Thank you for coming to the gallery on Thursday. We had a nice showing. I am glad this event is over, six weeks to prepare is stressful. After a show is complete there is a time lapse of not knowing what to do, like when flying, the plane lifts off of the ground and becomes suspended, everything seems to stop. This sensation only lasts a few moments but it is distinct and weightless.

My practice is to clean the studio making it more acceptable of the materials I plan to fling in its direction next. This is what I do in the suspended time.

On to the larger plan of the solo exhibition in December, 2011. One of my reoccurring themes is Identity. What objects do we identify with? How do we identify ourselves? We are not what we do or what we have, what identifies us? 

I had an idea: I would explore these questions through collaborating with a variety of people some known to me and some not. I would ask the participants to choose objects that described aspects of their identity. This idea was formally hatched when I decided to paint Patrick with his trumpet. (Living in a house where live music is played is pretty nice.) His complete dedication to mastering this instrument gave me the opportunity to see the symbolism of an object in a new way. The painting is simple and direct. I made a list of potential participants, Kevin was first on my list. 

Later...

I was driving on the freeway thinking about who I would ask to participate in this project, having photographed Kevin a few weeks earlier. I started feeling penned in, claustrophobic.   I thought why do I always set myself up with a plan then half way through it I am no longer interested? What if I didn't want to paint the people I asked? How would I feel in July, trapped in an idea of yesterday? 

Wait - A - Minute, waaaaiiiittt... This is my gig!

I am not required to make anything certain.

How freeing.

I want to fully exercise my many talents as an interdisciplinary artist. To freely allow creativity to take over and to begin with uncertainty and identity and see where the work takes me. 

Deadlines! We had to hang the work Monday night. I had three wet pieces and they did not feel done. I read in an article that Pierre Bonnard would sneak a small palette into his exhibition, working on the paintings when the guard wasn't present. I put up eight paintings. I was not happy with the results. Tuesday morning I brought four more paintings to the gallery, older but necessary. It didn't seem as if I was telling the whole story and in my mind these paintings completed an idea even though they cover a four year span. 

The show consist of five women. We will have wine and snacks. Come out and support your local artists.

Thanks for visiting.

I can't count. 

Five days until we hang the show. Today I changed the composition on three paintings, discarding one painting all together that I had struggled with for a month, it didn't fit the concept. It will find it's place in some other time. Started a new painting, did I say five days?...and scraped the face off of one more. 

These paintings had become contrived in my opinion and needed some serious messing up. Now I can work with the ideas that they present. 

I call this a segment show because it's a group exhibit but not collaborative. So what is this segment about? I am mostly working from the concepts of subconscious identity. We each create worlds that include meaningful objects and places that assists us in describing ourselves. In examining the remnants of family photos, letters and stories I create a psychological narration.

Is that what I'm doing?  

 This is nerve wracking! I wish I wasn't such a procrastinator but, of course, this is going to come up now... the wishing for better choices. I know the principles of choice but does that matter when it comes to procrastination? I think it's learned behavior.

I remember when I was about twelve and we lived in San Jose, California. My mother received a frantic call from my aunt, who lived in San Francisco with her two sisters and a son shared by all. She said that there had been a tsunami warning and would my mother come get them. We had a big 1960's Chrysler with four doors and a V8 engine. Mom threw me and my sister in the back seat and we flew to the city. The tsunami was supposed to be there at 4pm...now I'm not sure where they got their information from but they were certain it was coming. 

My three aunts were quite large and since my cousin was the light of their eyes it was insisted that he get to sit in the front seat. My sister next to mom in the middle and me squished in the back seat with the rest of them and their big purses. We drove as fast as we could to escape the tsunami, my aunts said the rosary and my cousin acted as if he'd rather drown. 

They waited until they had the exact hour of the pending doom before they made the call. 

 Yikes! Ten days until we hang and five unfinished paintings to go. This is how it goes. I do the same thing when I invite people over for dinner. Let's make something we've never made before, not the old tried and true buttermilk cake but THE CAKE BIBLE'S award winning cheese cake. It was actually easy but you never know. So for the March show I decided to use new-to-me materials. 

I am painting on wood and canvas, both require different materials. I used a hard gesso on wood which desires an oily medium but first I had to try my new mediums, Maroger's and Roberson's both old master's concoctions. Very toxic and not good on hard gesso and wood. Both are excellent on canvas but very expensive so I'm not sure how much I will invest in our future together.

Today I scraped off as much paint as I applied. Brushes frayed and misbehaving. I feel out of sorts. The sky is hanging low as a blinding white cloak making my eyes choke on their tears.

Hi and welcome to my blog page. I hate trying to figure out new programs and after trying several blog sites I decided to use something that I am familiar with, my website. I am starting a blog to contextualize myself. That sounds funny but since I've graduated with a master's in interdisciplinary art I have been lost. It will be a year next month and I really thought I would be teaching by now. I am so naive. 

Feeling like I was crossing a desert thirsting for stimulus, deadlines and creative discourse all being cut short after graduation. I went from being a student to being an artist but I was an artist in name only, of course, I had the credentials. There should be a transition program to ease one back into society. 

I realized that I needed to create an environment that quenched my thirst. What was the business of being an artist? What else would I need besides carrying my degree around to be called an artist. I broke it down to the simplest devices because I'm an artist not a business woman. I needed a business card, a website and a gallery. I needed to be an artist. It's not like getting a nursing degree where you are most likely wanted somewhere. I have to jump up and down, screaming look at me. 

I joined a gallery in November and have a new member's show next month, March 2011, and a solo show this December 2011.  I thought that it would be interesting for other artists and non-artists to  join me in my studio. To see first hand the process of preparing for these events. I will be posting work in progress, conversations, insights and misgivings. I hope to be entertaining, amusing and insightful and, of course, a good hostess.

Thanks for visiting.

Start blogging by creating a new post. You can edit or delete me by clicking under the comments. You can also customize your sidebar by dragging in elements from the top bar.