Me not talking

Since I talk all the time, this is an unusual post. All posts are unusual since I post so seldom. Talking all the time, which includes talking to myself when I am alone or in the grocery store, gives me plenty of opportunity to make sentences.

I like sentences. I like the compact kit of words in various forms that combine to communicate a subtle notion. I’m reading Neil Gaiman/Dave McKean again (Signal To Noise). Words and pictures, words and pictures. I don’t like the phrase “graphic novel” so much, but I do like words and pictures. I need to put the book down so I can get some work done.

It’s time to work on my large commissioned painting for the Styles, now downstairs on two 60″x60″ canvases. I have just returned from Umbria and Tuscany so the painting will be different than it would have been had I finished it pre-Italy. Naturally. It will be a picture without words though, and that is a bit of a struggle. Struggle is good. However, I could do without the head cold and the back ache.

Pieces Of Eight

Pieces Of Eight Show Card

I’m in a group show at The Dam Gallery in the Alton Mill Arts Centre. The title of the show is Pieces of Eight. There are eight of us (no kidding): Rosemarie Armstrong, John Ashbourne, Iris Casey, Rosemary Hasner, Pete Herlihy, Andrea Trace, Steve Volpe and Freda Wrench. I’ve done some new work for this show that I am quite happy with. The new pieces were done in the two workshops I have attended recently: one with Mary Wood and one with Claudia Jean McCabe.

They represent a new direction for me. I have tried many times, without success to really pare a painting down to essentials. Mirage does that, or at least, is a long-awaited step in the right direction. Big sigh of relief.

The other new work is Festival which is a free-form, palette-knifed composition on raw canvas. Heck, yeah. That was fun. It is sort of festive in appearance, but the real festival was in the making.

It’s adhered with medium to a birch panel but left raw in places. I mean, I did not cover the work with more medium, gloss or matte, so the canvas maintains its quality which I like. Gives the piece immediacy and does not divorce it from its roots. Framing so often formalizes a work beyond where I want it to go.

October Workshop

Nope, not running a workshop, attending one. Late October will be another Claudia Jean McCabe festival. That’s a vacation for me. I’d rather spend a week painting with Claudia and all the artists who attend than go to some Caribbean beach. (A Caribbean beach with paint and Claudia… hmm, that sounds good, too.)

What am I reading Summer 2011

Summer Books 2011

Lots of Neil Gaiman. And a book on Robert Motherwell. Then some more Neil Gaiman: rereading The [Compleat] Sandman. I have lent out two books very recently. The inspiring Pictures That Tick by Dave McKean, I loaned to an artist friend of mine, who is in the Headwaters Show as am I. Also, I allowed another artist to borrow The Penland Book Of Handmade Books which is a keen resource.

Another friend allowed me to borrow Just Kids by Patti Smith. I recommend it highly. And I will need to make a trip to the lake in order to return it, which is just fine by me.

Headwaters Arts 2011

On A Swing Above The Inferno, Loose Leaf Number 2

I have seven paintings up at the current SGI Headwaters show. One of my pieces has been awarded a Jurors’ Choice which is very cool and makes me quite happy. It’s nice to get feedback like that. I will post that picture in the next blog entry.

I hang out with my paintings for most of the exhibition because I like to talk to people and find out what they think. Additionally, I like to stop people from walking away too soon. My work needs a few minutes to sink in. A strolling viewer offering a passing glance doesn’t always allow the piece time to exude its subtle charm. So I make a bit of small talk and let the work lasso a larger share of attention. We are a bit crafty.

What am I reading?

Right now I am rereading that delicious Lucia series written by EF Benson. If you like social comedy, gently ironic humor and English manners, this series of books is for you, too.