New Altar: From Every Dream - And it's SOLD!

Finished another.  I really love making these and I've only two more pre-constructed - er- constructions.  Can't wait to work up some new ones in different sizes and configurations.  I made twenty of these 28 x 23 x 2 - and all but those last two have been sold.

I continue to love grape tendrils as additions.  They are each so unique, spiraling and reaching out.  They can be bouquets, branches, decorations, twigs, and even tiny trees.  They are tough and paintable, and can be woven into quite strong and resilient forms.  I've even made jewelry from them... (now there's a post I should do).

Acrylic painting and mixed media including pine, cedar branches, grape tendrils, feathers, wire, found objects.

And being a person who loves poetry and recombinant verbiage (my term), I have made the piece fun to read out loud.  Listen, glean, glisten, gleam... Ideas come from every dream.

The painting in detail.  Acrylic on wood panel.

Still painting!

A couple of photographs of Where Horses Go, acrylic on mahogany headboard.  48 x 24.  I posted both of these as the color is more accurate in the first one, but the focus is better in the second.  I'm having a lot of focusing trouble with my little Panasonic digital.  Painting is currently being shown at the Sautee-Nacoochee Galleries.

The writing at top is this quote:  
"Somewhere... somewhere in times' own space, there must be some sweet pasture space,
where creeks sing on and tall trees grow -some paradise where horses go.      - Stanley Harrison

Where Horses Go

I don't have time to be sick!

I'm finally feeling almost myself. Geez, that was a terrible virus. I think it was actually two different bugs fighting over who would have my head!
Here's what I've been doing when I could get up a bit of energy and enthusiasm...
My continuing fascination is not just those birds but tornadoes/cyclones/thunderstorms, the amazing clouds formations therein, and the fury and drama they create upon this planet. In a continuation of my Black Bird/Wind themes, I spent one wretched evening working on the drawing below when I was too ill to paint. Last night and tonight I worked on the painting (above) and I think it's finished though I'll have to look upon it with fresh eyes in the daylight tomorrow before I can be sure.




















A couple of weeks ago, I posted a detail of a painting in progress, promising to post the entire painting. Here it is - still in progress, but much further along. The sky and background are nearly finished as is the water. I'm going for a swampy Everglades sort of waterway; the kind that are navigated by those fan or wind-propelled boats. I've still much refining to do on the three white birds, the crowned crane and the foreground foliage. My camera has exaggerated the colors, the actual background being more subdued.




















I've not been the sort who plans out paintings; often not doing any studies beforehand; preferring to draw images or shapes directly onto the surface with paint. But for this painting, I actually did a small mock-up as the composition is deceptively simple and yet not at all classical. I knew I was going to paint it rather large
(it's 30x 35) and I wanted to be certain to get the proportions right - right being what was half-formed in my head before I started.
I'm working to capture a mood and to tell a little tale. Don't we all of us look askance upon an interloper - a stranger garbed in finery greater than our own?

I hope to finish this one tomorrow during my "make up day" volunteering at the gallery. Being sick for two weeks really put me behind.


And just for fun, look what sprang out at me from the thrift store: A bobble crow! Nothing sinister about this fellow. He's made of painted stuffed cloth, an old bedspring, and a block of wood painted with the pithy saying: A wise crow reaps what you sow... and images of corn and watermelon. I didn't know crows had a fondness for watermelon?

I had to have him. Pensive fellow, isn't he?

Full circle...

I thought it might be interesting to post some of my older work to see how it compares, stands up to, resembles or differs from what I'm doing right now. Easier said than done, as I had to poke about my house for pieces I could photograph with my digital camera. I have old slides and photos - but I've not conquered scanning them into my computer.

The large ( 36"x48") painting: "Beadie's Back" was painted in 1987. The year before I had suffered a fractured skull and severe concussion in a riding accident which meant months of slow recovery. When I returned to my job (grants writer and program director for a NY arts council), I realized I was fast approaching terminal burn-out. I had made only three paintings in ten years! I couldn't stop thinking about how my life had nearly ended, and I'd never really been the artist inside me.

The summer of '87 I was able to spend two weeks at Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina having an art and life choices R&R. The class I wanted to take was full, so I ended up in a non-traditional basketry group, but I quickly learned that it didn't matter what the class was, however, because the entire atmosphere at Penland was charged with creativity. I never spent two more enjoyable weeks in my life. Everything about the experience was wonderful from the people I met to the fun of staying in a dorm to the food, to the breathtaking mountain setting. (There's a link to Penland at right under "cool sites." If you have the opportunity to go there, don't miss it. It's a magical place that I highly recommend.)

Back in New York, I began to paint and draw like mad. Changes were coming.

The bird drawing is the beginning of my black bird obsession. It's colored pencil and crayon and measures about 12x12". If I'm asked why I began doing them, I can't really say, but the urge to do them has stayed with me all this time.


I began to experiment with capturing allegorical happenings from my life, especially those I found disturbing. I had a Dwarf Netherland bunny named Ernie who was the most gentle of pets. Then one day when I went to pick him up, he bit right through the flesh between my thumb and forefinger and wouldn't let go. I literally had to shake him off. Poor Ernie, as it turned out, had developed a brain tumor. I couldn't get that image of him clamped onto my hand out of my head - so I drew it, painted it, and purged it from my psyche. Shown here is one of the drawings in colored pencil and crayon.

Looking at these twenty-year old pieces made me realize that personal style comes through no matter the subject, no matter the influence, no matter the size or medium. How 'bout that?