Thank you, Annette

What interesting conversations today. A little train of email exchanges:

Annette wrote: OK, I am back on Dieb.......I was looking at the books I have and I started noticing that all his compositions or most of them are divided up horizontally into 3 or 4 areas primarily.......ask Harry about that......do you think we each have a composition we keep working in various ways...?????

I answered: I definitely think many artists have repeating themes and elements in their art. Harry and deKooning both have this particular brushstroke they repeat over and over. It reminds me of someone with an accent. Or a remarkable nose.

Harry: I certainly do, probably only because my intent is contemplation and symmetry stops movement and invites quietness. It also formalizes the informal.

Annette: ahhhh.....that tickles my art bones..................now if only I could figure out MY composition, brushstroke, big nose, etc......I need to get all my work together and look.....another good reason for an art sale!!!

Later tonight Annette generously listened and reflected on the paintings I am working on. The BANG BANG BANG ones. She helped me look at the difference between the two very different styles. Helped me see the elements in each one that I might combine into one style. The painted print patterns or biomorphic patterns of naturally settling and drying water mixtures. Bright paintbox colors or earth tones and natural crumbled dirt. Silhouettes or not. One is too much in your face, the other is not enough information. Somehow I just never thought of this before like she helped me see it. What a great gift understanding is. Thank you, Annette.

Good night everybody.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Who Stole my Story?

Somebody stole my comment button! Alas, I ambusy getting ready for Family Camp. [WOOOOHOOOOOOOOO!] I will fix the Comment button when I return to real life on Tuesday Sep 2. Until then if you have a comment, make it sweet and email it to me. I'll post it somehow, dearies!
xo!

Playing in the Mud with Annie

Work In Progress
Time On Mars
18 x 18 x 2"
mixed media on wood box

What an awesome today today! Played in the white mud with Annie all afternoon. we scooped and blopped and blobbed, rubbed and buffed and stuck things in it.

I recently subscribed to a feed from the explorer on Mars. They have a widget you can get that tells you the time on Mars. While I was making this painting, I kept thinking about time on Mars and all that phrase might imply directly or tangentially. Like, if I were in a different place, would time be different? I know that if I were at a desk 9 to 5 time would probably go very slowly as opposed to the breeze of an afternoon playing in the mud with Annie.

If I were on Mars I would probably resort to marking each day with a thumb print on the wall like prisoners in solitary confinement where they don't know the time of day. I really don't know what this has to do with anything.

Yesterday I was running errands and as I came out of the Post Office looked around me and felt very alive. I felt like the world and my life lie ahead of me and anything is possible. I felt like just standing for a minute and watching the day happen. Then I focused on what my eyes were looking at and realized there was a kind of run down metal building across the street, a bit of trash floated across the pavement, and the sun was beating down hot. For me to feel alive and notice it, in this particular setting is a very amazing thing because all my life I have been sensitive to my surroundings and ones like this usually make me grab tensely inward trying to protect myself from possible harm or just unpleasantness.

I think this happened because of something I am achieving with my Alexander Teacher, Karen DeHart. We had a very good session yesterday. We talked about my art and my art business as we worked on letting go of tension. She helped me realize I have been concentrating and focusing on wanting to sell my art, rather than expressing it as a wish, letting it go, and waiting to see what happens. Believing it will come rather than grabbing for it to come. Afterward I felt as if a larger space was created around me and I felt free to live in it. I think that space has been there all the time, I am just now allowing myself to live and thrive in it. I think so many things I do are self-limiting. Amazing how responsible for myself I really am, yet how much I have to let go of trying to control everything around me.

So Time on Mars....

Better than Youth and New Metal?

Finally something to show, still a Work In Progress:
PO's Paris Trip
12 x 12 x 2
mixed media on canvas on board

And a Good morning to my dear friends and fans! Did you have good coffee this morning? I am trying Starbuck's Gazebo Blend. Good but not quite as good as last month's Hawaiian Kona or something like that. Now can't find it anywhere. Flowery tropical blues on the bag. darn. It was sublime.

Also been searching for a special marinade for the chicken at our church Family Camp which is coming up this weekend. Mr. Yoshida's Marinade and Cooking Sauce. Our chef Larry insists on it and I am on the Fam Camp gro-shopping committee.[One of my favorite committees I must say!] Finally tracked some down at Sam's Club in Mentor Ohio. Called them and they don't and won't ship it to us for any price. Anyone live near Mentor [north east of Cleveland, OH?] Wanna' earn some painting points?

Next topic: my dear friend Ron Hart the Photographer. Ron & his wife Debbie have been dear friends for years. Ron has always been around with his camera faithfully capturing special moments for lots of us all this time. But I think Ron has come into his own. He just put his site and blog up and WIOW! I felt like I was taking a trip to some beautiful new place when I went there. The ironic thing is, my favorite photos were of peeling paint and rusting doors. A reminder to me that nature eventually takes over, even man made steel. And that dying and change can be more beautiful than youth and new metal. Since he put the site up a couple days ago I have been to his site several times just to take a deep breath and remember Who is in charge here. I think the boathouse with the blue doors is my fav. What yummy texture and colors. What man begins, if he sits quietly and waits, nature will finish! And Ron will probably be there to document the miracle. Those are my thoughts about that anyway!
http://photobyhart.com and http://photobyhart.blogspot.com

I am going to make chikin salad for lunch. Annie is coming over to play in the white mud this afternoon. WOOHOO!
xo

FEEDBURNER ROX!

Oh I forgot to tell you about the typing typing typing part...
I am switching to a new site feeder. I think this one is more user friendly.
Notice the new FEEDBURNER subscription box there on the left.

If you are still using the FEEDBLITZ subscriber, please switch over to FEEDBURNER by simply filling out the wee form.

Also please let me know how FEEDBURNER works for you. Feedback from YOO helps me know if you are getting all my lovely blog notices!

xo
Miss TypeBang

White Rock

More banging. Then typing. More coffee. ThenPAINTING! Ahhhh, painting! Well, texture paint anyway.

What a transition time. The canvas boards and backing stretchers take some time to build because they will have to support more weight than the previous oil paintings. This is a clue as to things to come.
Maybe you can get more clues from these photos. I thought it only fair to give my dear loyal bloggees a look at what might be causing all that banging and squishing.

Talking to Annette yesterday about all sorts of things. Going back in time. I've done art in the past about going back in time. It helped to heal. But what is the use of continually reviewing the past if it does not give you wisdom for the present?

I have always been fascinated with my Grandmother's stories of her life in Texas. A lot of her stories took place around White Rock in Dallas. I am not sure of the facts exactly but I think that she struggled hard before White Rock and once she got there she felt she had reached a successful plateau. She continued to climb the rest of her life, as any good Capricorn does, but White Rock always remained a milestone.

Several years ago I began using Behr's Texture Paint from Home Depot. It has the combined best qualities of plaster of paris, acrylic paint, and watercolor. Though I have glooped it, glopped it, smeared it, buffed it, mixed it with paint, sanded it, dissolved it , dryed it, sculpted it, restructured it, and used it for faux finishing, I don't think I will ever exhaust its possibilities.

I used it along with other ingredients and techniques to create the Tuscany Water Stone Walls for my dear friends in Ludlow Falls several years ago. And I have used it on all my paintings since about the 1990's.

Looking back it seems my journey beginning in May this year up to the present was a sort of recapping, or relearning painting. I feel like I filled in some gaps to my painting education. I had to see if after filling those gaps I would still be drawn to the white rock. And what do you think the answer is? BANG BANG BANG!

Haha! the only thing I don't like about the white rock paintings is the BANG BANG BANG part, the building of the supporting canvas structure. Electrical saws, drills, and metal things don't make me cozy. I have to take a lot of breaks and drink tea in between the banging. And take lots of cat naps with Doo and Mr. B.

As you can see in the photos I am finally getting to mess with the texture paint and soon you will get to see some actual painting here.

Miss Paint Avatar

More Office work. Google AdWords. zzz. Google Analytics. I miss paint. Checking out Webshots for images. Going to Night Sky to discuss art. Man their coffee is great! Back to office. cheese sandwich. I miss paint. Proof Grant for Harry.

Oh hey read this part of his grant:

Over the last few months I have become increasingly fascinated with how the human brain can process and organize incomplete bits of information into whole forms. This holistic tendency is evident throughout art history, particularly when viewing archaeological remains from past civilizations, broken classical sculptures, and even in the destroyed images from the Iconoclastic Controversy. Experimenting with the exact amount of visual information necessary to convey a mental presence is what concerns me. and will be the focus of this research project. My interest lies in finding the distinction between traditional illustration (recording, mimicking, copying visual information) and in communicating an actual “felt” presence. It’s an interest that investigates gestalt effects that relate the form-forming capabilities of our senses.

That's a lot of werds for a painter, huh?
Going to talk to Annie and Lori Middleton about our 100 paintings for 100 sale on Sept. 20.