Tucson Open Studio Tour November 14th, 15th

The Tucson Open Studio Tour takes place this coming weekend, November 14th and 15th, from 11 AM to 5 PM. The Tucson Pima Arts Council has brought together over 167 artists to participate in the fall event.

Whew! Yes, I signed up a few months ago and am readying the studio for this weekend's excitement (trauma?)--which reminds me of the following quote from Mark Twain, "Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." (from Taking the Leap, Cay Lang) Hope you're taking leaps forward even if they're a bit scary.

Here is the postcard that we have been handing out and, if you'd like, the link above will take you to the website that shows links and maps to the artists' studios. You can take a gander at what other artists are up to in this burg.

How I wish you all could attend. For now, I'm not in the studio to paint, but hope to be very soon.

In the meantime, I've got a couple of photos of the neighborhood falcon crying out..."Go back to your studio! Go back to your studio"! (?) and a view over the fence.

Dia de Los Muertos y Aquellos Viviendo

I read the most beautiful obituary this weekend in the New York Times. Does this mean I'm an elderly person? Yeah, maybe. Yet, the NYT's Obits are so well written! They are like great short stories that leave you asking questions, curious to know more.

In the past few weeks, there have been several artists who have past away. I didn't know any of their names.

There were these: Nancy Spero, Ruth Duckworth, Amos Ferguson and, an actor from way back--Lou Jacobi

And then there was Albert York. As the author of the obit, Roberta Smith, wrote, he was "...a painter of small mysterious landscapes who shunned the art world yet had a fervent following within it." He was so uninterested in fame and glory that his one and only gallery representative quietly, and mostly without his knowledge, exhibited and handled his work. What I found so endearing and profound were the following:

He worked at his own pace.
He was emotionally engaged with his subject.
He kept on painting even though he had to work a "real" job.
He didn't quit painting despite being "perpetually dissatisfied with his work, prone to scraping down his wood panels..."

Sound familiar?

In Tucson, Dia de Los Muertos is a pretty big deal. I like that we honor those who have died with a parade and celebration of their lives. I also like honoring the living by encouraging perseverance.

Now, I couldn't resist including Lou Jacobi. He was one of those character actors everyone recognized, but rarely could name. As one critic wrote, "Mr. Barnes... added: “He has a face of sublime weariness and the manner of a man who has seen everything, done nothing and is now only worried about his heartburn."" Wow. Can you imagine being so good as to convey such nuance? He was a funny, and serious man who, in real life, did everything he could to live well.

May we all endeavor to do the same, even if we scrape a few paintings now and again.

This small, 4" x 6" oil on panel, is from an image of yellow zinnias from this summer. The flowers are now dying, but I still remember.

Tucson Weekly, Watering Dirt, Santana's "Smooth" Southwest October

What is uniquely desert behavior on a perfect October day? Dancing shamelessly in the sun to the sounds of Santana's song, "Smooth" (Supernatural), while wielding a garden hose, spraying a quarter of an acre of in-town dirt as clouds race overhead making curly-cue shapes, the way one might picture the bended notes of a great Santana riff.

I'm not alone. In Renée Downing's opinion piece in the local alternative news weekly, Tucson Weekly, she writes about this kind of collective giddiness when October hits the Old Pueblo. We know that we're going to have eight months of balmy days, cool days and a few days in which we can actually wear sweaters.

I put down that hose long enough to paint this painting: Harvest, (16" x 20", oil on artist's board).

Hope you're having a great week wherever you are, from behind cool sunglasses.

Mighty Vole Hunts Ubiquitous Cactus Fruit

What a mouthful this title is! Just for fun, I thought I'd paint from my imagination and see what developed. This one is painted on a Dick Blick Artist's Board, 16" x 20", with Winsor Newton Artisan (water miscible) paints.

I've been absolutely enamored of prickly pear fruit this summer and have spent days boiling and processing the fruits we collected last month. We drove out to the desert northwest of Tucson and collected four large buckets full of the tunas. We tapped our buckets with large tongs to alert any rattlesnakes and kept our eyes to the ground for scurrying scorpions. I can't tell you how fun it was...truly. I felt a connection to the earth as we harvested a little bit of its bounty.

So, I guess I'm the little desert vole seeking fruit that will last through the winter.

Tucson Museum of Art and "Street Cred"

Breathe in Breathe out. Start again. I know. It's been a long time since I've posted anything here. I want to thank Barbara, Linny and Jala for their encouraging notes. I feel immensely inspired, edified and motivated to continue posting because of these artists' dedication and passion for art. Here's my little watercolor of happiness today (2 1/2" x 3" in moleskine notebook).


The Arizona Biennial '09 has ended at the Tucson Museum of Art and my little painting is back home, symbol of more than I can put into words. But...I'll try.

Since each of us live parallel lives as artists and citizens, when do we come to terms with being fully grown, both as humans in community and artists with credibility? Is it when we are famous (locally/nationally) as artists? Is it when we make money from our work, and how much is enough? Is it when we've spent years working for a stable neighborhood, participating as volunteers, learning and acquiring the tools to shape and change things for the better? We do this shaping thing with each of our canvasses and art careers, too.

My point, and I do have one (remember that line?), is that we decide, we decide, we decide our standing--through quiet reflection, honest assessment and healthy humility, irrespective of public acknowledgment.

That said, I was walking around our 'hood the other day, remembering all that we've worked on to make it better around here. It reminded me of the big event from last year. We were targeted by some gang members who decided to shoot up our place. We happened to be huddled outside at the time, up against the studio, in fact. Both of our cars took bullets and one to the house over my son's room.

Later, a friend said that our vehicles now have some "street cred." You know, we did chuckle at that. Why? How could we? Because we survived and eventually got the gang out of the neighborhood (major hard work). We won.

Art has been like this, too. It's been more than thirty years since I had my epiphany/vision to become an artist. There have been delays, setbacks, loss, wailing and gnashing of teeth and personal triumph. I'll bet you have experienced similar things.

I haven't achieved fame or fortune--yet (smiling here), but I have reached a goal by being in the museum that was pretty fantastic when I think of where I was way back then.

I'd say I've got a little "street cred."

Imagine and Paint

The dog days of summer are starting to get to me. It's hard to know where these experiments are coming from, but here's another one. It's 8" x 8" on artist's board.

I read once or twice that not having a defined style can be the mark of an immature artist. Then again, I read a few more times that an artist with several approaches is one that merely has a diversity of styles. You can probably guess where these two perspectives come from...and from where they don't.

Naturally, I like the second observation. This painting is a landscape straight from the tips of my fingers, using up paint from the tube, wondering what would happen if I didn't have a plan--kind of a challenge from an artist who usually likes to.

Almost Los Alamos

Just a short post today. I found this painting hiding behind some other canvasses and did a little touch up on it. I'm not sure this is finished. That mid-ground red is pretty intense. I remember when I painted the sky, I was admiring a bit of pointillist work and some contemporary Impressionists I've been seeing in the Southwest. I probably won't continue in this manner...But, this painting expresses my feeling of driving the road up the hill to Los Alamos, New Mexico and how awestruck I was seeing the mesas and the valley below.

Almost Los Alamos, 30" x 30". Oil on canvas.

Painting Texas Canyon, Arizona Rest Stop

My approach this last week was to try for some more layering and scraping, but after slathering on paint in a most haphazard, cavalier way, I decided to stop here and take a rest. When we traveled to New Mexico this summer, we stopped at one of the last Arizona rest stops before the long haul to Lordsburg, NM, called Texas Canyon. Sorry, I can't for the life of me tell you why it's named Texas Canyon. This is oil on artist's board, 12" x 12".

More water damage, but this time it happened to our adobe walls. It's so much fun seeing the studios, homes and nature at other artists' blogs, that I thought you might enjoy seeing my environment. The following shows our home back in the early 1970s (called Home Sweet Home) before all of the additions, and the next photo is the same view today. The small window in today's photo corresponds to the window in the 1970s house. The edge of my studio (the red wall) is on the left.

Over the years soil and dips in the soil have built up around the perimeter and water has begun to puddle along the other side of this little adobe. As I walked to the kitchen the other day, I saw a chunk of plaster on the floor and a small mound of sand flow out like sand in an hour glass. Yikes. You can see a close up showing the adobe bricks behind the old lime plaster. Now we'll have to work on patching this with the retrieved dirt, sand and some cactus pad juice for glue. What's with all of this water lately?! We had a major monsoon storm yesterday and we were outside with shovels re-directing water away from the house while it was pouring. Kinda fun!

Paradise Lost and Found, Plus a Palimpsest

Having gone through over a hundred prints and drawings, bleaching, drying and re-packing work in archival bags, things are settling down just a bit.

The thing about an accidental water event is that things turn up, things thought to have been lost forever. Many years ago, I was given two old books which I found recently while cleaning up. One is Dante Alighieri's Dante's Inferno and the other is Milton's Paradise Lost. These books are nearly trashed, but the illustrations are spectacular. I've approximated the age of these tomes to be c. 1878-83. If you click on the title link, you can view some of the incredible illustrations by Gustave Doré.

We had a great storm here yesterday. A wonderful monsoonal moment. And, this reminded me of the first illustration in Paradise Lost:
"Now storming fury rose
And clamor, such as heard in heaven till now
Was never"

Yes, that's like a sudden monsoon in Tucson.

But why the word 'palimpsest'?
One of the paintings being posted here today is of a small work that I've worked and worked, until I could work no more. I took it to the woodshed, I mean, studio, and decided to scrape off all of the paint. I stopped half way through. I kinda like this thing.

Catalinas Layered (5" x 7") oil on art board.

Mr. Artyfice said, "Oh, that reminds me of my favorite word--palimpsest! I just love a palimpsest." Whah? Now, I was brought up with a vocabulary loving British mum, so, it's hard to surprise me with an unusual word. Gotta hand it to that Artyfice...but then, he had a foreign born mom too.

Trust me. He doesn't talk that way all the time.

I really like the comparison to parchment rubbed/scraped and added to. Yes, that's what happened here and I hope to try this again. I wonder if this is possible because I used water miscible oil paint. Hmmm.



I finished this second painting just after Catalina Layered and thought I'd include it. Plans for a mine in the Rosemont Canyon area is still being hotly debated--more stormy weather, and this is a snapshot of the beautiful rolling hills. I hope they will remain untouched. Rosemont Sonoita (8" x 8") oil on cradled art board.

I hope you are all staying cool and enjoying a summer full of good finds.

Recipe for a Vicarious Desert Experience

The monsoon has taken a break here in Arizona. We're getting temperatures of 107 to 109 degrees (41.6 to 42.7 Celsius). And it's brutally hot. For those of you unaccustomed to these extremes, I have a way for you to simulate the desert in the height of summer heat, from the comfort of your own home:

Melinda's Tangy Summer Salsa
or Oh Yeah, It's a Dry Heat Fajita

Preheat oven to 300 degrees (148.8 Celsius).
Wait ten minutes.
Open oven door.
Lean in, placing arms one third of the way into said oven, taking care not to touch any metal baking racks.
Hold still, with face at the edge of heat, and count to fifteen.
When you feel a kind of stinging/burning sensation on your arms and face...scream bloody hell and...
Remove pained limbs and transformed countenance and splash with cold water.
Dry with a soft towel.
Fix a soothing libation of your choice and,
Give thanks that you are in a cooler climate.

Patagonia Shadow (6" x 8") oil on Art Board.

Thrill is Gone, Grounded Once Again

You know it's just not possible to float indefinitely in the land of art euphoria. Yup. It's true. I know you know this.

We've had a major computer virus that lasted a few days--that kept us all hoppin' and waiting. Now fix-ed, as you can see. Whew. Then, a few days ago, as I was about to start a new painting, I noticed that the window AC was leaking water over my art storage cabinet. This is the tough part. There were losses. Only a few pieces were beyond saving, but some monotypes will have to be trimmed down to the images because of the mold damage. Tonight, the salvageable work is in the bathtub soaking in a bit of bleach water. Oh yeah, my nice, black 3/4 sleeve, boatneck shirt is now decorated with bleach stains. Oh well, I've re-dyed clothing before.

So, back to work and back to earth after a few days of high flying fun at the museum.

Traveling around today, looking at all the great work at your blogs, is so encouraging that I'm not seriously disturbed by any of this, just delayed. But, I do have the following abstract that offers a direction as things dry out.


Study for "Moticos" #1 (36" x 36")

Wishing you better archiving!

Tucson Museum of Art and the Arizona Biennial '09

There are a few moments in one's life that are so meaningful that the details, large and small, converge into a kind of storm, a bit like the welcomed monsoon lightning that surrounded the glass walls of the Tucson Museum of Art tonight, bringing a rain of clear moments to a lifetime of dreams--and work with hands and paint.

Twenty-four years ago I was cleaning pools for a living (just out of college). Each week I cleaned the TMA's fountain (just outside the west door from the museum).

I distinctly remember standing out there sweating in the summer heat, losing prime on the pump, fighting with the skimmer and the crappy suction of the damn fountain, looking wistfully toward the cool, air conditioned comfort of the museum. As I turned to look at the entrance doors, I wished then that I could be inside.

Tonight I got that wish.




I stood there with friends and family of forty years, eight years and few years and looked across the entrance hall toward that fountain and smiled across the distance.


Here are a few photos from tonight's reception.
It was a delight to see so many people attend. When they stood in front of my painting....whoa, I was in a dream. When they read my statement, I was grateful and happy that they were not bored.



I heard the words again, "Success is not a function of individual talent. It's the steady accumulation of advantages."

Sans Cicadas, New Mexico Sings

Oh, how I love New Mexico. For weeks after returning from a trip there, I look out of my own windows and tell myself that this place is actually New Mexico. I mean, it's the same region and the ancestors traveled these parts as well, calling it all one land. Then I get a bit snippy. What is it about NM anyway? There aren't any saguaros--no cholla or ocotillo and the few prickly pear cacti look hassled by the junipers. Oh, but I do love the chamisa and the junipers on the hills and, of course, the light.

There is something else I've noticed about New Mexico. It almost seems impossible to take a bad photograph. If you ever get a chance to travel to the region, don't worry about composition or light, or subject (just make sure it's daytime). The enchantment always shows up when the photo is reviewed. Amazing. Here are two photos of the rainbow over the hills east of where we stayed and the butte to the northwest. Doesn't it seem like New Mexico poses for visitors, never disappointing?





We had a fun time, an exhausting time and a tiring time on this adventure. We all got lots done. My boy worked on a math problem that required quiet, Mr. Artyfice painted an oil painting and I painted a watercolor. I challenged him to switch media just to see how we'd fair.

Today, the cicadas are buzzing outside, telling me to keep cool in the dark of our cave-like adobe/strawbale. But in New Mexico, there was a cacophony of bird song that soothed and delighted us during our stay.


This is the watercolor that I was surprised I could do. It's approximately 4" x 6" of the butte to the northwest of our casita.

Tucson Museum of Art's Arizona Biennial '09 & Ich Bin ein Artist

Yesterday, I sent out the first invitations and postcards to the upcoming Tucson Museum of Art's Arizona Biennial '09 and this got me to thinking about validation, confidence, hard work and the power of other artists' support through blogging. Because of your visits here, I have grown, experimented and learned so much. Thank you all. I am very grateful. I wish you could all attend the event and exhibit. Here is a link to some pre-buzz on the show and to Mat Bevel's page. Also, here is a link to another artist, Monica Aissa Martinez, in the show. Most of all, I hope that you will read the following and appropriate the message for yourselves.

I recently received permission to share a mail art piece that I made for my son, Ell, last September 2008. Yes, I know. The sentence, "Ich bin ein Artist", is grammatically incorrect. However, I found this jewel in the New York Times Magazine in an article featuring a young artist. In this mail art (I painted a watercolor image of a ceramic fox that he made years ago and used copies of his inked stamps of an Icelandic flag and a dragon along the bottom), I wanted to let him know that we often don't see ourselves as others do. We are so much harder on ourselves than we need to be. Certainly, we are far more critical than our friends are. Why not treat ourselves as kindly as we treat our dearest friends?


The words:
In everyone else's eyes, you are always more creative than you think. When you make something with your hands, you have a process & a dialogue with yourself. First, an amorphous blob dares you to begin. Pulling the clay, asking yourself

Questions: How do I make a fox? How large should it be? What are its proportions. Your hands work. The body is the foundation. The legs come next, one by one, Supporting the whole. The head and tail are developed last like the punctuation in a lovely paragraph. There is an observer present who says, "You're tired and this doesn't look like a fox. Quit now. This is not good--not at all like a picture, not at all like I imagined, not at all like...

An allegory, an analogy, your life begins too, as an amorphous form, slowly developed thru a lifetime of questions--never turning out exactly as planned. Yet, the energy and movement that is the artwork of your life is more than you can see from the middle.

Page two: Blurry from here, but clear on the outside...You can see there is a code, a secret message


Back page:
Albert Einstein said, "In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity."

....Be true to yourself, think about quieting the 'censor' and seek an honest, loving image of yourself.

"A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind." Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

Here's a link to my new website. Thank you, Mr. Artyfice!

More Fun with Scraping

Today, I thought I'd continue experimenting a bit with scraping oil paint and spritzing portions of paint on some small 5" x 7" panels. These surfaces were different from the art boards that I used in the last post, but the process was the same. Again, I'm using water mixable oil paint from Winsor Newton Artisan and Grumbacher Max. Thank you, Karen for inspiring me to detail the process and to push a bit.

First, I drew a quick sketch and, using a palette knife, laid down the sky.



Then, I spritzed the sky with a water bottle and let it sit a few minutes. The photo has some glare from the camera's flash, but you can see how the water works on the paint.

The next two show the paint layers, without any scraping on this one.




In this next experiment, I knew that I'd have to scrape, so I didn't put great gobs* of paint on. *Is this a technical term? I did spritz the sky, holding it upside down, and you can see the drips forming cloud-like elements. The bright center of the painting is where I scraped.




It's really fun to use these paints because they can be used like watercolors, thinned with water as an extender, or used as oils with a water miscible medium. I've titled these two paintings, On the Road to Silver City, one and two.

A Scrape, A Spritz and a Happy Result

Working today on an artist's board (from Dick Blick art materials), I again (!) failed to check the back of the panel for the built in hang hole. Yikes. Of course, I had a nagging thought two hours after I had painted the image.

That old axiom about the preciousness of one's work reminded me that it was okay to scrape off the paint and begin again. As I did so, I enjoyed the process half way through and documented how this looks. This view shows the hill scraped away and the sky still in place. Then, I spritzed the painting with a spray bottle of water (I use water miscible oils) and loved that effect too. Didn't take a photo of it, but I will be experimenting with this in the future and I'll share anything I learn.



Here is the result, after I flipped the panel and re-painted the image with palette knife and brush. This is a 9" x 12" wood panel (Pink Sky New Mexico). Wish these panels were a bit more affordable because they are really wonderful to work on.

Shook Up, Show Up, Make a Mark

So I'm sitting here on a Sunday afternoon, pleasantly and lazily enjoying the company of my family, listening to Tucson's community radio, KXCI, cogitating on the 36" x 36" canvas that is pale and hungry, begging for paint only twenty-two feet away in the studio, when I hear sounds next door, like someone's there. Sure, I freaked out because the woman who had been evicted had come back to forage for things...again. Why would I notice? This woman is a sociopath, the common, garden variety kind that stalked, threatened and tormented my family and me for the last eight years. Panic.

What to do? This is the moment that I realize how art not only created the world, but also saves it (and, me) when things get a bit dicey. I was reminded of a really funny cartoon that Mr. Artyfice has on his office wall.



Donning my artist's beret and my painterly smock that says "Good girls go to heaven, but bad girls go everywhere", I leapt into the studio with a mighty purpose, mixing and sloshing paint like a maniac: First, a four inch brush to lay down a layer of blue; Then, a combination of swashbuckling palette knife action for the sky and the hill below; Ending with a gentler swish and a smear for clouds hugging land. Two hours later, we have two more clouds over Patagonia. I've included the small, 8" x 8" study previously posted.


Whew!
I could write a book about sociopaths...Oh, wait, someone already has: The Sociopath Next Door, by Martha Stout.

Drawing Moments

Just a quick post this week. While waiting for food to cook, I had a moment to draw sunflowers in a tall vase. The flowers in the garden are nearly past their prime, but the finches are eagerly harvesting the seeds and a quail family with seven little babes are enjoying the seeds that fall to the ground.


I wanted to include lots of fun quotes for today, but ran out of time. However, if you've ever heard Steven Wright deliver one of his quirky observations, you might get a chuckle from revisiting these quotes. Some of my favorites: "It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to paint it," "I have an existential map. It has 'You are here' written all over it," and, "Anywhere is walking distance, if you've got the time."

But, my favorite quote is from either Edward Kean or Sir Donald Wolfit, "Dying is easy, comedy is hard." Having a successful work of art is a bit like comedy, isn't it?!

Self Portraits Like Hybrid Flowers

Here's something to ponder. How many different ways would you consider painting a self portrait? What kind of freedom would you allow yourself and what is your statement on 'you'?



You can see that my approach has been all over the place and this has been a good practice over the years, yet...


Self portraits have always been most uncomfortable for me. Unless they are in some way self narrative or abstracted, it is hard for me to do them.

This last week I gave myself permission to do a representational one and, am not too disturbed by the likeness. This painting is 8" x "10", oil on canvas.
The others are: Doglady self portrait (37" x 48" oil on canvas), In Your Face (15 1/2" x 20" monotype), and Churchlady (38" x 48" oil on canvas).

Painting to the Music

Love has no pride--Bonnie Raitt.

Take Me to the River--Al Green.

Oh, My Gosh It's Mighty Mouse!--Black Lodge Singers.

Sittin' On Top of the World--Jack White (Cold Mountain soundtrack).

Every Little Bit--Patty Griffin.

Joue pas de rock & roll pour moi--Johnny Hallyday.

Columbus Mississippi Blues--Bukka White...

...These were just a few of the songs that came up on shuffle while painting today.

What do you listen to while painting? I would love to hear from you hardworking, enthusiastic and devoted artists. Sometimes it's difficult to keep painting when a particularly good song comes on (Blues, especially). I want to rush back into the house, fire up the tube amp, and pretend I can play guitar, wailing away with abandon.

Yet, smearing paint assertively (almost casually, the way a cat saunters across an open yard), feeling the color without reservation (like a prism held in a child's hand) is, is, is, transcendent!

This painting is 8" x 8", oil on an artboard. Titled: Two Clouds Over Patagonia.

Moonshine, Starburst Aura, Chianti

Every year I take a little time to grow hybrid sunflowers. I have a small plot on the north side of our yard that is just right for morning light and the sunflowers seem to explode as soon as there is warm weather.


These hybrids are so easy to grow. They provide dramatic cuttings for a couple of months until the zinnias take over.

It's so hard to grow any flowers in the desert, so this is a huge treat for us. Some frustrated gardener, William Alexander, wrote a book about how expensive it is to grow food anywhere and titled his book, The Sixty-four Dollar Tomato. I haven't read it, but would have to agree that keeping plants alive until they bloom or are ready to harvest and eat can be a very expensive proposition.


This 9" x 12" oil on panel painting is of three of the hybrids. They are called Moonshine, Starburst Aura and Chianti.

Strawberry Banana Acoma

What a glorious time of year it is. Spring time is here and the desert is blooming. We've had the oddest, but most wondrous rain this past week. The hybrid sunflowers are blooming with rich, intense color. Photos coming soon.

This painting is a 9" x 12" oil on canvas of the northern New Mexico region, Acoma, in the Diné (Navajo) Reservation. It reminds me of an ice cream float. I must be channeling my admiration for Wayne Thiebaud and Fritz Scholder again. And, I must be ready for a delicious smoothie on a warm Sunday.

Reading Art & Fear (Bayles, Orland) has been good this weekend. As I traveled around looking at other artists' blogs, I was encouraged that our thoughts and feelings are the same. We struggle, triumph, we grow despondent and try again. "Some people who make art are driven by inspiration, others by provocation, still others by desperation."--from the book. Aren't we all, in discrete moments, all of the above?

Yet, I am ever stunned slack-jawed as I contemplate nature....

Or watch the new color rising from the richest ochre soil
like some fancy dancer making her big leap,

Or make the first swish of paint on the fresh ground of canvas
that amazes this maker, nearly freezing in mid stroke, joyful, wholly grateful to be.

What if our paintings make poems of landscapes, songs of flowers that mirror all that we can see?
"History doesn't repeat itself - at best it sometimes rhymes”--cousin Mark Twain
Let's rhyme in a good way.

Critical Sub-Angstrom Measurements

Sometimes we don't realize what is going on in the right side of our brains because it's just not telling. You all know what I mean. We train our left brains, as much as we can, to change negative and self-criticizing words into more hopeful pronouncements. And, we become more successful as we make routine the practice thereof...Ah. Word for the day--the title of this post.

Now, an angstrom is pretty small, but when it comes to being self-critical, our thoughts can be smaller. And meaner.

It was bonnieluria who tipped me into thinking that this is why I haven't finished some recently started paintings. Frozen. Too excited. Concerned about future work.

This got me to thinking and moving toward the studio and, to finishing the portrait of my son, Ell, who is returning at the end of this month from his second year of college. As I wrote the equations on the canvas (and the photography terms on the right side), I could sense how very creative math and science truly are. Even though I could not understand any equation I copied, it felt right, felt good, felt creative. I wish I weren't so afraid of math. I'm still hoping to be less afraid of failure...or of canvasses that seem to defy me. I've titled this painting, His Mind is Full of Good Things, and it is 22" x 28".

We are not our thoughts--for which we can be grateful! Let's be generous to ourselves today...Say, maybe for the rest of the week? Then we can consider extending this freedom to the following weeks.

"Not Sleepin'---Sonoran"

I've seen bumper stickers lately that have this statement and it made me think how long I've been away from posting. You might think I've been snoozing. Not so. We've had to have some major repairs and upgrades done for the old fort. While I have been in the studio, I've not made any new works. I've been finishing the edges on several paintings while....

Oh. My. Goodness. I received the most beautiful email from the curator of the Tucson Museum of Art.

Let me repeat. Oh. My. Goodness.

After ten years of dreaming and submitting work to the Arizona Biennial, my painting, Sabino Hill on a Snowy Day, was accepted into the upcoming exhibit along with other Arizona artists. As those of you who have followed this blog for awhile will remember, I've worn the t-shirt of rejection, with great pride, on previous years.


So, see, I'm not sleeping, I'm jazzed, floating on air, getting the house ready for the heat of summer and daydreaming about the opening reception for the exhibit. And, I'm ecstatic that my work is going to hang on the very same walls that Fritz Scholder's, Jasper Johns', Maynard Dixon's, Chuck Close's, Ernest Blumenschein's works, and so many of my favorites have hung.

Oh, yes, I'm dreamin'. That's fer sure. If a video of the show is made, I'll link it here as soon as it is uploaded. The exhibit will be from July 11th through September 26, 2009.

Wishing you all a magnificent day in the studio. Words for today: Mirabile dictu: A pedibus usque ad caput...I am euphoric!

Spring, Flowers, Product of Canada!

It's hard to believe that I could be away so long from blogging. I've been visiting and thinking about painting, but have been consumed by errands and a quest for getting a cooler set up for the homestead. But...

Whoo-hoo! It's spring and a trip to Trader Joe's inspired me to buy some beautiful yellow flowers...daffodils, the label said, on the hottest day so far in Tucson this year. In 1989, the temperature here was 104 degrees (40 degrees celsius). Why do I mention this? My boy was only a month old that year and it got over 115 degrees during that summer! You can imagine how challenging having a newborn with that kind of heat can be! I like to tease him that it was his fault. So, today's 97 degrees was pretty balmy. This happens nearly every year--a few really hot days, followed by normal, warm days, ramping up to June's furnace-like temperatures that build up to the monsoon.

Painting the daffodils (Jonquilles du Canada 8" x 8") that came with the lovely tag, "Product of Canada", made things nice and cool. Of course, turning on the air conditioning in the studio was much better than having only a fan on in the house!

I thought of all of you today and must ask, how are you all doing? Are you ready for summer?

"Recurrent Bits of Form"

In Art & Fear (David Bayles & Ted Orland), the authors talk about the ritual of artmaking and how we all discover ways to keep ourselves headed toward the studio and toward the making of more art. If you are isolated in the studio, as most of us are, I'll guess that you've found that super-imposing small but significant tricks or rituals assist you in overcoming the many distractions of daily life. The whole focus is to get into the studio without feeling guilty, creating freely and happily!

Bayles and Orland wrote, "We use predictable work habits to get us into the studio and into our materials; we use recurrent bits of form as the starting points for making specific pieces."

That rings true for me. When I've been blocked in the past, I'll super-impose a dictum that I can work only on Tuesday and Thursday. Of course, on Monday I want to paint and on Tuesday, I do not. However, if I stick to this, eventually Tuesdays and Thursdays are exciting days I look forward to.

What is so intriguing about the authors' reference to recurrent bits of form, is that the familiar methods we use in our approach to the canvas are also solid, structural discipline.

This series of landscape paintings is my way of re-using elements that I've recently discovered. Repeating them, these bits of form, become like Tuesday and Thursday in paint and brushstroke. Once the structure is built, embellishment and variation, I hope, will follow.

This piece is a 9" x 12" of the Sonoita, Arizona area looking east. What kinds of tricks do you play?

Paint Horse Racing and Pranked Car Sitting

Very, very sleeeepy. Very. But, oh, I wanted to post this little (5" x 7") painting of one of the horses I photographed last month at the Rillito Race Track. This is my way of sneaking up on portraits with my new style. We'll see how it goes.



I'll bet you can tell I really enjoyed the mask this horse wore. The horse was pretty frisky too. Fun to watch most definitely. They were all so well loved and cared for.

I started another painting and will probably add it to this post tomorrow. Unfortunately, I didn't photograph it before it got dark.

Today, I finished the following and wanted to include it in the post. This is awfully real. Wonder if I'm a little anxious about the new, freer style. Hmmm.

But, here's a funny. For a serious, reclusive, sometime deep thinker (ha) like me, I do like a friendly prank on April Fool's Day. Always the challenge--to be funny or clever while maintaining safety and the law.

So, here are a couple of photos of a prank some people very close to me pulled at a school well known around the country, if you read Newsweek, and also very close by...but I know nothing! Disclaimer: no autos were harmed in any way during the playful activities.




Happy April Fool's Day. What could you do to make a day fun while maintaining a semblance of decorum?!

El Fuerte And A Plassion for Painting

No time to paint this last week--too much staying up late, visiting with our college boy and submitting three pieces to the TMA's Arizona Biennial '09. While this is something I've done for the past eight years, always rejected alas, it is still a thrill to consider the possibility. A good exercise, yes, to keep going, not caring about rejection, not marking any particular event as an ultimate goal, but always looking forward to the next opportunity?!

So, it was really nice to sit outside this morning and make a small caran d'ache drawing of our little adobe (5 1/2" x 8"). Looks like it's smiling. I think this week it is--having the pack altogether again.

And then, I visited Barbara Paints and, to my surprise and delight, she listed me and others for the Passion for Painting Award!


How cool is that?!! I hope you'll visit her blog and drink in her colors and her passion for life and art. It is such an honor to be named with the fabulous artists she also awarded. Please take a look at their work too.

What are the seven things I'm most passionate about? Ah...

1. Doing some kind of good each day, looking for some opportunity to help someone, encourage someone or to offer a small measure of gentleness to a person or animal in need.

2. It is very important to me to stay informed about politics and how it will shape our collective future. Haven't we all learned that being educated, asking the right questions, taking time to think about the serious issues are not mere hobbies, but effect each of us locally--sometimes in short order?!

3.Family...need I say more?

4. Color

5. Composition

6. Artists: from the past, male or female, and the contemporary ones working today. Mostly, I am passionate about the artists working in the last 50 years because they don't get enough recognition.

7. If I could sum up the heart of my passion, I would have to say living as authentically as possible, being true to that still small voice within that knows what is right...and not wavering to please others, no matter how well-intentioned, to be or do something that just doesn't ring true.

Here are seven artists I think share in this kind of passion for painting:

Jeane

Loriann Signori

Joyce Washor

Katherine Treffinger

Karen Phipps

Susan Hong-Sammons

Joan Breckwoldt

Skipping Step #3

Reading a bit of Art & Fear today brought to mind the new process I've been working with. Just in the first couple of chapters, I've seen how good 'ordinary' feels.

Sounds rough, doesn't it? Really, it's liberating. The locus (bonus word of the day) from which the authors begin their treatise is that "creatures (perfect beings) having only virtues can hardly be imagined making art. Art is made by ordinary people."

This being so, this thinking provides freedom for us to paint in a way that is uniquely our own. Karen asked, in a comment recently, how I feel as I approach these new landscapes.

I feel ordinary, like me. Ah ha! As I was pondering this subject, I realized that I had changed my mind about painting. You know how it is. You decide that something isn't working for you and you drop it. There isn't a great epiphany or anything at that time. You merely do things differently. It's almost as simple as deciding not to touch a hot stove. And when something pleasant happens and you don't get burned, well, you experience a revelation.

There is, of course, the fact that we are all visiting fellow artists online and enjoying certain elements of each of their works. If we collect the most successful of these and apply them to a painting, we cannot help but imbue the work with our own distinctive and personal signature.

There is something else that I'm finding too. I'm now approaching the work without any concern for audience. Again, sounds rough, but you'll understand how subtly we artists are influenced by the push toward pleasing others (approval/sales). What if we let that go too?

So, I choose an image that I find interesting, start a painting of it, see too much detail (get annoyed here--step #3), wipe out detail and finish by stepping back and analyzing what I enjoy about the image graphically, color wise, etc..

Today, I was able to skip step #3.

Molino Basin #2 Study in Process

After an exhausting week, I've only got a quick post of another version of the Molino Basin in my new and improved process. This painting is also 9" x 12". I got stuck in step #3 for awhile, but this may be done now.

I took a chance on revising a landscape from a few weeks back too. I think it's better, but sometimes it's hard to tell without a bit of distance and time. This is also a 9" x 12" painting.