Romulus and Remus Climb the Pyramids with Teddy

The next OPAL show is titled: 'The Dog Days of Summer".  Artwork is supposed to include pets or animals in its subject matter.  My Mom gave me an old photo of Nick and me sitting on our back porch steps.  Nick is holding Teddy, our cat.  I had fun painting the background which feels exotic and adventurous.  Watching my kids play outside has triggered memories of playing in our backyard which was like uncharted territory full of discoveries.  I think about how I would play with leaves piercing the stem through the foliage to create a lunchbox.  Likewise Pen has carved out a fort under our grape vine where she talks incessantly telling stories to herself and plucking leaves.  Abe plants forests with twigs and trimmings.  Both are devoted to the plants and flowers tending to them with the utmost care.  I love that the simplest spaces can feel like new worlds.  To me this is the purpose of summer. 

Final Coat

Products for sealing an  outdoor mural

Milky quality

From a distance

 

Having excessively researched the proper way to seal an outdoor mural painted with acrylic paint on a primed concrete surface, I'm a little disappointed that the surface milked up a bit (see above photo).  I applied a protective barrier made of two parts Golden Soft Gel (Gloss) to one part water.  I started at the top and worked my way down.  The top is fine, but the bottom, I think was warmer and caused the gloss to dry too quickly or in a way that made it dry opaque rather than clear.   After two days, I sprayed on a coat  of Liquitex Soluvar Gloss Varnish, and one day later, I applied a coat of Liquitex Soluvar Matte Varnish.  The varnishes are indetectable by my sight, but I can feel their presence when I touch the wall.  I certainly inhaled a bit of it.  This was the last step in preserving my mural.  I will continue to track the progress.  Hopefully it will continue to look good.  I'll miss that little patch of concrete and the well-wishers that surrounded me there.  

Abstract at OPAL

 Once again down to the wire, I finished an abstract painting for this month's "Out of the Box" theme at OPAL.  I drew inspiration from the veins and pattens of leaves which become little houses all in a row.  This is funny to me because I originally planned on making a quilt using my row houses block print for this show but time was taken up with painting the mural.  Next month is pet themed . . .

Detail of Painting

Mission Mini Mural: Complete!

 I apologize for the excess of pictures.  I'm not feeling very selective today.  Yesterday morning, I finished painting my mini mural!  All in all it took about 30 and half hours to complete.  I still need to apply a protective coating.  Anyone have a recommendation for a sealer? or experience with protecting outdoor murals? 

I realized while painting that this is something I've always wanted to do, and that realization felt really satisfying.  Now that I have one under my belt, I'd like to apply again next year.  It'll be nice to think over subsequent months about what I'd like to see painted on that wall . . .

Complete with Signature

Day One of Mural Making: Goldilock's Chair

Blank white page

 At last, it was time to begin the mural!  I underestimated the size of this project both dimensionally and laboriously.  The rough surface eats up my paint and slows me down.  That said, I'm happy with my first days work, and looking forward to completion over the next weeks depending on sunshine and childcare.  If you happen to be on South Blvd. between Humphrey and Taylor, check it out and the other murals standing by.

PS I enjoyed the variety of passerby with their questions and comments of encouragement; however, my favorite came from a little four-year-old-ish boy who identified the mural as the very chair from the Goldilocks story.  Mission accomplished!

I might prefer this simplicity

in context with other murals and Uniion Pacific West tracks

Scallop Seascape

This month's exhibit at OPAL is landscape themed.  Landscapes are something that I haven't been very motivated to paint, and the few that I have attempted have proven extremely difficult--particularly if painting outside and on site.  The world shifts and moves as wind, light, and shadows manipulate your supposed stagnate model.  It can be completely frustrating.  I suppose also that I prefer to look at things up close rather than at a distance.  I'm more comfortable painting a unit (a person or a chair) rather than an environment. 

So, my schedule being such that I didn't have much time to generate a landscape, I considered abandoning any plans to do so.  But having returned from a beach vacation on the Atlantic ocean, I felt called to try to depict my meditations of patterns and rhythms of the sea:  waves, lines on sea shells, fish scales, and bubbles.  Actually, the sensation of standing in the sand as the waves erode my ground left me dizzy especially with the relentless, roaring waves and whipping wind.  The ocean pulled me out of balance, unsettling me.  It was sort of a weird game that a toddler might play--rushing to my feet and then quickly running away before being caught.  While playing the game, I realized that I find comfort in nature's orders and how they can be found at both the mirco and macro levels.  This kind of discovery feels more than satisfying--it feels joyful. 

In the end I realize that I didn't really paint a landscape, but a seascape!  Oh well, there will be another opportunity to take a look at land.

Kindergarten Sing Collaborative Sculpture Installation

 With the help of Tony the custodian and Lincoln, we installed the project that the Kindergarteners have been working so hard on.  They each decorated a bottle or cardboard tube transforming it into a lantern.  Then, I strung them onto rope lights which Tony and I swagged above the stage.  Tomorrow they will perform songs representing their year of Kindergarten.  I think it is a cool project to teach about collaboration and representative of the individual and the whole.  It was tricky to photo though.  I don't think my pictures do it justice.

Pop Design Art and Interiors Set-Up Complete!

 Well, I worried and measured and lost sleep and drew plans and pillaged my house for furniture and containers and finally the Pop up studio display is installed!  I owe major thanks to my Mom for supplying a van for transporting awkwardly sized shelves and for having clutch parking abilities.  Thanks to Bryan (cool glass artist and organizer of event) for carrying said awkward shelves into the storefront, and thanks, as always, to Mary and Pete for watching Penelope while this Herculean Endeavor was accomplished.   Yes, I'm not overstating how I can fester small hiccups into large stress belches.(?)  I am really good a fretting even though I know it will work out as it always does.  Somehow logistics, especially regarding making connections, become really overwhelming to me.  It's not flying that bothers me, it's getting luggage checked, passing through security (I always think they'll catch me), finding the gate, avoiding being in the bathroom when they are boarding etc.  So for now, I can buckle my seat belt and browse the Sky Mall catalogue and hope that everything sells.  Now if I can just stop worrying about dismantling the show and claiming my baggage.  What's that about not sweating the small stuff?

Bits and Pieces

 I'm working on some tag designs in preparation for the Popup Studio which opens next weekend!
I like the dark houses above.  Then the first "beads" strung onto rope lights (the collaborative project for the kindergarten sing.)  I can't wait to see them all.  And finally, the three most recent rugs.  More to come . . .

The Push and Pull or ( The Warp and Weft of the Creative Process)

fresh rug ends to tie

 So, I've been missing blogging.  I think my posts seem fewer and farther apart yet I'm feeling busier than ever.  I'm finding myself going in lots of directions but not making much head way in any one of those.  In attempt to save you from enduring a laundry list of projects and a much longer one of worries, concerns, and anxieties surrounding those projects, I'll cut to the chase.  Above is a stack of rugs that I finally finished weaving today and are waiting their ends tied up.  They'll be a colorful addition to the Pop-Up Studio happening at the end of the month.

I received rejection earlier this month to a show at South Bend Museum of Art.  Again there were about 8 artists out of 200 something that were accepted.  Still, it doesn't feel so great.  I want to keep working at my craft and continue to look for more projects and exhibition opportunities particularly those that are free and close to home. 

I have been accepted to paint a mini mural on the wall that supports the train tracks that bisect Oak Park.  I submitted my painting "The Red Chair with Cushion"!  It will be fun to paint a really big chair.  I'll be taking lots of pictures to document the process, and it looks like I'll be getting started soon (this weekend hopefully) because they would like it completed by June 1st.  Also coming up: completion of the Kindergarten Sing Collaborative Art Project and Pop-up Studio set-up and opening reception.

I've been devouring lots of radio discourse surrounding the creative process.  One of the questions asked is whether creating art is a selfish act.  I know that I constantly struggle to balance my work and everything else.  Sometimes I am very good at focusing on creating and very good at shutting the world out of my studio.  Other times, I'm feeling pulled out of my tunnel and into the wide open.  This is one of those times.  I don't know if it is the beautiful weather or the business of ending a school year or Pen's insatiable desire to be pushed in a swing higher and higher, but at a time when I should be finding my nose very close to the grindstone, I am catching myself smelling the lilacs instead.  In addition I have a mile long list of movies to see, books to read, and museums to peruse.  There is so much to digest, mull over, to question, and a garden to plant!

And now a complete non-sequitur:  You know that those mysterious cicadas who emerge only every 17 years with fluttering wings to sing and mate only to go subterranean again?  Some of them fail to count the years correctly and emerge too soon or too late and sing their lonely songs absent of their roaring friends.  I may need medication to recover from this utter sadness. 

Oak Park Arts Commission Mini Mural Project (I stole this photo from the web and am ignorant of artist)

Block Printed House Pillows

This could have been a quilt.  I will make a quilt from this fabric some day.

I tried a different approach to this batch of  house pillows.  I wanted to use my printed fabric and infuse color with pieced scraps.  I made some sketches and ended up figuring out a design simply by beginning the process.  I often find this is the case.  I can't arrive at a satisfactory solution until I just start.  Then, circumstances will reveal a certain path to take.  Usually this plan will be better than anything I could have thought of through pure meditation.  My sewing projects are often like this and I wish I could incorporate that kind of spontaneity and receptivity in my paintings.