Wow, just came across Josephine Halvorson in Vitamin P2.
                                                                                         

  Pink Stripe, 2010
  Oil on Linen
  23"x18"  

   Woodshed, 2013
    Oil on linen
   70"x35"









This gives me great ideas for new paintings.  Instead of recreating a distressed surface, I can paint one that already exists.  These paintings made me remember a painting I did almost 20 years ago in Don Crow's class.  I painted an old wooden screen door with a latch.  I'm very excited about exploring this idea.

I went to Reynolds Gallery to see Sally Bowring's show on Saturday.  Wow, it was spectacular.  Really loved it. The way she used color was masterful.  She used combinations of color that, for me, would be difficult like yellow and purple, and yellow and gray. Her results were wonderful, just wonderful.

        Summer Garden, 2012

           Acrylic on panel

            721/2"x 86"

                                                                  Winter Walk, 2013
                                                                     Acrylic on Panel
                                                                          48"x48"

Fall. 2013

Acrylic on Panel

72"x86"

Springs II, 2013

Acrylic on panel

42"x42"

I don't often see glass work that really thrills me so I thought I was going to have a hard time finding something in the work of a glass artist that I could apply to my own work.  Then I looked at the art of Mitchell Gaudet.  Wow, I love it.  I love the color.  I love the repetition.  I love the meaning behind the pieces.  I just love his work
.
   This piece is so beautiful.  I want to make a stencil quoting this design.







 Cobalt blue tile cast glass wall hanging, 14”x14”

Internal Workings
Glass and metal screen
80"x27"

I love the grid arrangement.  This gives me a good idea about how to make small pieces that work together as a whole.  This is something I have been trying to do for several years now and have never been happy with the results,  I always have trouble where the edges meet.  This work makes me want to try to create an ensemble of small pieces where the positive space does not wander to the edge of each piece.

Messages of Remembrances, 2010
Glass bottles, steel, wood   

Beautiful!

Messages of Remembrances, different view

I've been frustrated lately.  Nothing seems to be working out, but I keep plugging away. Here are stages in what I have been working on.

Step 1. Striped painting with pink oil stick stenciling over acrylic, 24"x24"

Step 2. Two layers of gesso over painting.

Step 3. After sanding.  I'm very disappointed and will try painting and sanding again.










Here's another piece I'm working on.

Step 1.  Mixed media as it looked at the last critique, 18"x24".

Step 2.  I decided that the rick rack was not working, so I ripped it off.

Step 3.  I added more of the design that was at the bottom because the piece was not unified at all.  I figured this would help it be seen as a whole.

Step 4. I covered the newly painted designs with white gesso tinged with cadmium yellow.  I debated whether to squeegee over the paint or let it dry and sand it.  I chose to sand it, but after what happened above, I fear I may have made the wrong decision.  It still feels a bit damp, so I am going to sand it tonight or tomorrow.






I've also been experimenting in how to successfully finish another painting shown at the last critique.  Here is the painting.

Feedback in the critique suggested that the dark blue short lines of torn paper jumped out too much. I liked this painting because the darker blue lines of paper strips were supposed to be long and vertical running along and inside of the  painted lines, but no matter where I put them the painting looked like pajamas.  In desperation, I tore the blue paper into pieces and threw it on the painting.  Presto, problem was solved.

This is a small study I made to see if heavy gel medium would work on the painting above.  This study has 2 layers of heavy gel medium over acrylic with torn painted paper, 6"x6".









Here is a painting from the last critique that I have not posted before.  I posted the steps but not the finished work. Media is oil stick over acrylic, sanded. Size is 24"x24".

                                       

Artist Statement

            My work is about memory, and my awareness of the repetition of large and small events in my life.  In my paintings, drawings, and mixed media I create rhythmic patterns by repeating images and colors to imply a sense of recurrence.  I often repeat imagery such as paper dolls or geometric and organic shapes in my work. I choose and repeat shapes and colors that remind me of events in my childhood and in my life as an adult. I see these multiple images as symbolic self-portraits which prompt memories of recurring events, such as waking up each morning or making the same mistake again or running into an old friend.

            By incorporating personally familiar and repeated imagery, I want to trigger a déjà vu experience in the viewer.  I want the presentation of my memories to evoke a memory in the viewer that brings about the recognition that we share a commonality.

            

InLight was beautiful and a lot of fun, and in such a great location. One of my favorite exhibits was A Breath of Fresh Air by Ross Fish, Lilli Fayaz, and Sean Ludwig. I could hear it everywhere I went. It was so crowded with people making cool sounds, it did not have a lot of visual appeal for me but the sounds were unique, pervasive, and wonderful.

I loved Amie Oliver's Ascension.  It was beautiful and could be experienced from several different locations.

Sunrise Cube by Jones, Jones, Shackelford and Shackelford was mesmerizing.

All of the exhibits were fascinating, thought provoking and fun to see. I particularly enjoyed MothLight by Plantbot, Water Nymphs Circus by Kelley McClung and Repeating Decimal by Miriam Eqbal.

Pictures are from the Facebook page of 1708 and from the Richmond Times Dispatch.

Eleanor Aldrich  

Artist Statement

I think of my work as a series of encounters between tactile materiality and illusion. My interest is in resolving this conflict through representation. What this means in the studio is using materials in such a way that they contribute to the internal logic of the representation but retain an external existence. I find there is frankness in tactility that becomes unreliable when it is activated as a thing in the painting. The painterly marks similarly alternate between creating illusionistic space and revealing the flatness of the picture plane. My subject matter is a result of finding places where this phenomenon may exist.

Passage, 2011
Oil and enamel on canvas
48"x60"