so how's it going?

It’s been a long time since I made a blog entry, and I guess that’s because I have just been floating in the making of what I want when I want (see previous blog). But I have continued to make and even exhibit, be it occasionally and when I am in the mood. I showed my small casein paintings with Helga Winter last spring at our local dentist office. Fun space and of course lots of viewers coming and going from it. I sold a number of pieces from that show. Below is one of them.

I also was in a group show in December at the Vashon Art Center on Vashon Island, Washington with more of my small casein paintings. They all sold (yay!). Here is one of those.

So I continue to work as I want when I want. I do a lot of sketchbooking which is for my eyes only. Also I have been making some small black and white collages and I’m back to encaustic painting. The collages are immediate gratification and the painting is slow (add paint, remove paint, add more, remove more…). I also made a number of functional glass pieces that I sell through Artful Home. I am selling all my glass equipment so I can focus on working on paper and painting, and having all the glass stuff out of my studio will open up a lot more space. So I continue to create in my own way on my own terms. It continues to be good.

playing the field

As I settle into a new way of approaching my work I ran across this quote:

…your task is just to put your hands in the clay and keep them there watchfully, trusting not only that something beautiful will come, but also that, however far you get, the distance will have been enough.

 To live in alignment with the heart, not to justify it with works and results — that is the best that can be expected of a human being. So make that thought a temple into which you let no worry, worldly or spiritual, ever enter. -Paul Weinfield

My days have become easier, more open and fluid, since I let go of striving and hoping and inevitably feeling not good enough or like I am not where I should be. As the above quote says, I have stopped looking for results. The journey is enough.

And the journey for me right now is going to the studio (or not, as I feel) and working on whatever I am drawn to. One day it might be my large scale works on paper such as the one below.

Small Surprises, mixed media, 44” x 30”

Another day it might be an exploration of landscape in encaustic such as the one below.

River Full of Stars, encaustic, 24’ x 18”

Still other days it could be playing around with collage using cut up bits of old monoprints.

untitled collage, 15” x 11”

So somehow I am learning to live in alignment with my heart, which some days even means not entering the studio at all but making bread or spending the day walking and talking with a friend. I am putting no pressure on myself to produce or even be consistent or original. I am learning to just be and it feels mighty good!

back in the saddle again

I just recently emerged from a 6 month artistic dry spell. Actually it was more like a 6 month trip through the driest, quietest desert I can imagine. I had nothing…no interest in being in my studio (in fact studio avoidance was more like it) and yet for a while I forced myself to go, even if just to do something small, just 10 minutes, I would tell myself, just show up. When that didn’t work I tried taking my studio out into the world, and brought a sketch book to the house, started looking at art books, reading about artists and looking at videos of artists at work. But this just made me feel worse. I avoided my studio and felt guilty for not even being able to do some simple sketching outside or in my house. Crisis!

If I wasn’t going to the studio or even carrying around a sketch book it meant that I wasn’t making any art. And if I wasn’t making any art it made me wonder if I was still an artist. And if I wasn’t an artist then WHAT WAS I? I have identified with being an artist for my entire adult life. The idea of losing who I felt I was sent me into the black hole of a true identity crisis. So what did I do?

One thing I did was I visited other artists and we had conversations about this dry spell, as well as looking at what they were working on. I found that most of them had experienced this at some point, and one of them was even going through it at the same time as I was! It helped me to connect with artists and be assured that indeed I was still one of them. This confirmed to me how important community is.

The other thing I did was clean out my painting studio. I went through every box and emptied every shelf and ended up throwing away or passing on a whole lot of things that were ancient history or no longer relevant to me. It felt so good! I thought that if I cleared out my painting studio I could create space for new energies and ideas.

And lastly I allowed myself this fallow period. Rather than worrying or beating myself up I turned instead to other activities I enjoy. I walked a lot, kayaked, worked in my garden, cooked and baked, visited with friends, hung out with the animals (both domestic and wild) and in general enjoyed the summer. Autumn had me busy with a huge real estate project so I didn't even think about making art during a month of cleaning out and cleaning up a piece of property.

During all this I did visit my studio from time to time, just checking in to say hello, I haven’t forgotten you, I’ll be back. I really wanted to believe that.

And then this happened:

In what felt like an out of the blue experience I started working again on my large scale mixed media pieces. But in actuality this happened after a particularly important visit with an artist I know when I realized two things: First: I can do whatever I want (duh!) and second: I love to make marks, also known as drawing. This was the simple magic that broke the spell.

As an exhibiting artist I was in the habit of creating bodies of work that held together visually or conceptually (or both). I am no longer with a gallery so am free to do what I want. I think possibly it was too freeing, and I froze with the idea that I could do whatever I wanted. But what did I want to do?

So at that particular point in time I just wanted to make marks. So I grabbed my oil pastels and started drawing over a mixed media piece I started months before. And I did it for ME. I wasn’t trying to please anyone but me. No gallery, no clients, no worry about if I was making a body of work that will hold together. I just worked solely for myself. I even let go of the idea that I might exhibit these someday. Just making them for ME.

So that is the tale of my six months in the desert. I am happy to be back at work, enjoying my studio again and even getting excited to visit it and draw more on these large scale works on paper (they are each 44” x 30”). I have also started working in encaustic again but that is another story for a later blog. In the meantime here is one more piece I have done in the last month. Cheers!

let them eat cake...and cake...and cake...

Last January I took a cake decorating class. After months of watching “The Great British Baking Show” I became obsessed with those beautiful cakes and pastries they create on that show and felt I must learn at least the basics of making my own beautiful creations. So an equally obsessed friend and I took a class together.

The teacher showed us about crumb coating and proper cake icing techniques as well as use of the piping bag and the various tips. We decorated our own cakes under her watchful eye. This is what my first cake looked like:

Well, it WAS pretty when I was done but the ride home was not kind to it. Anyway, she was a good teacher as evidenced by my first attempt. She admonished us that we need to practice to be able to master what we learned. So I vowed to make one cake a month for the entire year so as to get closer to my goal of the beautiful finish.

I bought two 6” cake pans so that my husband and I wouldn’t be eating TOO much cake (my weakness) and in February the adventure began.

Ms. February: vanilla cake with raspberry filling and vanilla buttercream icing

February was really a learning experience for me. First I got the texture of the icing all wrong! Too soft, too grainy, too blah! But there is always March…

Ms. March: carrot cake with cream cheese icing

March’s cake was made for a friend whose birthday was that month. Carrot cake was his order. This one is pretty, white on white, but my rose is a little off center and the edge piping uneven. Cake tasted okay.

Which leads me to April, my birthday month. I ordered coconut cake and here it is:

Ms. April: coconut cake with cream cheese icing and coconut flakes on the sides.

May was another friends birthday so I asked her what she would like for her birthday cake. She gave me a recipe to make, her favorite lemon pound cake. Unfortunately for me it had to be make in a bundt pan, leaving little room for my decorating desires. I did the best I could with the restraints of a bundt pan.

Ms. May: lemon pound cake with waterfalls of lemon buttercream icing, served with homemade lemon curd

June was yet another birthday! This time I made what I wanted using the fresh fruit of the season.

Ms. June: Genoise cake with raspberry filling and Italian buttercream icing

So my husband, who has been watching (and eating) my cake explorations decided he wanted in on the fun so asked to make the icing. The Swiss buttercream was his contribution…not as sweet as American buttercream and it piped oh-so nicely as you can see.

Ms. July: cardamom cake with almond Swiss buttercream

I got a craving for cardamom in July and found this really yummy recipe. It is make with almond flour making it gluten free (which I wasn’t trying to do but nice to know there is an option when I want to make a GF cake).

Ms. August: almond victoria sponge with peach filling and almond German buttercream icing

And then it was August, my husband’s birthday month. We had picked up a whole bunch of peaches earlier in the month so I made a cake to celebrate that (and to celebrate him as well). This was my best cake yet! Great texture and flavor in the sponge, and the icing to cake ratio was spot on. My piping is still a little rough but I’m getting better.

Which brings me to humbleness. I have always been pretty adept at anything that requires good digital dexterity. I seem to pick up art materials and techniques pretty fast. Therefore I thought this cake decorating thing would be a piece of cake (pardon the pun!) and while it has been a lot of pieces of cake it has also been humbling. I have a whole new appreciation for the amazing cakes that come from the bakeries and kitchens of experienced or professional bakers. I can say from personal experience over the last 8 months that it isn’t easy to make a great looking, much less a great tasting cake. There is a real art to it. Just as artists who work at their art for years can make it look effortless I know that experienced artists are good because they put in the time and dedication.

So with 4 more months in this my Year of the Cake I vow to continue to hone my skill as a cake maker and decorator. If you find yourself coming in my direction just let me know…you might find a cake waiting for you when you get here!

awe

I just returned from a trip to northern Sweden to see the Aurora Borealis. I was not disappointed. We were at a National Park called Abisko, 120 miles north of the Arctic Circle. The landscape was stark and severe but beautiful. The temperatures ranged from a high of 21 degrees to a low of -16 degrees. Below is a photo of what it looked like.

A landscape like this makes you feel small and insignificant. Couple that with the remarkable display of “lights” we saw and you end up realizing you are small and insignificant. I believe this is what is called being in a state of awe. Being in awe places you firmly in a speechless world where words just don’t work, where you realize they are really not what is needed but only to be present and let the moments wash over you. It inspires, it astounds, it gives comfort and perspective. And in this location it was supremely peaceful.

And the most surprising aspect of the experience is that it made me feel closer to humanity, not isolated and separated even though I was miles from most of mankind. I thought about everyone who was seeing these lights at the same time I was, about those who came before (both the ancient ones and the prior visitors to this area) who were astounded and mystified and left in a state of wonder at the dancing lights above them. In a way that is hard to explain I felt connected to them all, my fellow seekers and those touched by the marvel that is the Northern Lights.

And while this might not make sense (and it certainly doesn’t to me) I felt a desire to cultivate compassion and caring for those around me. Perhaps it was the spiritual aspect of seeing such a rare and unique thing, something imbued with the power to draw me from my comfy home in a temperate climate to the arctic where the cold was by far the most extreme I have ever experienced, but I have returned from my trip changed (and with all my fingers and toes). And of course inspired!

brave space

I just completed a five session online class called “Brave Space” on working large in waterbased mixed media. Each Thursday meeting the two instructors (Jeff Hirst and Paula Roland with Catalyst Art Lab) gave ideas for how to start and proceed working on these large pieces. I learned a lot about acrylic paints, which I really knew very little about, from both their expertise and my experimentations. I was also given a way into working with this medium as well at the chance to work big, something I’ve been curious to try.

We were asked to take process photos along the way so I can share some of the stages of some of the pieces with you here. They are all 44” x 30” (about as brave as I was able to be).

Here is an early stage of my very first piece. The assignment was to keep adding layers (both additive and subtractive) without editing for 10 layers and then do at least another 10 towards completion. This layer has collage, india ink and graphite.

This is probably about 20 layers in, maybe more. I have added charcoal, gesso, oil pastel, collage and india ink. At this point I was totally lost. I think this is hideous but there it was. Because I had nothing to lose I thought I would just break it open by doing something radical. This next one is after I made some bold moves.

Now I was getting somewhere. I kept at it for many weeks after this and this is what it looks like today. It has well over 40 layers, I’m pretty sure.

Here is another one with the early, middle and last versions.

Notice how both of these started out horizontal and ended up vertical. Here is my latest finished piece. The assignment was to reference the work you were doing before the class started so I went back to my casein paintings that were very shape-based.

No stages here just the final version. This one started out vertical and ended up horizontal! Sometimes the painting tells you what it wants to be.

As you see as I got more confident and more directed I started using acrylic paints more. This last one had collage, india ink and acrylic paint as well as gesso.

I am still working on more of these 44” x 30” pieces and a friend gave me some paper that is 5’ x 5’+ so maybe I will stretch myself and try getting even larger, even braver.

seasons

As we enter the fall season I am reminded that art making too has its seasons. Sometimes we are tilling the soil or planting seeds. This is a time of preparation, when we are percolating ideas, having new experiences (like I am this week on a drawing retreat in the Columbia River Gorge), or trying something out (as I have been in the past months with casein painting…see the previous two blog posts). Then there is the period of growth and progress, when we are having positive outcomes in our art making and seeing results that please us. Of course there are the seeds that don’t sprout and the plants that don’t flourish and so some of our art just doesn’t fall together. But we continue to weed our garden and water our plants, and when the first fruits appear we see all that hard work pay off.

Me drawing in the Columbia River Gorge by Horsethief Butte in Washington.

So as I move forward in my art making I am more and more aware that there will be days of frustration and days of elation, days of rest and days of great progress, days of percolation and days of production. I am learning to be happy with it all. And in the meantime I think I will eat a peach.

feeling vulnerable but carrying on

As I continue my exploration of casein paint I find myself feeling somewhat uncertain and a little vulnerable. I paint almost every day, trying this and that, finding an exciting thread and following it for a while only to find something else that grabs my attention and following that for a while. I am searching, but I don’t know what I am looking for. It is a strange state of mind. It is similar to when I am starting a painting in encaustic and just laying down colors in a random and intuitive manner. I don’t know what this encaustic painting will look like but I paint away and eventually the idea coalesces. But now, with the casein painting, I keep painting but no idea is coalescing. But it is absorbing and maybe for now that is enough.

Here are a few images of my current thread of inquiry. All are casein and collage on waterleaf paper, 15” x 11”.

beginner's mind

I have quit my gallery in Portland and have no shows to work towards or gallery duties to perform so I have decided to explore a medium that has always intrigued me: casein paint. I read a little about its characteristics and how it has been used traditionally. It is a quick drying, waterbased paint that dries matte and flat with muted colors. Once dry it is fairly permanent so can be painted over without fear of lifting the bottom layers like most waterbased paints. It can be opaque or transparent, although even when painted opaquely still can show the under painting somewhat. It was traditionally used for illustration and fell out of favor when acrylic paint became commonly used.

This winter I did a 30 day program developed by Cheryl Taves in her business Insight Creative. The program is called the 30 Day Sketchbook Challenge. Here’s a link if you want to check it out: LINK. It was the perfect way for me to dive deep into casein paint, as it got me in my sketchbook working daily on ideas that were for my eyes only. This allowed me to make a mess, try something new and possibly fail without being accountable to anyone (except myself of course, but my only requirement was to just show up every day for 30 days). And believe me, I did some bad art in there, but that was the beauty of it! I could make some bad art on my way to learning but also make some beautiful moments happen that excited me and got me on the way to working with casein.

I really made progress after one of the program challenges that included using collage to get started. Any of you with a familiarity with my work know that during that first covid year (and actually after) I did collages made from old prints. So collage was very comfortable for me, and was something I enjoyed. Here is a two-page spread from my sketchbook.

I make the collage and then paint over it with casein. It’s that simple. But what this allowed me was a way to learn for myself what this strange new medium does, and how it can work for me, but gave me a starting point I was familiar with and comfortable doing. I was on my way.

Since then I have left the sketchbook (although return to it to try out something I want to experiment with before going further on paper or panel…such as my plan for today which is to use to sketchbook to try out a looser and more open way to work with the paint as the collage does lock a person into a composition, more or less).

This is what they look like when I start out.

I under paint with a solid color and then add the collage on top. This one hasn’t been glued down yet.

And here are some 8x8’s after I have painted on top of the collage.

And so the experimentation continues. Here is one that is larger, like 16 x 11.

So stay tuned for more from me about this amazing and interesting medium. And in the meantime if you have any questions please contact me through the “contact” tab on my website. I’ll do my best to answer.

Thanks for reading!

how it began

I found an old art diary the other day and took some time to read through it. It was kind of fascinating to read what my thoughts were almost 20 years ago, when I had just started experimenting with encaustic paint. I had been wanting to work large and with color after 20 years making small, black and white prints. Recently I had played around with pastel and oil paint but nothing hit my sweet spot. Here is some of what I wrote after learning to work with encaustic paint and trying out some different approaches:

I spent the day yesterday painting someone else’s paintings. Not sure what it means (if anything) but it has rattled me some. Maybe it was just a diversion, some playing with color and mark. But there is something there—I sense it.

Here is a painting from those early early days.

“Real is a ThIng,” 20 x 20

And of course there was something there. I have been painting with encaustic since, and making new discoveries with it almost daily. It is such a flexible medium, so able to handle any sort of expression, from loose and abstract to precise and representational. You can imbed papers into it, scribe lines into it, scape away parts of it (or all of it!), transfer images onto it, and on and on. I never fails to provide ample opportunity for experimentation and play.

But this new way of working was strange and somewhat overwhelming for this black and white printmaker. I was craving to work larger and in color and painting in encaustic gave me a way in.

But still I didn’t understand what it meant to me. I wrote next:

I went for a walk down by the river and looked at the visual chaos of the woods and began to understand these paintings as abstractions of the deceptive appearance of disorder in nature. But the complexity of a forest view has its own order created by shape, color, texture, line. My paintings seem to be a formal expression of those things I see on my walks. Houses, trees, bushes, gardens, paths, sky— a cacophony of shape and color. As I layer color on color, impose shape over shape, some opaque, some transparent, I feel I am attempting to impose some order to the visual complexity of any given viewpoint. …I am finding this approach so exciting, energetic and dangerous even, like jumping off a cliff and then figuring out how to fly. I think I am ready to take the leap and learn to fly along the way.

So I painted for a while longer and then had my first show of encaustic paintings. I titled that show “A Wide River” which is how I felt about where I had been to where I was now, a far distance aesthetically and emotionally. Here is the signature painting from that show.

“A Wide River,” 24 x 48

consider this...

After recently closing the show I curated in Port Townsend, Washington titled “If I Had Wings” I had the pleasure of returning some of the unsold work to one of the artists, Chris Maynard, in Olympia, Washington. His home and studio are out in the country, a fitting location for an artist who makes art from bird feathers. His website, featherfolio.com, is a treasure trove of images, videos and blogs about his life and his process. Here is an example of his work:

“Heron in the Koi Pond” by Chris Maynard

In a video he has posted on his website he talks about the healing quality of nature. He has stopped listening to the news and instead focuses his time and energy towards observing what is happening in the natural world and taking solace in being in its presence. He said he is much happier and calmer now that he looks to the heavens instead of at his news feed.

This really resonated with me. I live in the country on 5 acres at the end of a dead end road, where cars don’t drive by and birds sing. I also find solace in living where I live, and think perhaps taking a news vacation is a good idea. When my husband and I go camping and don‘t have access to the news for a week or two I always come home realizing that nothing has changed, the news is all the same, and I have been so at peace during my camping trip being in nature and having no idea what is happening in the world.

So I leave you with this: instead of opening your news feed take a walk in a park, or a hike in the mountains or sit staring at the water at the beach or a lake. Listen to the birds, watch their flights, see them investigating the undergrowth or sitting on a branch. I guarantee you you will feel the peace of their presence, the healing quality of nature.

curating again

This summer I co-curated a show with my friend Keaney Rathbun titled “If I Had Wings: bird as metaphor” at Northwind Gallery in Port Townsend, Washington, my home town. It is a theme we re-visited, having curated a show with the same title some years ago in Portland, Oregon. This time the exhibition space was larger so we invited seven artists to join us in this themed show. Some of them were in our last show but most were new.

I don’t know why but the process of curation is something I really enjoy. I like the design of the exhibition, giving it variety and interest while insuring that the art is all high quality and compelling. I enjoy connecting with the artists, doing studio visits and picking out the work. And the final pleasure is seeing it installed and lit and hearing the comments by the viewing public.

Yes, sometimes it can be exasperating when artists don’t answer their emails, or supply me with requested materials (resume, contracts, etc.). But we make it a policy to only invite artists who are professional and understand the need for follow through. So far it has mostly been a positive experience, which is why I am doing it again.

Next winter I am doing a solo curation of a ceramics show that will be at Waterstone Gallery in Portland, Oregon. I have invited 5 artists who all work with clay but again in a varied and interesting way. Northwind Gallery has asked me if we can move the show to one of their galleries after it finishes in Portland. I guess I am becoming known as a curator, maybe more so than as an artist!

Below is a sampling of some of the artwork that is currently showing at Northwind Gallery in Port Townsend, Washington. Enjoy!

“Star Flickers”, Chris Maynard

“Ways of Belonging” Bethany Rowland

“Remembrance” Marie Hasset

“In This Moment: Beauty” Keaney Rathbun

“Brave Little Soul”, Martha Pfanschmidt

being gentle with yourself

I just read something written by poet Lauren Davis about her new book “The Missing Ones” that really struck home during this difficult time. She wrote:

I’ve learned that when I feel stuck creatively, I need to do something new. A couple of years ago, when winter hit, I couldn’t write a single line of poetry, so I began to experiment with fiction. At other times, I’ve played with form. This time, I stepped into someone else’s story. And I am grateful Blanch allowed me that opportunity. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t struggled during this time. Thankfully, we can show up for our writing in so many ways—reading, supporting other writers, submitting our work, making mental room for the muse. It doesn’t always have to be pen to paper. Sometimes we just have to sit still and listen.

And I say “YES!” to all this. The creative flame doesn’t die, it just sometimes has to be encouraged. That is why making collages was so effective for me. It was doing something new, expressing myself differently. And now I see that there are so many ways to be, but the most important thing is to be gentle with yourself. We are all feeling so many things, and sometimes that can overwhelm us with emotions. And I believe that artists in particular are more sensitive to difficulties than some. But we don’t always have to power through them. We can read, support other artists by visiting their shows (real or virtual), submitting our work to new opportunities, and making mental room for the muse by going for walks, or just sitting still and listening.

Let’s be gentle with ourselves. We are not done, just resting.

“Close to Home”

a little lost

It is a few days after Thanksgiving, a holiday my husband and I celebrated by renting a house in Eastern Washington where we isolated together in a different landscape, for a change of scenery. We are home now, where the world is green instead of snow covered, but my mood stays in those colder and bleaker scenes.

I am feeling a little lost. With the world so shut down, the galleries having minimal to no open hours, the online world for art hard to access, and having little to no contact with my art community, I am still finding it hard to work in my studio. It is like the juice has left, and I am dry. The COVID collages kept me going for a while (see prior two blogs posts), but I haven’t found another way into my creative self, and I have even stopped making the collages. I started painting some, but it feels so empty to me right now.

I feel a little weird confessing this but I also know I am not alone. I have heard of many artists who are having similar experiences, and I guess this is my way of letting them know that they are not alone. I am hoping to find my way out of this, looking for some blue skies, but for now this photo of our last day of our Thanksgiving getaway will have to do, with a sliver of blue to work towards.

evolving

As mentioned in the last blog post I was looking forward to continuing my explorations of the mono print collages I have been making since being in quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s been almost two months since my last post and indeed there has been an evolution in the collages. First of all there are many many more of them! To date I have made over 100. I’m not sure I am done yet, so this may end up being an obsession that stays with me for a while.

I have spent part of the last month playing a back and forth art game with a friend. We agreed on a time frame, a theme and a paper size and we were off: I make a collage and send a photo of it to her, then three days later she makes one in response and sends a photo to me. I respond to hers, and so forth. While the idea started as an expression of a “Catiwhompus” world, it evolved to be something more for me.  The compositions became more intricate and involved. Stick-like shapes were poking out here and there. I became more interested in the negative shapes and the irregular shapes around the cut paper. The images started becoming buildings, machines, constructions of all sorts. They evolved to take on a life of their own, so to speak. They told me what they wanted to be and I responded. Here are a few examples of the collages I created during the last month of our back and forth.

Then the shapes started overlapping more, whereas before they had been side-by-side or closely spaced. (And I must admit the closeness of my home life was starting to feel a little like we are all on top of one another at times.) Here are a few examples of that series.

All of the above images are on 11 x 8 paper. But my latest collages have gotten larger, and I am now doing some on 15 x 11 paper. (I currently am using Arches 88 but past collages have been on whatever paper I pulled from my paper stash so are on random papers, mostly Rives BFK.) Here are some in the larger size.

Evolving. That is all I hoped for this series when I started it almost three months ago. I wanted to just let the work go where it would, to allow myself to discover along the way, to have each piece be individual and yet part of something. Hmmm…isn’t that what we all want? To be ourselves and yet part of something bigger than ourselves? Again, the art speaks to the heart.