Just got to a stopping point on a painting that I am very excited about.  It's been a while since I've really been excited about working on something.  I'm trying a new thing with distressed surfaces, and it has been hard to make something interesting, or that is really more meaningful because it is distressed.  The idea of memory is important to my work, so I thought that distressed surfaces could enhance content, but it somehow seems to be obscuring it..  The new work is more like older work that I have done than like the new distressed surfaces.  I'll post a picture after the critique on Wednesday.   I want to experience initial response to it. An image of it in its formative stages is pictured in an earlier post.  After the critique, I'll post a new image of it.

Below are stages of another work that I will have for the critique;

Stage 1

Stage 1, close up

Stage 2

Stage 3

Stage 4

Stage 5 (white)

After this stage, I sanded with a rotary sander.  I will show the sanded piece at the critique on Wednesday and post the image of the sanded piece after the critique on Wednesday.

I mounted one of my media studies and added rick rack to a mixed media piece that is totally out of my comfort zone.  Will show at the critique and post images after the critique.

Jo Smail, Squashed Bug

Jo Smail's work is amazing. It's witty and wonderful.  She inspires me by the way she uses geometric and organic shapes together.  I want to incorporate that into my work.  As soon as I get a chance, I want to do some drawings with loose organic wanderings to see if they spark ideas for future paintings. I love the way she eliminates everything that is not necessary. Her work looks so easy, but for me it's so hard to get get that look. It never looks as beautiful and interesting as Jo Smail's work.

Pam Anderson, Bad Boob, detail 

I love Pam Anderson's work.  She uses text in her work so gracefully. Her small boxes contain so much information.  When I work that size, I always feel that I don't have enough room for anything except a field of color. I want to study her compositions for ideas on how to make my smaller work more interesting. I know my work is very different from hers, but I think I can learn a lot from looking at her work.

Mark Bradford is one of my favorite painters.Here he is is talking about one of his paintings. Its surface is similar to what I am trying to achieve in two of my striped painting and in 2 of my 36x48" paintings. It's the main reason why I have been adding so many layers.

I was able to get a good amount of work done this weekend.  I wanted to work more but ran out of time.  Here are some examples of progress;

White Stripes #1

White Stripes # 2, after a layer of pink on the white stripes and a layer of white on the blue strips.  More layers coming.

New striped work that is in progress

Work with 3 layers so far

I got extremely excited perusing through Reynolds Gallery's Face Book page.  I found  an artist named Robert Stuart who  had a show at Reynolds.  Below are examples of his work;

Blue Lines

Blue Bands

Red and Gold Bars

So I feel that I am on the right track with these stripe paintings.  I LOVE Robert Stuart's work.

I also built a 3x4' panel. I splurged and got the lumber from Siewer's instead of Lowe's.  It sure made building it easier.  Everything was cut correctly so it all lined up.  I didn't have to spend an hour sanding it to get the panel to fit the stretchers.

Last night at Reynolds Gallery was an amazing experience.  I saw the show Metempsychosis with work by Sally Mann, Jessie Mann and Liz Liguori.  The prints began as photographs of a bonfire discarded by Sally Mann.  Her daughter and Liz Liguori took them to Mountain Lake Workshop where they painted on them, left them outside to dry where leaves and pine tags fell on them, shot laser light at them and turned them into gorgeous, expressive, organic abstractions. Soooo beautiful.  The artist talk was very interesting.  Sally Mann, Jessie Mann, Liz Liguori, and Ray Kass talked about the creation of the work and  took questions from the audience. One question prompted a dialogue about appropriation, quoting other artists, and working on top of other artists work.  Metempsychosis means "transmigration of souls" (Joyce). At the Mountain Lake Workshop people collaborate in creative undertakings "nurtured by the belief that a genuine art and culture can develop from any situation in which there are shared experiences". (This is quoted from the Mountain Lake website). What I got from the discussion about appropriation as it relates to the work in this show is that new, different, and very valid and significant work can be based on the work of others. Below is just some of the beautiful work at the show.

Metempsycosis, Diptych II, 2011
Phot developer, laser imagery, oil paint , linseed oil, and debris on rag photographic paper
40x100 inches

Metempsycosis, Diptych I, 2011
Phot developer, laser imagery, oil paint , linseed oil, and debris on rag photographic paper
40x100 inches

This work by Raine Bedsole in New American Paintings influenced me greatly when I was painting the paper doll series

Raine Bedsole, 2001, mixed media,
Dimensions unknown

Below is one of my paper doll paintings

Untitled, 2010
Acrylic on canvas
36"x24"

I have not had enough time for very much studio work this weekend.  I just got a little painting done.  I composed a preliminary bibliography for my thesis paper and did some reading and heavy thinking about the brief paper due in November.  This has helped me plan what to do next in my paintings.My paintings are about memory. In them I hope to evoke a sense of recurrence in the viewer that jogs memory.  I want my work about my memories to to elicit a deja vu experience in the viewer. I want this to lead to a sense of commonality. At first I thought that the very feminine images and colors that I am using now are eliminating half of the population.  Then I decided that for a very long time masculine terms and iconography have stood for all of humanity which has even been called "mankind" to include both men and women.  I am not necessarily coming from a feminist point of view, but I see no reason why feminine images may not be used to represent "mankind". No one else has to like the idea or even agree. I going forward with it.

Gallery Visit

Visual Arts Center of Richmond

I really responded emotionally (joyful awe) to the work of  Blair Clemo (above). As a painter it reminded me of the work of Eleanor Aldrich who has work in FEED2013 at 1708.  I love just about all her work but particularly go crazy over Mattress shown below. I'm thinking of building up the patterns in my work.

20 in. by 16 in.
silicon and oil on canvas
2012

Gallery visits

Reynold's Gallery

I'm Sorry, 2012
30"x40"
Digital Print

I love this work by Arwa Abouon.  The contrast in size of the patterns works well.  Something to try in one of my paintings with more than one pattern.

These photographs by Abouon evoke in me what I want to evoke in my paintings but in an abstract way.

Harem Revisited, 2012
Chromatic print
30"x40"

Because, in my work, I think of the shape that is repeated as a symbol for a self- portrait, the work above by Lallya Essaydi really resonates with me