Kind Visitor, thank you for continuing to come see me! It has been a long strange year and more. I hope you and yours are prevailing! <3 Here are a couple of pieces underway, soon to fly to their home, from my newly set up studio.
Mlle Shrimp wanted to visit...
Happy Valentine's Day, Kind Friends!
Good Friends, every once in a while, making the art, my mind says to me, 'This work is love.' Then I think, 'What? What’s that supposed to mean? Is that a mere pink dust-bunny in my head?' For this Valentines Day, let me count the ways I actually think there’s something in that recurring thought — some common threads of love & art:
We take a risk in creating art and putting it out there, we make ourselves vulnerable. We can — we do — get hurt. But we throw ourselves into it again and again because it somehow matters, because we somehow have to. To do it well and freely, we need to be willing to look foolish, to reach out and risk being slapped back. We set out our beating heart on a plate and say, 'Dig in!'
Art going into the world is a dance for two, the maker and receiver united for a moment in the language of that particular thought. It’s a “you’re not alone, for there’s an echo in me.” Art can reach across outer barriers and speak directly to the Other, whoever that may be. It can unite on a level deep enough to bypass division (even of centuries) and remind us of our shared life.
For me, doing the art is a setting aside of the confined self for something more: I aim to make myself transparent, a lens for the Idea. This is particularly true for subjects based in myth or legend, which have an arc before and after my individual take. Yet as I let them 'talk back,' they become more my own. There’s a paradox in this relationship: the more you are true to your unique vision, the more likely it is to possess eloquence for others, or so I believe.
'Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind,' writes Shakespeare, and so it is with the making and perceiving of art, I think, at least the kind I indulge in. Art entwines with our memories, our pain, our history personal and universal, as well as with our hopes, purposes and perhaps earliest, yet-unblemished visions — like Ms. Barrett Browning says:
'I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.'
I thank you all for being here! And, what do you think?
Faun for the Sea of Trees, II
In Kato Polyclay, with garnets and wood.
Spectrum Fantastic Art Gold Award in Dimensional
Kind Visitors, a most belated announcement: I was incredibly honored that 'Venetian Harpy' won the 2015 Spectrum gold award in Dimensional, given at Spectrum Fantastic Art Live in Kansas City, MO, in May. There was so much wondrous art there, I was amazed! More news in the near future. Promise.
Venetian Harpy, 11 x 22 inches, in mixed media, completed 2014.
Faun for the Sea of Trees
This lucky creature had the honor of appearing at the Krab Jab Studio (Seattle, WA) in artist Allen Williams' wonderful show, "Summoned." The show has a closing reception Oct. 31, 2014, 6-9 pm.
Updated Goblin Spider Fragment, with Mice...
About 15" tall, in Kato Polyclay, with garnets and wood. I'm thinking of doing a limited edition of this one...
Dragon Woman progressing
Dragon Woman, about 12" tall in Kato Polyclay.
WIP...
Work in progress...
She must be constructed in pieces, to fit in the oven for curing. The segments will be well disguised, and in a sense it makes design more interesting: one comes up with things by necessity that end up being virtues, often!
Abyssal Angel, progressing
Abyssal Angel, WIP in Kato Polyclay over aluminum and Aves "Fixit Sculpt" armature. About 30" tall, with all appendages.
Kind Visitors,
May has become a strange month to me. I'm returning to the surface after a death in my family. As I resume work on these abyssal beings, I think of two who chose to die in water, and in May: my father many and many years ago, and now his twin sister, my aunt. She was friend, ally, artist, listener, vivid mind and believer in things not yet created. She leaves a hollow in the world, she leaves us standing on the shore. May has become a strange month.
More in a while, on the call of deep waters.
Abyssal Angel, armature underway
Armature in aluminum armature wire, with Kato Polyclay head and Aves Fixit Sculpt reinforcing armature points.
She'll appear at the Spectrum Fantastic Art Live event in Kansas City, May 17 - 19. (Going to be a busy couple of weeks here!!)
Octopoidal Progress
WIP in Kato Polyclay, about 16" tall including the base. She's still far from finished, but now has a nice critter on her back:
"MAMA Scared Stiff Competition"
If you like the Creepy, do go see the 1500+ entries on Deviant Art -- the contest is linked to the film "MAMA," opening on Jan. 18, by filmakers Andy & Barbara Muschietti and Guillermo del Toro, whose work I already love. To see the Competition:
My "Grandmama," entry and ode to my maternal Grandma.... a most unusual personage!
Shell-horned being, underway
Octopoid Fragment, progress
Octopoid Fragment underway
