Bring It On!

oil on panel, 24" x 20"

In this picture, it seems as though I place myself into one of my abstract-expressionist landscape paintings that I did for several years. My figure is amidst a turbulent sky, storm clouds mixed with sky blue and white, showing that change of one kind or another is always coming. I am weathered, facial lines are deepening. I stretch (in my exercise clothes), confident that I can meet whatever challenge blows my way. It is a cousin to Soutine's painting of children in a landscape: http://www.artunframed.com/images/nov03/school.jpg

Speaking of change, confidence, and the ability to take on challenges, I am ecstatic that Hillary is running for President. I just ordered my bumper stickers. Go Hillary! http://www.hillaryclinton.com/

Letting Out the Butterflies

1. digital image

2. dry point, 10" x 14"

About the image:

This is about letting the butterflies out of one's stomach, doing things despite a degree of nervousness. It directly relates to a specific experience that I had, as was pointed out to me afer I made it (again, one of the things I love about artmaking, my unconscious mind communicating to me). Over the holidays, a family member asked me and several others to help in recording a song he wrote. I have never had a voice lesson in my life aside from the minimal exposure that one gets in the public school system. While I enjoy singing, it isn't something I do well, and I particularly dislike performing things that I am not prepared for. This was a spur of the moment kind of thing. I thought I was going to be singing with the others, but when I stepped into the recording studio, I saw that I had to sing into an enormous microphone and wear headphones. Other voices would be edited in later. It was christian music and I was to sing "Praise the Lord" a couple of different ways. I did it, not without complaining, and enjoyed it dispite my distress. The butterfly is a christian symbol of resurrection. A snake is also a symbol for rebirth, and the pattern of the butterflies in the throat make the form snake-like. The butterflies seem like notes.

The experience was out of the ordinary for me, creating in a different medium (song) when I felt so flawed and human. Perhaps bringing it into the sphere of visual art allows me to put it into my own language, "singing" it with the clarity that I couldn't manage with my voice.

About technique:
I made the digital image first and then did the dry point. There are some differences due to the nature of the media. The digital has a free-flowing line, while the dry point is slightly more angular due to the way the etching tool has to incise into the metal plate. The dry point has beauty in the line quality typical of the medium with a fuzzier, thicker line due to the raised burr of the metal in places. I like the color of the digital and its starkness, but the atmosphere of the dry point is appealing, too. The hand has a different scale in the two pictures.