Selections From my Final exhibit of the Year

at the Fellowship Center, Unitarian Universalist's in Ephraim WI

October 2014

   Franne Dickinson standing in front of a few of my paintings, Bird Bath in Rainbow Flutter on the right, and Tree of Life on the left.

Me with Franne Dickinson   who dropped in to see the work and offer some encouragement.

Jan and  her husband, artist Emmett Johns with Steve Lavell

Artist Sally Everhardus and Steve Lavell. Sally and I have exhibited together twice this year, begining the season with the Door Community Charitable Foundation  exhibit in late May, and ending the season with this UU show in October. Steve was our entertainment for the afternoon, playing guitar.

And now for something completely different......

SHIELD PAINTINGS

 Animal Imagery and exercises in meditation

Incubator-2014

Lunar Landing- 2014

My painting activity has slowed somewhat, since my last  (August) blog posting I have undergone total knee replacement, which put me in the hospital for two days and nights, then  a conga line of physical therapy sessions ensued, meeting every other day for the next five weeks.  I slept a lot, I iced a lot and I read a lot. But I didn't paint, nor did I cook, or swim, activities that I usually pursue with great discipline. I  quickly graduated from the walker to a cane, and finally was able to manuever sans aide, walking the dog for about a half mile daily, and have returned to swimming that same distance at the pool in our local YMCA. I also returned to the studio sometime in late October, and even managed to debut the series of abstract work I spent almost the entire year on, at a two person show at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Hall and Gallery space, once again showing with Sally Everhardus, as shown above.  

 I wonder where the people are who might find something that resonates within my paintings.  Maybe I have some  form of attention deficit syndrome,  I  now find myself coping with  the world news and urge to run away and hide, or go out and scream and rant... and painting seems as good a place as any to go and hide for hours at a time.

 The rabbit has been with me since my first art work that I can remember making, I drew and colored a rabbit, it was pink, and I glued a cotton ball to its bottom, and cut it out and carried it with me, in my pocket, when I was probably barely 4 years old. I clearly remember placing the rabbit in the glove box of our 1948 Buick, and when I went to retrieve it later, it had been crunched and tossed by someone, not realizing what it meant to me.  The rabbit is a harbinger of fertility, creativity and mischief in some cultures. The rabbit is journeying to the moon in a boat, to sweep the moon clean, in Japanese mythology, and as I look to the night sky, I think about that and wonder what kind of junk must be on the moon these days. We follow the rabbit down the hole, we get Easter eggs from the rabbit, we  carry it's foot, or used to when I was a kid, in hopes it brings good luck. So the rabbit was my first choice in my animals and myth series. My rabbit in Lunar Landing is busy at the edge of the dark side of the moon, cleaning it, or eating the darkness away, to reveal the lighter side, the side reflecting the sun.

Incubator focuses on the balance between destruction and creation. The turtle to me is a slow but determined creature, who  out of the mud and muck, creates a place that is nurturing and full of life. A friend suggested too, that the turtle lives between two worlds, of air, land and light, as well as darkness, water, muck and unseen worlds, both  hold on to life, both are necessary to create a whole, a balance. My turtle is placed as if on a banner, the animals become a form of heraldry.  

In the coming months, I hope to  launch into several more "Shield Paintings" which  explore the use of animal symbolism and convey my feelings and impressions of thoughtful contemplation andmeditative awareness.  

August 2014, Reflections on Summer

.... the Door Prize for Portraiture is now closed for the year. Artists arrived to pick up their work the last weekend in July and I have now transformed the space. These flowers were gracing the reception table and lasted through  the better part of Julybut they are gone now, and I feel the passing of another wonderful event.

We had just under 200 guests come through to view the portraits. There were several episodes of people locking keys in their cars,  and that provided those concerned, a chance to sit and savor the moment while awaiting arrival of a spare set of keys.  We had the Broad Salon group meet here, and also lots of friends and family of many of the subjects featured in the paintings. The comments this year continue to be encouraging and favorable. People I don't even know now want to be a part of this event. I change the list around every year, and plans for 2015 include expanding the list.

Meanwhile, I have  my own art work in three different spaces, all nonprofit art venues, the DCCF office lobby gallery in Sturgeon Bay, featuring work by me and Sally Everhardus, which will be up until Sept. 10. 

The Hardy features a Collection Invitational each summer, and I was invited this year. My work is hanging next to my esteemed friend and favorite, Emmett Johns. The  pieces featured include a small piece up for auction, a fundraiser for the Hardy. Also included is a duet of abstract work which showcases the direction I pursued last winter. 

This dyptich is titled Eccentric Orbit and is currently hanging in the Hardy Gallery in Ephraim WI.

Magpie and Bush 2014

is currently on exhibit and available in the silent auction fundraiser being held at the Hardy Gallery, Ephraim WI. through the month of August.

This painting relates directly to the pieces currently on display at  ON THE ROAD, the Miller Art Museum in Sturgeon Bay, which features work by 11 artists, and their work while traveling. I chose work from Australia 2005-2009.

Magpie Family 2005

I include an example of my work for that exhibit as well, although it is older work and may be a repeat from a posting on this blog a few years ago.

Parting shots today include a reminder to myself, summer is fleeting, and here art imitates nature....

Bird Shadow on Snow
this photo may inspire some future work next winter

Sticky Snow Cover

photo on top from early 2014 snow cover

and a study in water based oil of similar subject, 2014

Fifth Annual Door Prize for Portraiture Opens to a large and enthusiastic crowd.

 The Best in Show for Door Prize for Portraiture was chosen along with three honorable mentions, by guest juror Kat Murrell, an Art historian, lecturer and writer from Milwaukee, WI.  Twenty-four artists participated in the annual event which was inspired by a visit to the famed Archibald Prize exhibit years ago in Sydney Australia. Steve and I talked about the impression of a rooms full of exquisitely executed portraits, and wondered how it would play in Door Co on a smaller scale. We invited a handful the first year, and it has grown each year, with a few new names added, some old ones dropped off, and ultimately we have a collection of incredible interpretaions of the portrait genre.  This year Door Prize went to Mary Ulm Mayhew, who unfortunately could not be at the party when awards were passed out.She was busy painting en plein air at the plein air festival in Cedarburg WI. Mary is however a strong presence in Door county, with her work featured at Edgewood Orchard each summer, and she has taught countless workshops in the area. Her work will also be included in ON THE ROAD, Artists who Travel, at the Miller Art Museum the end of July. I am also in that show, and its fun to think back now on my first trip abroad. It was with Mary, for two week trek in Scotland, a week on an artist retreat on the Isle of Skye.  The painting that Mary submitted is Dos Amigas, a portrait of close buddies, Pam Flanders and Marcia Boyd, both of whom are also accomplished painters. I have also traveled with these two as well, and the experiences we shared one Labor Day week, in the water off the coast of Seattle, traveling around in a boat with Mary and Charlie  and another couple who owned the boat,  linger to this day as some of the best vacation time ever. But I digress, back to the Door PRize.

Honorable Mentions went to Toler Wolfe, who just got his BFA in art from UW MAdison, Toler was unable to attend the party but his parents were there to accept for him. Toler will be on his way in the fall to Chicago, to do stand up comedy. Stephanie Trenchard won for her glass piece, a self portrait in cast glass, painted on an amphora shape and embedded in a gothic arch of solid clear glass. It is stunning as she is... the third winner this year is Bonnie Paruch, another former West Bend friend who settled in Door Co about the same time I came here to work at the Fairfield Public Gallery, Bonnie established a studio and gallery space at her home over the last decade and is a strong presence in workshops, she teaches  throughout the region.  What a great show. Diverse, eclectic, yet all of it addressing the single  topic, the portrait.

Dos Amigas by Mary Ulm Mayhew

Door Prize for Portraiture 2014 Best in Show

FRAMING UP WINTER'S WORK

Here is a selection of  work representing  the direction I have pursued over the  2013-14 winter months. It was a very long winter and not the easiest one but I am not complaining about this.   I found  that living in this isolated region fosters  a spark that keeps the curious individual pursuing things that might not occur if I was in someplace like Florida. While I was inspired a great deal by the life change(sea change) in Australia over the last decade, the tree change, and seasonal weather conditions  of northern Great Lakes have a strong impact. There is also a SEE CHANGE going on with me, as my vision is transforming itself from day to day, with floaters coming and going, retinal challenges, corneal dryness, aging, all the things you never think will happen to you, cause you to seek your grace in new ways. I still love and enjoy painting en plein air and I had set up still life tableau during 2012-13, which led me into a stiff and static mentality. The choice to  pursue an object free narrative was challenging and the pathway to new realizations is littered with self doubt and at times disgust,  but ultimately, I like what I am doing while I am doing it, and I just move on.

RED LEAF   

water based oil and graphite on canvas ,Two panels(detail)

CORNUCOPIA 

water based oil and oil stick on canvas

ARBOR VITA

 waterbased oil on canvas

PREDATOR

unfinished homage to Robert Rauschenberg

water based oil with found object and collage

Bush Fire

waterbased oil on canvas

SUDDEN GUST NOVEMBER

water based oil on canvas

RED FLOATER

water based oil on canvas

SPRING  SNOW 

water based oil on panel

UNTITLED STUDY

water based oil on panel

UNTITLED STUDY

water based oil on canvas

BEFORE MY EYES

water based oil on panel

TUMBLER

water based oil on panel

The Art Critique

 

     About a year ago a group of us decided to get a thing going each month, where friends  who have been carefully assembled as valued and creative individuals, gather to share work in process, to share concerns, ask for a set of fresh eyes and often serve as a resource for more efficient  methods of framing, exhibiting and selling work, find a good book to read. Sometimes we just  have a good cuppa and a pastry  with a side of heartfelt conversation.  The group morphs each month, as not everyone is able to attend all the time, and winter took its toll on us, through travel, illness, and weather conditions, which in northern Wisconsin can be a major consideration in assessing the social factor.  We met at the chez Cheryl artspace in February and several cars, at the end of our morning,  had to be pulled out of the snow banks that were creeping up to the window sills, intrepid characters that we all are, it is nice to know there are spousal units waiting with trucks and ropes and shovels to assure that everyone gets home safely.
     Now it is April and mud might be the issue, the skies are cloudy and thick with promise of precipitation today, and I am filled with thoughts brought out in discussion with our little group yesterday.  There are eight people in this group right now, though it could grow to ten and still have the  impact and energy needed as a group dynamic. If the group gets too big there is too much chatter and not enough  thoughtful input, if the group is too small  there is less divergent and heterogenous  perspective, we are all women who paint or make things,  with impeccable credentials, some retired with professions in the design field, educators, administrators and business entrepreneurs, and the group is sincere and honest, two qualities that must accompany each individual into the group.

Yesterday we had six in attendance, In an hour and  a half we had  covered the art and designs of each participant, coming away with new insights and the confidence to keep at this, even if its not producing a masterpiece or a marketable  sensation, the goal is  to keep learning and  exploring. I think we have all come to value highly, our little morning discussions and support that is offered with kindness and deep thought.

One participant asked if we could each  write an artist statement for our next meeting in May. I once attended a workshop regarding the business of art, and this artist statement business was covered, our seminar leader suggestion we should be able to distill  a statement down to three sentences. I never could streamline things.  And there are those who say the art work is the statement, I hover somewhere in between, having been involved in art museums, label writing and  research,  but I always found it easier to write about some other artists work rather than my own.  This will be hard, but onward, there is a month ahead, of watching spring arrive, planning gardens,and most of all,  getting work ready to exhibit at places  local and regional. I  think I say this for the women in the art crit group, this is a valued experience as well as a special, to have this connection  and a real gift to be able to do what we do.

Several of our group intent on what is on the easel at the moment

FLOATERS AND FIELD OF VISION SERIES

It has been quite a while since I devoted any time at all to this blogspot. My banner says something about plein air painting, and I  need to explain that in October that no longer seemed to  work as a proper description of the direction I was going. I spent last winter doing still life studies and occasionally working from photos and through the summer, I did very little art work, just a few plein air outings and the rest of the time I guess I felt there was more work to do in the garden. By the time fall rolled around I was ready to get back to painting on a more regular basis. Then I had another wake up call.   I had a strange episode with my left  eye while traveling, I awoke with a spider web of shadow  due to something happening in the inside of my eye. After a thorough check with the eye specialists in Ames Iowa where I was visiting my brother, I was assured that there was not a detachment and I should expect to have the shadows for awhile. The following week, after I returned to Door County, the right eye did the same thing, and  nearly four months later, I am still experiencing this shadow floater business, as well as some blurring in both eyes, due to the cataracts that were discovered in the past year. There are times when I see things that aren't there, birds that don't exist, and shadows that move and  track which ever direction i might be looking.   I decided to put plein air  painting on hold for a while, so just started making marks, calligraphic form, color field and  patterns that mimic the floaters which are with me every day.  I have also purchased larger oil sticks as well, which makes  for an interesting layering and application of color, which can  be thinned and spread with thinner or oil medium, or built up to more of an impasto, and it is sometimes easier for me to grasp the fatter sticks, rather than narrow handled paint brushes.

Floaters

Group of six studies, popped into frames, these pieces are small, 6 x 8 inches.

Untitled  Study

FIELD OF VISION  SERIES

Untitled Studies 18"x18" water based oil and oil stick on canvas

Exploring movement and color, through expressive marks which  

reference  calligraphic image and patterns.