encouraged me to carve out place and time for my painting. Many years, I would come to the workshop with a question or a metaphor from which to begin my five-day intensive. Something I might have read or heard sparked some growth in my spiritual quest and inevitably it would appear in my drawings on that first day of class, then in the paintings that I would work on in subsequent days. But still, I would only paint during the workshop and hope that it would be enough to get me through to the next year. Of course, since I was teaching English with 8th graders at the time, I was pretty much consumed by that endeavor.

After working with Peggy for seven years (or should I say, seven weeks), I finally was at the place where everything I looked at--peeling paint on a dilapidated building, rust and scratches on a railroad sidecar, wabi sabi in general--became an abstract painting.  I still only had time to create in my head, but I did it constantly. At the end of the 01-02 school year, in response to two tragic events, one being the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01, the other being the debilitating stroke experienced by a friend's husband, I decided that I could not put off my passion and dreams any longer. I had to leave teaching, get a job in a bookstore (Scott's Bookstore in Mount Vernon, that is sadly no longer open for business), and make art. I created space and time for my passion.

And always because of Peggy's nudges, I was painting my truth. I was growing my spirit. I was learning the nuances of abstract composition. Through Peggy, I have learned about color--the mixing of perfect grey and all colors from the primaries--I have learned about the dark and the light dynamic, where they are logically and intuitively--I have learned the secret of composition in squares--I have learned to experiment, experiment, experiment--and four years ago, Peggy introduced me to the absolute joy of creating texture by mixing gel medium and spackle. And always, through the whole process, we would have the most spiritually enriching, philosophical discussions. What can I say, I thrived on the whole experience.

And one of the coolest things about a workshop with Peggy is witnessing what each of the workshop artists creates when expressing their individual truth. Seeing how others thrive. There is always so much richness, so much that is compelling, so much to learn from each other's experience of paper and charcoal of canvas and paint and  use of some of the oddest tools a painter could work with. 

Yes, Peggy has given generously. To so many. She also gave me the gift of the most sublime experience of my life this past September at the Montserrat Contemporary Art Gallery in New York City. I was honored to have my work exhibited with hers and with the work of Margo Spellman. Please check out their websites through the links on the sidebar.

To Peggy Zehring...I raise my glass and my spirit in gratitude.

More about the dark...

I also don't think of the light as fertile. The dark is rich with fertility. The light is dry, is fire, but it is needed to bring the fertility to life. Afterall, complete darkness is not a necessarily enriching place to be. Okay, so maybe I'm talking the Yin/Yang aspect of light and dark. And it's all good in balance and moderation.

Still Point: Gestating

This painting is undergoing a re-make. The problem with painting a series is that when it is finished, you always have one in the series that's weaker than the others...unless of course, you are really, really accomplished at what you create...something I'm still working on becoming. 

So this was my weakest. I never really liked the way the paint went on. I could never really figure out for sure what was on top where--dark or light. I loved the marks and felt the paint did not do it justice. So I whited it out. Gessoed over all of the textured part of the canvas. Then went over the center, mostly low-lying section (except where the three circles are, that's raised, which part of the what's on top problem) with pearlescent. That was really cool. And made my decision about the light being at the back, dark on top, mostly. Then I had to figure out what to do next. I love gold gesso, so I chose that to go around the center section. 

Now what? Must add color--I kept the surroundground blue. Then I started working with violet mixed with red toned copper. That was cool and very dark and shiny (the moist part, you know). Then, on the lower right quadrant, I put in blue-green. Created an obstacle to overcome. Now my painting was divided by color. So that's what I faced when I entered my studio tonight. I was loving the elements, but not how they were together, had to make the painting more integrated. So I started adding blue-green on top of and around the red-copper-violet. And I was entranced by the close-up effect. I wanted to do that everywhere in the painting but had to stop myself.

The color combinations and effect made me think of peacock feathers and really colorful bruises (I had one that had amazing color that moved from knee to ankle and back for a period of about a month after I fell hard on my knee once) and gorgeous parking lot oil slicks. I love studying oil slicks after a bit of a rain. I know it's not cool when you consider what they really are (same with bruises, right?) but have you really studied the colors and the shapes? They quite often create mandala shapes. And they are blue with green and red-violet and a goldish-brown and dark, dark. Next time I see one, I'm going to drag a stick or something through it to see how it can be manipulated. Come to think of it, once I saw a jellyfish on the beach at Penn Cove that had all of those colors in it. It held my fascination until the tide threatened to take it back into the water. 

All this to say, that when I left my studio tonight, I felt like I was overcoming the obstacle, meeting the challenge. I like that feeling. I won't get back into my studio for a couple of nights, which is a bit of a frustration...don't want to lose momentum. 

Still Point: Descending & Still Point: Ascending

Still Point: Descending

Because hanging upside down, cocooned in the dark was her way to enlightenment.

36"x36"

Mixed media and acrylic on canvas. Includes wooden shaped bits.

Still Point: Ascending

36"x36"

Mixed media and acrylic on canvas. Includes rusted tins.