Exploring blue

Here are the initial results of my exploration of BLUE. These are very poor quality images, but at least they give you an idea. There is really no white in these, but a bunch of different blues -- phthalo blue, turquoise, and several home-mixed blues. These are 30 inches square; I'm also working on some small ones, and plan to go up to 40 inches next.

An embarrassing admission

I’m embarrassed to admit this, but here goes.

As I described in a recent blog entry, I had the wonderful experience last week of seeing five of my paintings on display at the corporation in John Hancock Tower that had purchased them in May.

I was so proud and happy about that experience that I’ve been on a “high” ever since.

And yet … there’s still a juvenile part of me that emerged from hiding this morning.

It popped into my head in the shower just now, that part of me feels like sending a jpg of my paintings hanging in John Hancock Tower to the galleries, art consultants and museums that have rejected my applications to work with them in the past.

Now I feel silly about this, because I have been very fortunate throughout my professional career of 12 years as an exhibiting artist to have had many successes. It feels like I’m being ungrateful to take notice of the relatively few rejections that have come along the way.

But I can’t help it. Sometimes those rejections hurt, even when you realize later that a particular gallery wouldn’t have been a good fit for you, or that being turned down for something ended up leaving you open for another, even better opportunity.

And sometimes rejections stick in your craw. I still haven’t gotten over (although I realize I need to) the museum curator who wrote at length about how busy his schedule was, far too busy to “critique” my work (even though my application had asked him to consider it for exhibition, not critique).

Or the art consultant who said my work wasn’t saleable.

Anyway, there is that immature but human part of me that feels like contacting these people again to say, “You were WRONG!”

And an even more immature part that feels like adding “You loser!” But I won’t … I’m WAY too mature for that!

Cost cutting measure

Unforeseen circumstances can sometimes force us to break an old routine or re-examine our habits. Taking a new look can lead to better ways of doing things … or saving money.

I first discovered Golden’s fluid acrylic paints in 2006, and they changed the way I make art forever. I love drawing lines, and previously I had been making them with layered stencils and spray-paint. But when I moved my studio from a warehouse to my basement in 2005, it soon became apparent that the spray-paint smell couldn’t be sufficiently removed from the house enough to live with on a daily basis.

I began exploring other forms of line-making, but none felt right. I tried wide markers, but they didn’t move evenly across canvas (even with initial coats of gel medium). I tried oil sticks, but they were used up in five minutes and I couldn’t afford that at $30 a pop.

At last I spoke with a line-loving colleague who used squeeze bottles. I tried them with diluted acrylic paint, but the paint turned into uneven blobs and wouldn’t extrude evenly. Then I tried house paint, which was the right consistency but quickly clogged up the bottle tips.

At last I was flipping through an art supply catalog and noticed that Golden’s fluid acrylic paint was described as having the consistency of “heavy cream.” Perfect! I had had trouble with getting heavy-body acrylic into a smooth consistency, and this seemed the perfect solution.

As soon as I began working with Golden’s fluid acrylics, I fell in love with the strong pigments, the gorgeous range of colors, and what indeed turned out to be a flowing, cream-like quality. I quickly turned into a loyal customer, and have been for years … until last week.

It was time to replenish my inventory of fluid acrylics, and I found with horror as I was shopping on line that titanium white was back-ordered until July 25.

JULY 25? Are you kidding me? That was two weeks away (plus delivery time). There was NO WAY I could stop painting for two weeks.

But I HAD to have white. The nature of my process is that I paint white lines over a dark background and then layer them with colors, so that the lines appear to have been made with the actual colors, but they glow in a way that they wouldn’t if they had been laid directly on a dark surface.

As I logged out of my online shopping session, I tried not to panic. I tried to push from my mind the realization that I was dangerously out of paint. (Paint IS a drug, isn’t it?) Over the next few days, it slowly dawned on me …

A 16-ounce jar of Golden’s fluid acrylics costs $20 for the cheapest colors, and up to $30 each for the more exotic colors (which of course are my favorites). Yet gallon jugs of cheap heavy-body acrylics are under $10. Problem was, I had always hated the uneven textures that resulted from diluting regular acrylics into pourable solutions; that’s why I prized Golden’s fluids so highly.

But what if I tried carefully mixing the right consistency and letting it sit overnight, I wondered. Maybe it was possible to get and keep a smooth mixture, now that I knew what I was looking for. So I tried it the other day, stirring up a batch using the cheap white Blick paint I had sitting around, diluting it carefully and letting the mixture sit overnight in a closed container.

The result was a nice smooth line that flowed evenly out of the bottle! In the image shown above, the original lines (now light blue) were made with Golden's, and the second set of (white) lines were made with the cheap stuff. I frankly can't tell the difference.

So while I will still use Golden’s for my favorite colors (especially Nickel Azo Yellow), I’m going to try the cost-cutting measure of mixing my own pourable acrylic from the cheapo brands I already have lying around. I’ll miss just grabbing the Golden’s and GOING, but I won’t miss the ongoing staggering expense every time I run out of paints.

By the way, I discovered that the best plastic “squeeze bottles” aren’t the ones you buy for that purpose. Aquify brand contact lens cleaner has the perfect (most grippable sized) bottles with plastic tips that can easily be pulled out, cleaned and changed.

My paintings in their new destination!

What a great experience today! My husband Kevin and I went to photograph a grouping of my paintings that were purchased in May by the corporation Berkshire Partners, to hang in the main boardroom of their new suite of offices on the 35th floor of the John Hancock Tower.

The paintings look WONDERFUL in their new home, nice and smart in their new frames:



Here is the amazing view of the city out the window beside the wall the paintings are hanging on:



Of course, I had to pose for the obligatory "Hi, Mom!" shot in front of the work:



I haven't had this much fun since Meditech held its artists' reception in December!

Reconfiguring

I'm slogging along with a new series, trying to do with blues what I've had a lot of luck doing in the past with brown and gold. Also trying to make it happen on 30-inch squares, which I might abandon in favor of some long thin canvases ...

As a sideline project, I'm chopping up paintings, both old and new, that have promise in certain sections but didn't work well enough as a whole, and mounting them on stretched canvas. I am doing this in anticipation of offering them for sale during the New Bedford Open Studios this October.

Here are some examples; the top three are from a painting made last week, and the bottom three are from an older (2005) painting that was left over from a series which had all sold except for that particular one.

The top three are 10 inches square; the bottom three are 8 inches square.

Why do I paint?

My art supplies have been delivered: hooray! And now that I have figured out what I want to do with them, it’s time to dig in.

Part of the “soul-searching” I’ve been referring to in recent blog entries has been my wondering if I should continue to paint paintings like I have been.

Not that I believe painting is dead, by any means. But I was wondering if it’s too “been there, done that” for me personally. Are paintings really saying what I want to say?

I have been interested in and inspired by the installation that a friend is currently working on. What she’s done with this installation is take what she has done in the past and present it on a grander scale.

With that in mind, when I had some time to myself during a class last week while my students were at the “just starting out/nothing to comment on” stage with a project, my mind started to wander. I imagined that I had an unlimited space to present an installation in, and pretty soon I got an idea for one. I got so excited, I even made a mock-up drawing and cut out a miniature prototype. I thought, this is IT! I’ll start making installations, and my resume will soon be bulging with lists of my many shows at prestigious venues.

A day later, I looked at what I had designed and started to laugh. It looked ridiculous! Totally “un-me.” It was like I had borrowed someone else’s dress and tried to fit in with a style that had nothing to do with me.

OK, I admit it: it’s old-fashioned to pull and staple canvas over four strips of wood and paint on it. So what? Maybe I’m not changing art history. But I really don’t care. Painting is what I really want to do, it’s what I really enjoy.

Installations and conceptual pieces and animation and a million other types of visual communication are much more trendy than what I’m doing. But who am I kidding? They don't interest me. Well, as a viewer, yes. But as a maker, no.

As my husband pointed out: my younger brother has autism, and if I created an installation on what it’s like to have a sibling with autism, I would probably have more exhibition offers than I could fit on my calendar. Autism is ever-present in the news and in the public mind these days, as determined parents search for ways to help their children, and health officials, researchers, drug companies, etc., weigh in on the subject of causes and cures.

Likely there are many galleries and exhibition spaces that would be interested in showing art related to such a controversial topic for the purposes of raising consciousness. Many more than would be interested in showing abstract paintings, for sure. And members of the general public would likely be interested in viewing artwork on a socially pertinent topic like this one, probably many more than would be interested in looking at a bunch of shapes and colors.

To continue my husband’s point: If my only goal was to get my work noticed, I could turn to my personal experiences with autism and find many options for art-making and exhibitions. But frankly, that ISN’T what I’m about as an artist, and it wouldn’t be authentic or realistic for me to pretend that it is.

I like to paint, and that’s it. That's all I need to know. The sooner I stop wondering if that’s OK, and get on with it, the better off I’ll be. Soul-searching over!

Studio update

I am gearing up to get back to painting, after a soul-searching hiatus of considering what kind of art I want to make now. (More about my realizations on that subject in a future blog post.)

Today, while I am awaiting shipments of supplies from Utrecht and Dick Blick, I have decided to move my studio around, to reflect my updated intentions.

I have four large tables to work on (not an easel person), and I used to have them placed together in the studio, so that it seemed like I had a larger work space.

But I've realized that, when they are clumped like that, I can’t really get close to my large paintings while I’m working on them; if I have to get to the far side, I either have to lean over the entire table (which means I tend to get more paint concentrated on one side of the piece), or turn the painting, which in my excitement usually results in two big thumb prints on either side (!).

Also I am now tending to make large, “free-for-all” paintings sometimes, and smaller collages other times. A reflection of my Gemini brain; sometimes I want to fling paint, and other times I want to work small and precise.

So I decided to move the tables into two separate configurations, in two separate parts of the room, one for my “let the paint go where it may” side:


And one for my “let’s carefully compose” side.


This way, I don’t have to clean up entirely when I’m ready to switch modes; I can just move to the other side of the room.

We’ll see if this makes it easier to listen to exactly how I want to work, at what times, which is my real goal. Beyond sales and critical attention and everything else: to paint honestly.

Getting untangled

I am continuing on in this mode of -- what do I call it? Nothing as extreme as deprivation or isolation. It simply seems natural right now that I let go of a lot of the "shoulds" and routines of my life, do less or do nothing, and see what happens. I'm usually such a driven goal-setter/go-getter, that this is a welcome change of pace to correspond to the lighter work load I have during the month of July.

It seems that when you clear out, your brain and body come into balance. When you release the old outdated habits, the new needs and wants present themselves clearly.

I've let all my art supplies run out, and now it seems clear what I need to buy to replenish. I returned all the books, DVDs and CDs to the library, and now I'm getting ideas on what books, movies and music I want to move on to. I've cut out all the foods I usually eat and am consuming just enough healthy basics -- brown rice and lentils, oatmeal with rice milk, fruits and vegetables -- to keep from feeling hungry, and my system is clearing itself and asking for new and different foods. I'm also taking vitamin supplements, sitting out in the sun for safe periods, and gently exercising daily.

Just a bit of puttering in the studio (made the painting above over the last few days), but I'm trying to make only things I feel like making, not anything in particular for any particular reason.

It's taken me until age 47 to realize that it's both reasonable and possible to live life my way, even though that lifestyle seems to have no relationship to how we're "supposed" to live (i.e., hectic pace, hyper social life, extravagant possessions).

Remember Ferdinand the Bull, who wanted to just sit quietly and smell the flowers, even though all the bulls around him were snorting and butting heads? That's my goal, too.