July 18, 2008

Big Gulp aka Soft Machine
2008
acrylic on organic cotton and hemp
38" x 38"

The Big Gulp

was created after a conversation with my daughter about her first term College English class. She was studying Science Fiction and was attempted to read William Burroughs' Soft Machine. I have read many of the beat authors and their books but I had as of yet not read this one. When I asked her to explain the book to me she said it's a book about nonsense-nothing in it makes sense.

Even though I feel there may be more to it than that, after this conversation I thought I would make a painting that had no real pre-conceived direction. The goat on the top right is an "homage to Picasso" and also a greeting to a friend of mine who told me a story of his youth. He had a goat who broke his leg and he begged his parents to fix the broken limb and not put the goat down.

On the bottom left is a "beetle" which was also a "howdoyoudo" to another friend who made me a stained glass piece with four beetles to honor my love of John, George, Paul and Ringo. The female body on the top right I painted after discovering the multitude of variations of a woman's hoo haw via movies.

On the bottom right is a "woman" being eaten by piranhas, which to me represented life eating away at one.

The two dogs are Bella and Sophie. Bella is the upside down dog (she lives next door to me and is my dog's best friend). The blue and white dog is my dog Sophie a Border Collie mix.

With some of the leaves on the bottom I tried to capture the muti-coloredness of leaves.

The chicken is from my daughter youth. Her name is Belinda and she was my daughter's best friend for a short time when my daughter was young.

July 16, 2008

Blah,Blah, Blah
2007
acrylic on hemp and organic cotton
38" x 38 "

I painted Blah, Blah, Blah when I first became a vegan and was excited to share all the information I was learning about the way foods are being processed and animals mistreated. The woman a the top is visually based on my daughter which represents those who don't listen but look away. In her case it is assumed that she is reacting by an outside source looking at her. The person to her right (our left) is visually based on my neighbor (a friend). This figure represent those who can absorb information but notable to process it correctly and implode. In this figure's case we just see the beginning with a crack throughout his head and his facial expression of pain.

The books in the protagonist's (me) arms are Vegan Freak by Bob and Jenna Torres and Animal Rights, which is a made up book based on Podcasts by Gary Francione, Eric Markus and Collen Patrick-Goudreau

I had seen a barred owl in the woods during the time I way creating Blah, Blah, Blah, felt it was a special few minutes and wanted to mark the occasion in this painting.

The symbol that the owl is siting on is "Om" which seems to have many meanings, I've seen it used in several different cultures. In sanskrit I believe it represents original (first) sound but most recently here in the U.S. is known to represent yoga.

The mountain, ferns and trees are all inspired by the area I live in. The animal at my feet is my departed dog Jackson (he was blind when I painted this as you can tell from the color of his eyes)

July 15, 2008

7 Rays
2006
acrylic on canvas
38" x 30"

7 Rays
1. Freedom
2. Unity
3. Understanding
4. Harmony
5. Truth
6. Goodness
7. Beauty

The Seven Rays is a song written and performed by Todd Rundgren. For actual (not abridged lyrics click here)

The painting "7 Rays" is a simple a vignette of me and my daughter in bed at night-she sleeping and me trying to figure out the lyrics to 7 Rays. The cat to the left is my cat Malicia and the dog on the blanket is my dog Jackson who has passed on. Not sure the intention of the American flag on the right. To me the layers and layers of paint indicate that there was the beginning of an alternative painting underneath this one.

July 14, 2008

Photo by Sharon Lee
Old Main Frame Shop

Last week I found out that three pieces of mine (Big Gulp, 7 Rays and Blah, Blah, Blah) were accepted into the Artists in Our Midsts show at the Southern Alleghenies Art Museum in Altoona, PA. This is nice regional show to do as the museum, though small, is a good space that is climate controlled and has good lighting. Of the three pieces, two needed to be framed so today amidst the reconstruction of downtown State College after an event that brought 125, 000 into a town that houses only 40,000 I headed to "my" frame show.

Old Main Frame Shop is in downtown State College. The retail part of the business is a rather tiny affair-generally only one or two people are working "out-front". The walls are lined with fat strips of velcro to which corners of frames are attached. The frames are about 1 foot in length from the corner to each side.

Today we had three people (a clerk, the gallery manager and myself) working on choosing the correct frame for my paintings. It is a delicate balance of texture and color-some frames work only if they're smooth and some need texture to duplicate the indication of texture in a painting. Depending on the depth of the stretchers, only certain frames visually work. One of the paintings took us over an hour to figure out because we were looking at black frames and the color that worked was gold with red hues and black scratches.

I like going to get my work framed. It visually brings the painting into the fore front. It can add or take away emphasis. It make the painting feel complete.

July 13, 2008

Photos by Sharon Lee
Beaver Chewed Tree
Pink Poppy
Pink and White Flowers
Two Brown Mushrooms

I've been thinking lately of additional ways to earn income and still keep the free-lance flexibility that I would like to hold onto so I can create art when my creativity is highest not necessarily when the clock has been punched out. For the past six months or so I've been taking nature photographs in the woods as well as in my garden. Each day I attempt to get one or two successful photos taken. This does not mean I only take 1 or 2 photos but perhaps 20 or more. Right now I have about 30 fairly successful photos and I hope to take 20 more before I start scaling down the photos to the absolute best and start the printing, matting, framing process in hopes of selling these photos in several art fairs.

I am often intimidated by the quality of my photographs. A few weeks ago I was watching a documentary on Cindy Sherman and fell in love with the way that she set up photos to tell a story. Some people are brilliant at capturing interesting light, some photographers travel to exotic places and take interesting photos of other cultures and some are remarkable technicians. I feel honestly I have not mastered any of these skills. Then one day I realized that color is my thing as well as nature and I could find my photographic voices through these two things.

July 12, 2008

"I Met Andy Warhola"
1998
acrylic on linen
30" x 36"
Occasionally I get an idea for a painting from a non-important observation of human nature or something I find silly. Several years ago I had a conversation with an acquaintance, trading stories of career and family. I was very excited about having one of my paintings hung at the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and shared this information with her. She then told me a happenstance she had with Andy Warhol in New York on an icy night many years ago. Both Andy and my acquaintance were walking with their heads down somewhere on Fifth avenue. They smashed into each other and both landed on their asses. "You're Andy Warhol!" my acquaintance exclaimed. "And you're a bitch" Mr. Warhol retorted.

July 11, 2008

My stretchers arrived and today's the day I begin a new painting except......not enough canvas! The two pieces of hemp/organic cotton canvas I have are too narrow so I order on-line a couple of yards from Near Sea Naturals thus delaying things a few days. Actually this gave me time to think about the painting to be. Would I pick subject A or subject B? Subject A was to be a scene from the Darfur Genocide. The image that comes to my mind when I think of the issues Darfur is facing id a dusty road strew with dead men, women and children and a jeep filled with armed militia driving past the bodies.

I decided to wait on painting this subject until I do a bit of research and form my own vision.

When I was in Washington DC several years ago, my daughter and I visited the Holocaust Museum. There are many memorable visuals in the Museum but the one that struck a cord with me was the pile of shoes. I don't know what it was about this pile of shoes that affected me so deeply. Maybe it's because I can relate to shoes. A majority of the people in the concentration camps did not share ethnic background, religion, generation or nationality yet we all wore/wear shoes. Tonight when I was making my nightly trek through the woods to the berry patch I looked down at my bruised and battered black shoes I thought how similar they looked to the shoes I saw in the pile.