Lilies of the Valley, Crow's Feather

24" x 18", oil on panel

My friend, Brenda, often brings me flowers from her garden in generous, bug bunches. This time she brought these lilies of the valley and put a crow's feather in the middle that she found on her run. It struck me as just the right metaphor. It is very much like the daffodils with the black square in the upper center. Color and form are especially important in this painting. I really like the form of the leaves with the vertical of the feather, its split, curling top and wavy edges. The flowers were tricky to paint, as it is easy to get too fussy with frilly details. I decided not to include a table and to increase the amount of reflection in the glass so as to make the image more airy and give emphasis to the flowers and feather. It has been awhile since I have done a straight forward still life and I'm not sure how it stands next to the latest minimalist things I have done.

Some flower painters I like:

John La Farge (known for his stained glass work, but he painted as well)

Van Gogh, Irises nice close-up (of a different Iris painting)

I found a neat BBC site about a program they had, "Painting Flowers" with many examples of specific kinds like lilies, sunflowers, tulips, and roses. Check out the Sargent I adore, Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose.

Hope, Loss

36" x 24", oil on panel
4" x 3", dry point, chine colle

This is the most minimal work I have done to date. The general theme is evoked by color, green for hope and black for loss. Emotions and color have in common that they are complex beyond words with many subtleties for which there are no names.

The green in the print looks flat compared with the juicy oil painting, but in real life it is sensous, reminding one of dewy grass.

Artists working as color field painters:

Joseph Albers

Mark Rothko

As I looked on-line for a link to put with color field painter Robert Moore, I became increasingly disheartened. I was a junior at Massachusetts College of Art, looking forward to taking his color theory class because of the high regard students had for him, when he became ill and shortly after died. This painting I am doing now reminds me of him. Artists always have other artists as role models, but my favorites are those who are amazing, caring people in addition to being great artists. Rob Moore was that kind, reputed to paint an unbelievable number of hours on top of his teaching schedule. There must be lots of paintings out there by him, but there are so few links on the web. He died in 1993, before being on the Internet became almost necessary as proof of existence. It shouldn't be so shocking, I suppose, that artists leave behind their art and become anonymous; archaeology provides countless examples. It just seems so soon for that to happen and rather unjust when there is so much art that is promoted unworthily. If I had money to collect art, I would seek out his. I saw some in person once at a Boston gallery and they were like small miracles. One would expect paintings so small and with so few elements to be arbitrary, like how students often feel at their first glance at a Morandi. Instead, they are vibrant, joyous, meaningful visual poems. I remember one that was the color of a raw cracked egg: glistening yellows, whites, made of a substance that seemed to go beyond paint. One of the things I found through Google was a short bit of writing about Rob by a former student, which was very moving and seemed to describe the qualities of the man that he also squeezed into his paintings.

I guess I am looking back so much because I need to be refreshed and re inspired as I continue to put paint on a surface. There are so many other practical things to do with time, many of which are a lot easier! I am dust if I make paintings and dust if I don't, and the paintings are dust, too. It is a meaningful process for me like no other, so I make them.

Daffodils, Loss

36" x 24"

oil on panel, PRIVATE COLLECTION

Now I just know that someone somewhere will see this and say, "I love those daffodils; I just wish she didn't stick that black square in there, otherwise I would buy it!" I like to do this in a falsetto voice to amuse friends. C'est la vie.

It's spring and there is plenty to be jubilant about, but sometimes there is loss, even in spring. The black square is that gaping hole, the void, the pit of one's stomach. The vertical picture relates to the body, a torso, if you will, and the square is like one's gut. But, you know, it also looks like a square of dirt, which could make one think of a grave with flowers around it, or of ordering nature. Let's go with gardening. It could be that bald spot in your lawn that you need to patch or a new flower bed to be planted. The negative is not always negative but unused potential waiting for seeds.

Butterfly-Hands (One Strong Butterfly)

24" x 24", oil on panel

This form makes me think of the way you can use your hands to make a bird flying.

As always, words aren't going to cut it, but I'll say a few. The form is very sculptural, central in the picture, situated in space, while the forearms are like a pillar that can also be read as space. In that way, they do not compete with the form of the butterfly, which would serve to ground it. This butterfly is flying with vigor, all muscle, even though the black lines are so solid (like the lead around stained glass). I revisited the medieval stained glass at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC this weekend and there's something about them that seems as hard as nails. Image, form, and belief are inseparable. I would say there's also some of the raw toughness of Soutine's sides of beef in my picture.

Woman, Bird, Skeleton

Woman, Bird, Butterfly, etching, watercolor, 2006-2007

Woman and Bird (Spring), etching, watercolor, 2006-2007

If these seem strange, then you probably haven't come to terms with Joseph Beuys. I have long admired his work and, being a painter, find his drawings and watercolors particularly fascinating. They are succinct, draw on pre-verbal conceptions, and are the result of a search for meaning rather than people-pleasing. In comparison, mine are much more digestible, and I'm not sure that that is a good thing. While I will continue to try to dig deeper, I seem to go towards a certain amount of description in my work. It's something for me to consider and the type of problem an artist has to wrestle with.

These aren't going in The Butterfly Book, unless I decide to make new plates based on the images, because they are larger plates that I printed at another time for another edition. Painting on leftover prints (proofs - prints that aren't uniform enough to be included in the edition) is wonderful. It is a theme and variations game where the artist can experiment in taking the same basic idea in different directions. Drawing on a tablet computer is amazing for the same reason. Makes me want to go make some work...

Letting the Butterflies Go, painting

oil on panel

20" x 16"

One word to describe much of my work, especially this one, is "visceral". The palette and brushwork contribute to the feeling as well as the imagery of the butterflies making their way out of the gut. The emerging pale blue-violet butterfly contrasts with all the heat, giving the picture a bite like strong blue cheese. The picture is about the process of letting go, which is sometimes painful. The other versions of this image (done as a digital image and as an etching) are more about letting worries go, whereas this painting is about letting go of people, things, or ideas that have enough personal meaning that they feel a part of you. The butterflies in the background are like ghosts.

Loaves and Fishes (version 4)

digital image

My pastor asked if my image of the Loaves and Fishes could be used for the cover of our church bulletin this Sunday as it matched the gospel reading. I couldn't find a jpeg handy, so did this digital version anew on my tablet. I have two versions of the image done in oil and one in woodcut that was used for a church fundraiser. The digital will reproduce easily.

The painted versions of The Loaves and Fishes show more clearly that the two hands of Jesus rising from the ocean are of different races. Also the round, golden pita loaves double as halos. I like the simplified iconography, "x" composition, and strong forms emerging out of agitated, rhythmic water. Artists often return to the same subject and hands are one of my favorites.

Three New Prints for the Butterfly Book

etching and watercolor, 4" x 3" (Passing the Butterfly has oil pastel as well as chine colle - pasted paper that's then printed on)

Self-Portrait, Tailed Copper - The butterfly wing is simultaneously muscle and veil. It is tough, sinewy construction while lacy like a doily or garter. The butterfly's body is a stand-in for the figure's. The picture is both colorless and colorful. The background is atmospheric, a demure, hazy setting that does little to reveal the underpinnings of the figure. It is about dichotomies and the subtleties involved in gender and identity.

Passing the Butterfly - Two hands meet while the butterfly rests between. The limited vocabulary of shapes and lines in the hands and butterfly play off each other. The oil pastel gives a powdery feeling appropriate to a butterfly's wings. The crushed color reminds me of the chalk pastels of Odilon Redon. The wings are jewel-like while the surrounding space evokes wet grass, dim light, and rain.

Self-Portrait, Spring Azure is a metaphor for the interconnectedness of all things. This is shown by the cubist fractured space and figure and the golden chain of interlocking rings. The butterfly wing is a lens to see the world, instead of rose-colored glasses. The butterfly's symbol of renewal, doubly reinforced by the word "Spring" in its name, lends the viewer faith.

Butterfly Book

These two images are a part of my new project - the series of butterfly related prints that will be collected into a folio (with a total edition of 10 folios). So far I think I'm going to stick to etching as the medium. It is very versatile and I like the idea of the uniformity of the small rectangles.

The top image is another version of Intellect and Optimism Create Butterflies (after Goya) [see previous post]. I used two plates. The first plate was an aquatint printed in yellow. After it dried, I printed the second plate, a drypoint, to create the black lines on top of the yellow. Lastly, I hand-painted areas light yellow and white-yellow. I really like painting on prints, which is something that an artist who is strictly a printmaker and not a painter might not do. I think of all those manuscript illuminations from the Middle Ages and engravings that were hand-colored. It is more like planting flowers as opposed to oil painting, which is more like turning soil for me. The image makes me think of Paul Klee in its playfulness and handling of shape, line, and space.

The bottom image, Butterfly/Hands, is a drypoint. The visual vocabulary is pared down as the mass of the fingers relate to the area of the butterfly wings. Fingernails play off the markings on the butterfly. They also look like the wholes cut out of paper to make a snowflake. The combination of nature and feminine form relate to O'Keefe.

The National Gallery has great virtual tours of art, by the way.

Spring! [Intellect and Optimism Create Butterflies (after Goya)]

I am thinking a lot of Goya's The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters from Los Caprichos. The title implies that losing touch with reality is a scary place. The figure is slumped over a desk, his garments making him into a winged form like the bat/owl creatures behind him. I thought to redo the picture, changing it to mean the opposite. I think it is important to change the word "produce" from the Goya to "create" as a more postive action rather than cause and effect. The mood of my painting is optimistic, celebratory for spring and rebirth, while Goya's monsters press on him in a nightmare. The figure in my painting is female and is vertical, active, lyrical in her pose. The form of her head surrounded by her arms is echoed by the center of the yellow flower surrounded by petals. The monsters are replaced by butterflies. The expressionist paint handling is energetic and relaxed while clear. The fluidity of the forms and their environment suggest harmony. Of course the painting is indebted to DeKooning.

Sunset in Western NY (Rusty)

This painting came from taking out the garbage when the sun was setting and the moon was out. The turbulent landscape is in contrast to the monumental scale of my dog, Rusty, a Vizsla. I think of Egyptian sculpture and cat worshiping. No matter what adventures take me from home (beyond the exciting trash, that is), my dog is waiting.

Examples of good dog art:

Rosa Bonheur

Pierre Bonnard

William Wegman

Matt Groening

Giacometti

Self-Portrait Banded-Peacock Butterfly

etching, watercolor, 4" x 3" image size

Portraits often show people dressed in their best clothes. People from around the world identify themselves with particular animals. Here my butterfly obsession combines these two ideas as the butterfly operates as finery and a symbol for change and renewal. The particular butterfly this is based on, the Banded-Peacock, also alludes to the way a peacock takes pride in its ornamentation, which although decorative, is also part of its structure. The butterfly in my picture has been fused with my form, elongated in the process, making an elegant collar. The top part of the butterfly functions as a kind of headdress, making sense only in this printed world. I could make fun and say that these two forms can be compared with Princess Leia's hair buns or Mickey Mouse ears. Both comparisons are relevant in that the hairstyle and the mouse ears are adornment necessary to particular characters.

I am also very interested in Goya and his Los Caprichos. This print is going to be used as the introductory image in a series of butterfly themed prints that will be assembled as a folio in a small edition of ten. I am not sure how many images I will make for this project, but at least ten. Goya made eighty prints in each edition of Los Caprichos, which were sold at the time for what was the equivalent value of thirty-five dollars a set. The six sets he made for friends were of a higher quality than the ones for sale to the general public.

Grace

oil on panel, 20" x 20"

The position of the hands in this painting is sign language for "grace". The landscape is war-torn, contrasting with the title. One hand seems to have white feathers, like a dove (christian symbol for the holy spirit) descending on a bald head, perhaps a monk or a soldier. The bird-hand is semi-transparent, ephemeral, suited for the spiritual. Its touch has a rippling effect. The vertical hand seems to struggle with mortality, entropy. It feels like it is sinking, but it is resistant, elegant but raw.

In terms of composition, the square is essentially divided by an "x". The hand is in the upper left, while the head the lower right, forming one diagonal, while the winged hand makes the other.

Passing the Butterfly

oil on panel, 24" x 18"

I'm sneaking another post in this week.

This candy colored painting started by covering the surface with dots. I was mindful of the delivery of each dot, like a violinist plucking individual strings. I also thought of Andrew Forge, whom I was fortunate to have critique my work in graduate school at U. Penn. I thought of him because of the picture's pointillist beginning and because of its meaning. "Passing the butterfly" is like passing the torch or the bar in a relay race. It is about inspiring one another and striving. Andrew Forge was a painter, art historian, and head of the MFA program at Yale for many years. He had a combination of brilliance, integrity, and humility that made every word he said precious. Even though I have only spent a handful of hours in his company, his life and work exemplified what an artist, a person can be when they live to their full potential.

There are many people who have helped me, and as I get older I am more willing to accept help. The butterfly is precious, unique, and vulnerable in its fragility, as are we as we extend ourselves and accept a hand from others. The lyrical colors reflect the content. The surrounding space shifts in this precarious transaction.

Home

digital image

This is a double self-portrait (figure in blue, larger figure sketched on left) along with my husband, son, and dog. The house is a part of my husband's torso, his head its apex, like a cross on a steeple. He is the symbol of home for me. One of my legs is an arm and hand. It touches the ground, showing that I am on sure footing at home, "walking on solid ground," so to speak. I like the change in scale between the interior and exterior figures as well as the flailing arms in exuberant greeting. This is as close to Hallmark as I get.

The style is somewhat Cubist. Two of Picasso's portraits of family were stolen this week from his granddaughter's home. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/01/arts/design/01pica.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin Their combined value of $66 million is hard to wrap one's head around.

Butterfly Self-Portrait, Tailed Copper

16" x 20", oil on panel

The Tailed Copper Butterfly is not just brown, but rich in varying tones. The colorful segments reminded me of muscles and the Body Worlds Exhibition I saw in Toronto last year. The show made a lasting impression in terms of making anatomy more tangible as well as with regard to personal fitness. An increased awareness of my own muscles through weights and dance is also effecting how and what I am able to depict in paint. A figurative clay class while attending Massachusetts College of Art years ago stayed with me, particularly sculpting a head from life using calipers: from the skull to muscles to a likeness. As a drawing instructor, I have often used the skeleton as subject matter, a traditional but still effective challenge.

In this painting, the color and shape of the left butterfly wing give the feeling of skin being pulled back. The brown hair on the right and the butterfly body also double as rolled up skin. If this makes you squeamish, don't see Body Worlds!

I am turning away from the dark grotto-like space behind me. The butterfly bridges me with that space. It is a symbol of renewal, and here has the added layer of meaning of strengthening and rebuilding muscle. It is a hopeful picture. While getting older and relatively accepting of aging, there is much to do and I'm not willing to embrace entropy.

Butterfly Box

oil on panel, 36" x 24"

Shape, symmetry, and asymmetry are important design elements in this work, as are nature and human control. The painting is split approximately in half vertically, with one side devoted to the grass and sky (albeit in rather synthetic colors), and the other half to the figure and house. The butterfly, box, and hands inhabit both.

We cannot tell the full expression of the androgynous person upon opening the box. The butterfly release could symbolize many things. The butterfly masks most of the person's features. It seems both beautiful and terrible, full of dichotomies like its stark coloring. The box is similar to the house in its neutrality and they could be figuratively, as well as literally, parallel in meaning. There is mystery and tension between what is visible and what is hidden.

Hamadryas Chloe, Head, Feet

Oil on panel, 20" x 16"

The Hamadryas Chloe Butterfly is from Peru, although that is irrelevant to the image, I think. One can't be sure if the head has just flown off the figure or if it is separate. There is the implication of disjuncture, as implied by the title of disparate body parts. The figure appears to be dancing or skipping away. Memory, time, and dreams may have a place here. The blue monochromatic palette and stark contrast evoke melancholia. The butterfly and the human head are fused together, feeling tattooed, visceral, not at all disjointed. If there is loss or abscence, it is not between the butterfly and the head. The pattern seems beautiful and strong like a radiating spider web, more sturdy than a lace ruff (see links).
http://www.carts.org/images/rosa-elena/rembrandt.jpg
http://www.spanisharts.com/history/barroco/imagenes/rembrandt/estudiante.html

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.