Painting in "icons + altars" benefit

My painting "Vine," shown above, will be exhibited in "icons + altars," an annual benefit event held by/for the New Art Center in Newton, MA.

This painting is 14 inches square, made of acrylic and fabric collage on canvas.

The exhibit will be on display from November 16 to December 16. One hundred artists participate in this exhibit at the art center; visitors to the show may purchase a ticket for $225 and are given the opportunity to select any one of the 100 works of art on display during the closing reception on December 16.

For more information, visit the New Art Center's web site.

The last to know

Sometimes the artist is the last one to recognize when a work is good.

My advisor while I was a student at Mass Art, Dan Kelleher, told me often that an artist needs a few trusted people to visit the studio on a regular basis and offer advice. This person doesn’t necessarily have to be an artist, just someone who can be trusted to be honest and impartial, and who has a discerning eye for what’s working visually and what’s not.

My friend Carol O’Malia visited my studio a while back, and she was kind enough to look over the new paintings I had lined up and give me her opinion. She stopped dead at the painting pictured above, and said that one was really working and suggested I make more like it.

Weird, I thought to myself. That one was just something I threw together while I was waiting for some others to dry. I hadn’t really thought much about it, before during or after making it. (Another lesson I learned here, a real "David Carradine in Kung Fu" moment: too strong an attachment can squeeze the life out of a painting.)

Anyway, I took Carol’s advice and made a number of paintings in this style in different sizes. Boy, was she right. Two of them (this one included) have sold, and I’ve shown another version as part of a triptych in a recent exhibit that got some great feedback.

Without Carol’s suggestion, I never would have thought to pursue this direction. I had discounted it because it seemed “too easy” to make, it went together too fast. I'm glad I listened to her!

This work is called “Silken Web 1” – it is acrylic and fabric collage on canvas, and measures 28” H x 20” W.

To clarify

My husband says that my last blog entry was confusing, and that the four images together looked like one painting. So to clarify, each canvas is meant to stand alone but be part of a four-piece series, each one representing a different season. "Winter" is pictured above. All four are acrylic (some with fabric collage, some with pastel) on paper on canvas, 14" x 14".

Instant series, just add water

I’ve been having trouble working in a tight series lately, and it was starting to concern me. Consultants, galleries, curators all want to see work in series. It’s a sign of the artist’s consistency and clarity of vision, and it simply looks better on display to group works of art with similar characteristics.

I’d been painting big one day, tiny another day, cool colors one day, neutrals another day, brights another day … working to suit my nature rather than some end product. Which is fine, until you have to present the end product to the outside world, and it looks like some kind of neurotic diary.

Earlier this week, I was asked to show some work in an upcoming holiday sale at the museum school where I teach. I wasn’t sure what to put in, and I started looking through a pile of old works on paper. Four of them jumped out at me, and I decided to cut them down into smaller squares from their original size, which was large rectangles. Then I realized that the four of them, although they had been created months apart with different moods and colors, came together in a nice clear series, representing the four seasons.

The black, white and yellow one looks like spring, with the bright color forcing its way through the darkness. The swirling light blue, which has touches of pastel, says summer to me. The rusts and brown branch-like painting has autumn overtones. And the dark blue and white one looks like a wintry sky over a snow pack.

Voila – the work made itself into a story, without my trying to force it while I was making it! So I’ll put the four pieces into the show and stop worrying about making a series.

Another life lesson, learned in the studio: The minute you stop trying to force things, and ALLOW THEM to happen, they end up turning out better than you could have imagined!

Don't throw out those contact lens cleaner bottles

Here's another new piece, made by squirting Golden fluid acrylic paint onto wet canvas. The bottles that Aquify brand contact lens cleaner comes in make the best extrusion devices. Why buy special bottles from the art supply store?

This is another one of those paintings that was extraordinary when it was still wet. The surface was glistening, like a closeup of a damp strawberry. I still like the pattern now that it's dry, but I miss that glowing appearance of three dimensions it had when it was wet!

Another new piece

Here's another new piece made from collaged pieces of torn paper. The pages alone didn't "say" enough, but joined together, they seem to play off of one another in a nice way. This canvas is 20" square.

Ripping up and gluing down

Here's an example of one of my newer pieces that just involve ripping and gluing sections of painted papers. No overthinking -- no thinking, period! -- just tearing and pasting small sections here and there until the canvas is covered.

I'm not trying to change art history here. Just having fun!

Works on display at Danforth Museum School

Seven of my paintings are currently on display at the Danforth Museum School in Framingham, Massachusetts. One of them is pictured above, “Weave,” 20” x 20”, made of spray paint and fabric collage on canvas. This is the one I’ve gotten the most positive feedback on!

Presentation on my career

The Artist Guild of Shrewsbury was kind enough to invite me to speak about my work and career at their monthly meeting on October 1. It was a revealing experience for me to look through images of all the work I’ve made since I was in my early 20s and select the best ones to show to the group. I discovered that certain styles and directions have always been present in my work, regardless of how old I was at the time or what type of art I was creating.

The group members were very responsive and seemed especially interested in hearing about some of the techniques I have used over the years. The painting pictured above generated a good deal of interest (from the “Spring Series” made in 1999, mixed media on canvas, 45” x 60”), and I found that after all these years I could remember exactly what materials and gestures had gone where, just from the slide projected on the wall!

Here are some photos of me giving my talk, taken by Aaron Fox who is one of the guild members and also its web master. Click here for more information about the Artist Guild of Shrewsbury. I appreciate the opportunity they gave me to present my work.