Beast of Burden

Burden
2013
24x18
charcoal















A few weeks ago I added a few new figure sketches to the slideshow that runs at the top right of this blog.

This is one I particularly like.
You can take it (or leave it) on a literal or symbolic level, as you wish.

Montage

Figure study: Montage
2013
24x18
charcoal















The figure group I have been going to warms up with five minutes poses, which is kind of long for me, so I usually draw, wipe the page and draw as many times as I like until the time is up.

On this occasion, I left remnants of all of the quick sketches to make a layered drawing.

I suspect tomorrow will be a snowy day, so I don't think I will go.

The Classics

Penelope's Work
2013
30x22
mixed media on paper
















I can honestly say that Homer's Odyssey remains one of my favorite sagas.

Penelope is generally interpreted as a paragon of fidelity and domesticity, but I love her for her cunning  ability to protect herself, even as a person with few rights and little power.

As you may recall, she  buys some time by promising to choose one of the many unwelcome suitors who have descended upon her home to be her new husband as soon as she finishes weaving a shroud for her father-in -law.
Every day she works at her loom, and every night she secretly slips back and undoes her day's progress.

She does this for three years before they figure out what she has ben up to.

I find something powerful and poetic about that concept of weaving and unweaving the same thing for day after day to preserve yourself.

Napping
2013
oil on board

2013
30x22
charcoal and graphite
on rag paper



















Sometimes I just need to step away from the paint.

Sans Figure

In Your Absence
2013
10x13
oil with cold wax








There was a model seated here at one point.....

Paint Sketch

Semi-reclining Figure
2013
5x7
oil










This small sketch I did a couple weeks back using RF pigment sticks.
These are luscious pigments an a buttery oil stick form.
They can be tricky to work with, but are very exciting, just the same.

Navy Man
2012
14x11
mixed media



















Members Juried II  at Concord Art Association 

opens this Sunday, February 17th 2 p.m.-4 p.m. and runs through March 17, 2013.

Juried by Kathy Halamka and Natacha Sochat, formerly of NKG Gallery, this exhibit showcases works of photography, drawing, mixed media, crafts and graphics.

I have two mixed media pieces in this time around!

Figure Study in Oil

Seated Figure
2013
10x8
oil














Here's a quick little study from the figure group I have been going to.  I used R&F oil sticks which, particularly on such a small canvas forces you to generalize and work loosely.

You Have Nerves

You Have Nerves That End in Ideas
2013
36x48
acrylic

This is the latest in the Found Journal Series.  This has been a complex and totally gratifying project.

I am enjoying the acrylics more than I ever thought I would,

Farmland Vignettes
2012
14x11
oil on panel










This landscape was originally painted last spring on a trip to Maine.

This winter, I became disenchanted with it, and was going to sand it and paint over the whole thing, but then I hesitated.

There are a few passages I do enjoy, so I just painted out what didn't thrill me.

Not sure about the values, though.  I think maybe the "redacted" areas should be darker.

Furnished
2013
11x14
acrylic






This small painting is on a canvas panel that I coated with Golden Absorbent Ground which makes the paint respond a little more like paper.

Originally it was a figure study that I was not pleased with, but I was really enjoying the colors and their quiet, muted quality.

I built on the already abstract motif and blocked out the figure.

The resulting image suggests chairs, maybe tables.

Sometimes My Frame of Mind Isn't Framed
2013
40x30
acrylic




This is also from the "Found Journal Series"








This one has some subtle colors that don't come through so well in this picture.  I might try to photograph it again.

From the Found Journal

I Really Would Eat Poison with a Smile



2013
24x24
acrylic








This is another from the Found Journal Series, so please don't get worried about my emotional state!
You can read about it in the previous entry, if you missed it last week.

I am choosing the titles directly from the text.

Today I Am Almost Scared How Fine I Almost Feel
2013
30x40
acrylic

It is a spring evening in 1989 and I am walking down a street in Santa Monica, California.
Blowing down the same street are gobs of papers, partial notebooks, blue exam books, like the contents of a school knapsack emptied at the bus stop by the bully.

I start scooping them up.  I don't know, maybe I thought I was retrieving them for their owner, but there was no one, distraught, running after them.

As it turned out, they were fragments of someone's journal, bits and pieces of anguish spanning a decade.
I do not use the word anguish here lightly.
Contained, barely contained in the scrawl and rambles was a story of such darkness and repeated efforts to crawl out from under unbearable despair.

I do not know who the author is, but she seemed as thrown away and blown away as her papers, and so, I saved them.

Every so often I would pull them out, read some of them over, and then put them away again.  They were just so dark.

But I have kept them, nearly 25 years now, because I felt there had to be something I could do with them.
And I didn't want to give up on her.

I think I am now ready to give them new life.

This painting came out from a page she wrote in 1978.  An up day.

That is where the title comes from.

Seated Model
2013
acrylic on paper
13x10















Finally!  I am back to a regular figure practice.
I am in a 10-week uninstructed group at Emerson Umbrella in Concord, MA.
It feels really good to get back to this sort of thing.

This is from the first meeting, last week.

Winter Afternoon
2012
16x20
oil












Late in December a few of us got together and painted this homey scene of a young man reading.
I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy this sort of domestic scene, but I found that if you love the material of paint enough, the subject matter doesn't matter so much.
The result was more successful than I imagined it would be.

First Shows of 2013

Ann's Piano
2012
10x8
oil















Unrelated to this little painting, I have a few paintings in shows opening this week.

 Post Road Art Center in Marlborough this
Thursday, January 10, 2013 from 5:30-8 p.m.
2013 Figure and Portrait Show,  juried by Bob Collins
 I have two figure paintings there.

and on Sunday, January 13, 2013 from 2-4 p.m. at
Concord Art Association is
Members Juried I, Painting & Sculpture, juried by George Nick
I have a figure painting here, too.

 Click on the links for details or to see the shows on line (CAA posts images after the opening)

Silenced
2012
12x12
oil















I feel this one is complete, now.

Beach House
2012
14x11
oil with cold wax















Sometimes, many times, my painting process feels random, but truth is life and current events seep in and guide my blind hand.
Without knowing it, this painting turned out to be about the many homes lost along the East coast during hurricane Sandy and the countless storms that have swept away homes and lives along the fluid margins of our island home.

December
2012
5x7
oil










Yep.  Another wee one made from left over paint.
I like this so much I have started a larger piece roughly based on it.

I am partial to the month of December.  It contains the dichotomy of introverted reflection/darkness/dormancy and extroverted exuberance/lights/celebration.

Wishing everyone the peace and happiness both elements bring.

2012
5x7
oil











Just another little quickie with left over paint.
Sometimes I like these the best.

Sutured
2012
24x24
oil on canvas
















One of the things I love about the painting process, is how paintings reinvent themselves.
Just when I think I have a clue who they are and where they are going, they totally transform.
Often when I think a piece is done it turns out it was just resting.

As for this one, specifically, it came out of the painting posted on August 13, 2012.

It has surface details that show better when you click on the image.

Dilemma
2012
30x22
mixed media on paper

Are We There Yet?

2012

14x11

oil with cold wax

I could be wrong... I've been wrong before, but I think I'm done.

The biggest issue I have with this is scale.  I think if it were 60x48 rather than 14x11 it would be pretty exciting.

I know that not every painting is going to be top notch, but I always feel determined to move it to the best place I possibly can, and that is what this piece is about.

Last time you saw this was November 23rd , in case you want to compare.

Odysseus
2012
acrylic on paper with slag
22x15















Trying to make art that is personal, honest, yet able to reach others and communicate, on a nonverbal level, something about our existence is my own odyssey, so maybe this is a self portrait.

Freedom Trails Gallery

Opening this Thursday
in Amherst, MA
5-8 p.m.

Can you hear me, now?

Transmission
2012
diptych 22x30
acrylic, graphite, and slag on paper

Reception this Sunday

37 Lexington Rd.
Concord, MA USA

978-369-2578

http://concordart.org/

hours:
Tuesday-Saturday 10a.m.- 4p.m.
Sunday noon- 4p.m.

Black Friday. Seeing Red?

Night Pool
2012
6x7
encaustic monotype











Hopefully you did not blow your entire gift budget at the malls, superstores, and soulless chains yesterday!
That sort of shopping can leave you feeling empty and confused, like eating cotton candy and calling it dinner.

Wherever you are, if you need a special gift this season, go to your local gallery or arts cooperative and buy an original piece of art.  It is a great feeling!

This year I will have "small works" for sale in Concord, Massachusetts at the Concord Art Association as well as the Freedom Trails Gallery in Amherst, Massachusetts.
I also have a selection of paintings available at Surroundings Gallery in Gardner, Massachusetts.

Information on openings to follow.

work in progress

oil with cold wax medium on panel


This is still evolving.
I was just anxious to get a new image up.

I guess that means I had better get busy painting!

This time of year, everything else seems to take precedence..... sigh.

This Weekend, GALA Event

Gardner Area League of Artists GALA
Fall Art Show
November 16-18, 2012

Gardner Senior Center
294 Pleasant St., Gardner, MA

Friday 6-9:30 p.m.
Opening Reception
with
Live Music & Refreshments
Awards, 7 p.m.

Saturday 11a.m.-6 p.m.
Sunday Noon-4 p.m.



This is an open, community art show that celebrates the wide range of work being done in Gardner and the many small, surrounding towns of Central Massachusetts.  This is the most unassuming, warm and welcoming groups of artists and art appreciators you will ever find.  Admission is free.

more information at

http://galagardner.org/

978-630-2340

The Impermanence of Objects (Chair/Chalice)
2012
12x12
oil

Artists,  physicists, mystics, and crazies are all suspicious of the boundaries that appear to divide this from that.
Chair? Chalice? No matter, matter.  Energy.

Long-term Relationship

2012
40x30
oil












I have been working on this painting, on and off, for two years.
On at least one other occasion, I thought it was completed.
I even framed it and submitted it to a show (rejected).
This time, I was too lazy to take it out of the frame, a black float frame, and just worked on it in that state.
So, with that history, I am reluctant to say it is finished.
Some time this week I will try to get a better photo, I was just chomping at the bit to get something new up on the blog.

A New Landscape

Landscape with Marsh
2012
8x10
oil










Earlier this fall I went out painting in Uxbridge, MA with a group of friends.
This was the first of two paintings I did.  At first it was quite tight, so back at the studio I reworked it.
I liked it better, but it still didn't sit right with me.
The other day I realized what it needed was cropping, and had it been a work on paper, that is exactly what I would have done.
Chop, chop!
Instead, I painted out sections with a deep brown.  For the folks who like to see things literally, it might look like I am looking through a porch, but it is really, it is just my way of organizing space.
That is part of the really gratifying thing about painting to me; I get to say, "This is how I choose to present things" and I don't feel I need any further rationalization.

Go Vote

Silenced
2012
12x12
oil











I'm an artist, not an activist (though I know talented, smart people who are both), so it is with trepidation that I wade into this realm.

I know it is easy to be cynical.  Still, go vote.
I know it can feel like you are not being heard, not being represented.  Still, go vote.
Don't be silenced.  Go vote.

As for the painting, it is not finished yet, but it is moving in the direction I want.