I have not updated this blog in ages. I have gotten pulled into the wonderful world of www.etsy.com. I am addicted! If you are not familiar, it is an ingenious website that serves as both a marketplace and a meeting place for artists and craftspeople. (I did a great deal of holiday shopping on the site!) I have been posting and selling little drawings like these:

At the advice of my boyfriend (see www.ishitmypants.blogspot.com and www.lovebunnipress.com -- charming, isn't he?), I did some more work on "Marked." I took out the thread and used something more substantial. I won't bother with photographs of the whole thing but here's an idea of the changes.



















Also, "Clock," the shadowbox piece discussed below, joined another piece of mine, "Blue Lotus," in a lovely local gallery, Eye Candy (http://www.eyecandy-gallery.com/). The owners of Eye Candy, Bob and Rita, have been kind enough to humor an amateur like myself. They have had "Blue Lotus" on the wall for almost two years now.

I'm sorry to say that the last two unfinished works will remain that way. I worked with them some more but the images went stale. I considered taking the pictures off of the page ... but I've decided to keep them up and write about why the pieces didn't work.

In both cases, I had planned on or had already used images of the bug. They were different images than the blurry version that was used in the two completed pieces that are on the page (Visitor No. 1 and Visitor No. 3). When I attempted to use the clearer pictures, I found the image to be so inflexible and lacking in movement that it just killed the composition of the picture no matter what I did to it. The beginning of Visitor No. 2, which is on the page, clearly shows what would become the ultimate problem. The two bugs with the female heads just pulled energy out of the picture and looked tacked on. (Of course, they were "tacked on," as were the blurry pictures, but the blurry ones had a way of avoiding that fake look.)

So, I've moved on new projects.

This one was recently completed:



I call it "Marked."

Again, I am adding to the canvas. In this case, the arm was literally cut out of another piece that had also gone stale. Both the arm and canvas are stitched through.















The imagery is very heavy-handed, which, as I've written about before, I like to avoid. If it isn't clear what it's about, I won't say. I'll only say this: It isn't about me. It was hard to watch. It was harder to understand. It pissed me off.

I was unsure about the target and the colors. I didn't want it to appear that I was trivializing the subject matter, rather, I wanted to

Still having not gone back to "Visitor No. 2" ... I started working on another one. I am trying document more of the development along the way. Here, the focal point (the visitor) hasn't even been added yet. What the pictures in this post will show is only the unrefined beginning. It is a little anxiety producing to let unfinished pieces go out into the world in this way. They seem vulnerable ... all their secrets and flaws still showing. I wonder if the opinion of a viewer seeing a finished piece is adversely affected by first seeing all the steps in between?





The "holes" at the bottom show some yellow behind the red ... that's an old piece that I painted over.

Well, I had to put "Visitor No. 2" aside for a time. I haven't had much time to paint lately as I've started a new job (and was sick for awhile). When I did have time to work on artwork, I had another project that needed my attention. My good friend, Marianne, is throwing an art show/Halloween party in her sister's photography gallery in Cleveland's Little Italy. Marianne is a wonderful artist (painting, jewelry, sculpture) and takes a generally creative approach to life. As such, she took an interesting approach to the event she was creating. She asked people in her life who are "artists" and others, who would probably not define themselves that way, to create something to contribute to the show. I have no idea which of the two she considers me to be ... but, in any case, she asked me to "throw something together" for the show. She suggested, as it is a Halloween party, to think along the lines of bones and skeletons. So, this is what I came up with ....



I wanted the project to fit into the "Visitor" series. So, as you can see, my little friend the bug (perhaps I should name him) is included. There you have it ...
Visitor No. 3.

I started working with "Visitor No. 2" this morning. I have gotten in the habit of "watering" down my paint with a clear varnish so that I can layer paint and achieve a semi-transparent effect. In this case, as sometimes happens, the color gets a little uneven in coverage. I try not to fight against that. I think that is one of my big artistic lessons -- to let the materials have a little of the control -- do a little of the talking, if you will (within reason ... sometimes I have to shut them up).

I don't think the pictures are very helpful at the moment, as this stage is a little monochromatic. Here they are nonetheless:

I haven't had much time this week to work on the second piece in the Visitor series (the bugs with drawn on heads that ended the last post). In the meantime, I decided to put up some pics of a piece more typical of my style. I finished this recently as well ... just about the time the idea for series hit me.

Pieces like this one require a shadowbox frame because I build out -- sometimes with found objects or sometimes just with the paper itself. This one is called "Clock." It has some bits and pieces that my cousin found in an old tool box and she thought I might have a use for them. I have no idea what the cork circle with wires would have been used for. The other object I imagine to have been part of a latch or lock of some kind. Overall, this piece is small -- only about 8 x 10 inches. Truth be told, I am not really satisfied with the composition of this one. I find, however, that disappointing pieces can usually teach me something if I keep them around long enough. I'm not quite sure what I don't like about the design of this one yet ...

I think the imagery/symbolism in this piece might be a little heavy handed, too. Here's what I was going for ... I like to play with the idea of the constructs of human design that we put on things that are beyond our control/understanding ... like the passing of time or the not passing of it, as the case may be. I am trying, perhaps, to remind myself that time as linear is an entirely human idea and has no real basis aside from the fact that it is the only way we can understand it.