Here's a Moth, hatched from the Northern Renaissance... in Premier air-dry clay, mulberry paper with stainless steel and aluminum wire armature. Painted in acrylics, with metallic gold.
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?
Demon Harpy for Williams' Wyld
For an Allen Williams inspired show at the Krab Jab Studio in Seattle. My Friends, I realize I've been neglecting my site while cavorting about on social media! I will be aiming to rectify, and keep this much more up to date. For now:
The Morrigan: Badb Catha
More on this shortly:
La Belle Crustacé, tinted
The Tinderbox, tinted in acrylics
Hans Christian Andersen's "The Tinderbox" ~ work in progress
La Belle Crustacé, a shrimp in progress
This one is in Premier air-dry clay with washi paper. She'll be completed and painted -- but here she is as a work in progress...
A Fish from Versailles II
A rococo mermaid in Kato Polyclay.
Faun for the Sea of Trees, II
In Kato Polyclay, with garnets and wood.
February 14
Sonnet V
Aghast, I look upon the steaming plain
Where Love doth stride, a ruthless fire-footed thing
To blacken bone in wash of flaming wing:
There, be neither shelter nor shield from pain
Seared flowers wither in its burning mane.
I turn my streaming face away, and cling
To lesser thing and stop my ears lest hear it sing
Its ringing gimlet cry to blight the sane
And set us trembling at its seeming rage
Or, ripping chin to stern in bleeding rite
It eats the flinching heart and strews but jumbled cage
Of ribs to rattle in its wrenching flight
And so consumes the wailing babe and blinded sage,
Till naught be left but ash and wholly joyous light.
~ Isabelle Rathbone Greene, c. 1894
Happy 2016, and a Winter Sphinx to you!
Winter Sphinx stands about 24" tall, sculpted in Premier air-dry clay with washi paper and wood.
The Morrigan
Friends, so sorry to have been blog-neglectful! I aim to mend my ways in 2016. Here's the Morrigan, Celtic battle goddess, shape-shifting phantom queen. She just got lucky and won the popular vote competition for Infected By Art (IBA) Volume 4. Thank you, everyone who participated!! So honored. There is a great deal ofastonishing work to see at Infected By Art, and the book will be incredible!
The Morrigan, mixed-media, about 19" tall.
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.
Bright Spring, Happy Easter!
Flora, La Primavera, in Premier air-dry clay, with wood, and paper, painted in acrylic.