Work In Progress, Red Nude

WIP, Red Nude, Encaustic on panel and paper, 12" x 24" .
The picture could be better, and will, but a WIP, this'll do. Ive got lots of work left on her, will post when done!

Christmas and the Holidays

I love this time of year, I really do. My Pagan self loves the Christmas tree. I love the way the ornaments sparkle, and the way the lights glimmer in the dark. I remember when my kids where small, and they used to like to sleep out in the living room with the tree, and truthfully, if I hadn't been a grown up authority figure with an image to maintain, Mom the Almighty, then I'da been out there with them!
It's not hard to remember that the Christmas tree is originally a Pagan symbol of everlasting life, when I look at the sparkling lights of the tree.
I LOVE this time of year!
What do we, as people, think of this time of year, and the next question I have is this; why can't we have a spirit of giving every day?
Why can't we, as people, look at our fellow human beings, and see them as human, for more than just this one day, for more than just this season?

WIP The Next Chair

This is the WIP of the third chair, Conditional Love. I've fallen in love with anthraquinone red... SUCH a beautiful color, it's transparent and deep, with the same undertone as blood.
I haven't taken a photo of that yet, but here's a picture before the lovely new red. I'll post new pics of it with that red, soon.

As an Artist, What is my Job Description?

In my mind, and the minds of many artists before me, to Goya and back further, we artists have pointed out things in our world that are not right, things that are not just.
As an artist, I believe that it is my duty to point out the wrongs that I see around me. It is part of my ability to celebrate the good, but it is important that I note, record and expose to the world, the things that bad people would not have exposed to the light.
If we artists were to forget this, to just paint pretty art, are we really artists? Or are we decorative painters? Isn't art about the human condition, and the expression of that condition? It is to me; to me, there is no more sacred a duty than that rooting out of hidden evils.
Some of us do that with a video camera, some of us with a still camera. Some of us write about it, in books, blogs, and articles. And there are those of us who express these things with art, using paint, pen, sculpture, wax or a myriad of media to get the point across.

New piece

Detail
This one is finished, and now it's on to the next chair, in that series.
The Queen of Heaven
12" x 24"
Encaustic on panel, found objects

Study for My Next Encaustic

This is going to be another encaustic nude.
I saw this lady walking, and this is what came out of it. She was on the sidewalk, and I was on the Max, she was striking, and this was a quick sketch. She was dressed, in a skirt and blouse, but this is what popped into my head.

Finished my Piece for the Portland Tarot!

I drew the Three of Swords. More than a bit fitting, really. This card is all about pain; pain and I are very intimately acquainted.
No matter what way this card is drawn, it's a bad one. There is no upside to this card, no silver lining. Getting this card in a reading means a world of hurt.
This is my interpretation;
Three of Swords
Encaustic on panel
16" x 20"

Portland Tarot

This is quite a fun project! I'm doing mine abstract. These folks have also done the Portland Playing Cards, the Splendoporium. Here's hoping I spelled that right...
I'm doing the Three of Swords. All of us that were accepted, went in and randomly drew our cards.
I'll post pics soon!

Art and Free Speech

I found this great article on artist and the freedom to express oneself.
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/con04.htm
This is soooo true! I'm having a group show, and the theme of the show is censored art work. Our art has been censored because of content.The nude,which is a venerable tradition in art, is under attack.
The nude has been declared not "family friendly", yet we have murder, robbery and rape galore on prime time TV. This is a very skewed set of priorities, in my opinion.
Enjoy the article, and think on this qoute:
"If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him." -- John F. Kennedy

Newest WIP

I'm really excited about the show coming up. I'm sorry it's only for a night, but it's going to be a GREAT night!
It's looking like we will have a wine tasting at our venue, as well as my favorite transvestite, Brandon, and very possibly, a nude model. I'm still out on that. I was planning on doing a life drawing while I was there, but I'm kinda iffy on that. My arms are starting to lose function, and I don't know if I can draw for that long.
Here's the newest work in progress:
The Fat Lady Contemplates Her Song
12" x 12"
Encaustic

Working on Inanna

I'm busy as can be, getting ready for this show. I'm almost done with my mosaic goddess, my Inanna. She looks pretty good. I'm hoping to show her at the Blue Light exhibition, with Gaia. I'll be picking Gaia up from the gallery for this show. I'm really looking forward to it.
I'm hoping that we sell, sell, sell, and that we get more openness to our nudes. I've gotten one positive response from a gallery, to show in after this, for my nudes. I'm hoping to get more exposure for all of us, no pun intended. It just happened that way, lol. ;]

Coming Together

This is really going to be fun!
The space is a bit out of the way, about 50 ft, but I've got that solved! I have a loud and proud cross dressing man friend, and he is going to go all out to help send the people our way.
Now, on to find a female exhibitionist, for my live, life drawing. I got the OK for wine tasting, and we are going to bring crackers, dip and cheeses. Gotta love Cash 'n' Carry!
This is going to be a real blast!
Kathy Conrad's Pin up Girls, Larry Iverson's erotic photography, and my encaustic and oil nudes! This is going to be a fun night.
Magnus was a great guy; he gets the artist! Not many do, really. Most just look at us like an exotic species of bug, that hopefully won't land on them, lol!!
Magnus loaned us sandwich boards, and had lots of helpful advice.
I'll report more when I have it to report. I have stuff to plan, and work to finish!

I'm very excited!

August 26, 2010, I'm curating and participating in, an exhibition of erotic artworks! :]
The Last Thursday, in the Alberta district, here in Portland Or, is a fantastic event; it reminds me of the street fairs that I grew up with. I'm 48 and I remember the street fairs of the Sixties and Seventies, very well.
The tentative title of the exhibition is Blue Light Under the Moonlight: Local Erotica.
This will be fun, and I look forward to the huge turn out. If it works out, I'm thinking of seeing if we can get a local winery to come and host a tasting, along with our show.
Tomorrow we meet with the gallery owner, and I'll know more, from there.
Press releases to write, snacks to think about, busy, busy, busy!!

Work in Progress, these things are devilishly hard to photograph!

I'm really amazed at how hard these encaustic pieces are to photograph. Yeesh!
Here's the latest piece, it's nearly done. Just some shellac to add to the mix!
Her face is hidden behind a blindfold; she is looking down.
This one is 12" x 12", on panel.

Unbelievably Busy!

I've been swamped! But, I've been productive. I have to get batteries. My camera batteries died, my recharger isn't working, so I can't post the newest encaustic. I will remedy that ASAP!
She came out really well. The shadows are better than I had hoped for. The wax is such a wonderful medium. I just love it!

Experiments, Experiments!

Today was a day for experimentation. I tried two different things today. First, electrochemical etching. I need a bigger battery. And possibly some larger diameter copper wire to carry the larger current.
That should work...
The second experiment is cooling as I type.
This one is for a wax painting medium that is supposed to have the same handling qualities as a water media. It was an old recipe; it called for beeswax, water and ammonia.
I have a ton of this made. Now it's cooling. It's supposed to cool, then be able to mix with dry pigments and water to use like watercolor, yet it's wax...
I can't wait for it to cool. I'm dying to try it!

New Work in Progress

Here's the new nude. She's floating in a dream state, in an altered consciousness.

Encaustic, 12' x 24"

New Piece

I'm hooked these encaustic nudes! I just love them! The wax gives them a depth that fascinates me.
Here's a picture of the latest,
12" x 24"
Encaustic on panel,
"Pregnant with Possibilities!"

I'm disappointed with American culture.
We are more than happy to show next to nude in some pretty vulgar displays on prime time TV, but it's not too easy to find a place to show the nude in my area.
Family friendly is wonderful, to a point, but there also needs to be places that can show the nude in a nonsexual way. I remember seeing nudes in art galleries, exhibitions and museums just 10 short years ago.
With the Bush administration, we not only lost a lot of our civil rights, but we also lost a lot of culture, and the education of culture, in our schools. It has not been a happy circumstance.
We as a nation, have suffered for it.
I had hoped with a new administration, the overly vocal Right Wing Christian minority would have lost their bullying power, but sadly people remain afraid of these zealots.
I hope someday, to see the recovery of the nude as a respected art form. Once , Christians did not disdain the human form and moderates do not, still.
I do find it sad that we lionize the Kardashians yet see a centuries old tradition hidden in back rooms like pornography.
Sad, our national priorities.

My Favorite Parasite, Kevin Mannix

is at it again. This guy is scum. He lives off of his attempts to pass draconian legislation designed to increase the prison system. It's my opinion that this guy very well could be a Haliburton troll.
One of his worst pieces of legislation is called Measure 11. The premise of this ill thought out law is that children over the age of 15 have fully developed brains and are capable of making adult decisions. This is not the case.
Teen brains are not capable of making adult decisions. Even the insurance industry recognizes this. Unfortunately, Conservatives tend to have a bumper sticker mentality.

They tend to want quick fixes that don't involve much thought. I point to Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement as prime examples.
Teen age brains do not use the dorsal prelateral frontal cortex in decision making.
This area of the brain does not fully develop until the mid 20's.
One other thing to watch for, the Parasite has petitions out, and he is trying to use fear and shame to force people to sign this cursed petition. I know. One of his petition signers tried it with me.

In my view, mandatory minimums are Conservative tools to get votes. They are also a traitorous subversion of the United States justice system.
Our system is meant to be case by case, not a draconian medieval system.
I would give a years pay to see Kevin Mannix hoisted on his own legislation, and I'd bet that a microscopic examination of Mannix would show that he's no different that the rest of the corrupt and tainted GOP.
I'm all for disbanding both parties. They are killing us. And The Parasite, well, he's out to do his part to reduce Oregon to a bankrupt and failed state.

iGoogle

What a beautiful day! I'm going to Eastern Oregon this weekend, on a large group camp out for PSU. I'm hoping to come back with some great fossils, minerals, photos and sketches. :]
This should be fun! I like camping, normally it's not in a large group, so this will be different.
Adventures in camping...
What could go wrong?

Crazy Day!

First sun, then rain, then hail, then more sun! :]
I can't wait until summer comes. I'm looking forward to the warm air. I'm in the process of having a tadpole bike built by some of my wonderful husband and our young Juggalo friends. I can't ride a regular bike anymore, so I bought plans, and they are going to build it! We have some of the parts, and are looking for the rest. We hope to make this bike out of as many recycled materials as possible.
The bike we're building is from atomiczombie.com, the Street Fox. It calls for regular bike brakes, but we got a steal on new disc brakes on Ebay! These bikes go wicked fast, according to the research we did.

Busier and busier!

Lots of work done last night, getting images onto panels for the upcoming show! May 6th, at the Aura, here in Portland OR at 8:00 pm. It should be fun! I've been to that club before, it's got an interesting floor plan.
Wax and flame, pigment and fire; the tools that create my art!

The next chair in the series...Conditional Love

This is a study for the third chair in the series. This is the chair of Conditional Love. Love that binds and torments. Love that is toxic.
This is that chair. The inspiration for this chair came from personal situations in my life. This whole series has struck a chord with everyone that has seen them. We all at one time or another have sat in Angry Chairs, in Lonely Chairs; we've all known that cold,merciless and trapped feeling of the Chair of Conditional Love.
If it hasn't been we ourselves who have experienced it, we can all think of someone who has been in that seat. It leaves scars that never go away.

The America's Greatest Artist Search

The American Idol of the art world is coming to a city near most of us. They pick out artists to compete American Idol style, for a trip to Las Vegas to represent their city.
Well, I'm going to be in the Portland stop, at the Aura bar on Burnside, May 6th at 8:00 pm. This should be fun! I'll be showing and demonstrating encaustic, with my torches and some shellac, for the pyrotechnics part, yeah!
Here's the link, http://www.mysoiree.net/contests.php.
This should be fun!

A New Work in Progress

Oil on copper, I just love the way the copper pops the color of oils! This is in the very first stages. I'm waiting for the oils to dry enough to do some glazing.
This is 9" x 12".
I'm using Gamblin's Neomegilp and poppy oil. Both dry faster on the copper than they do on panel or canvas. The Neomegilp on the copper gives the pigments an enamel quality that I really like.

Finished, Neuropathy: the Action of Pain

It's finished. It accurately depicts how I feel, yet there is no catharsis. I'm trying to deal with the pain and the reality of it in the best way I know how, art. I don't think that this one image is going to help. It may be a step on the path, but it's just the start.
Here it is:
24" x 24" Encaustic on panel.

Work in Progress: Neuropathy

It's coming along very well, I think. I've gotten the background done, the shellac does some very interesting things to the wax. Her hair is almost done; next is the barbed wire.
This painting is a depiction of a bad day in my body. I'm almost done. I'll post the finished piece.

This is all about pain. Face melting, eye exploding pain that drops a person to her knees.
This is all about the headaches that make my hair stand on end.
This is all about the sharp pains that poke me all over; my fingers, my toes, the bottoms of my feet and the backs of my arms are all subject to the wire.

Work in Progress

I'm working on a new encaustic. I'm happy with the progress at this point. One of the great things about working in wax is the ability to carve, like a bas-relief. Also I like the ability to be able to scrape and to use the torch flame to manipulate the pigmented beeswax.

Here's the image...

Time Crunch

I'm starting to hear the clock ticking. My hands are starting to give out, and I have so much art to create!!!!
The worst thing about losing the function is not what people think. The worst part is my art. I'll be losing my ability to create artwork.
I hear the question, isn't there a surgery that can be performed? Yes, there is. But, it should have been done three years ago, so now it's reached a point where it's a life threatening operation. If I had insurance to do an operation.
I'm saddened that the health and welfare of the American people means absolutely nothing to either one of the political parties. It also reinforces my thought, and the thoughts of quite a few others that I know, that the day of political parties is over. What we have is a decomposing corpse in Congress. The rot is killing our nation. Our politicians have forgotten that a nation's greatest asset is not the corporations that own our Supreme Court. The nation's greatest asset is it's people.
Without them, there is no nation.
We artists tend to be the ones that point out inequities in our society and our world. We artists have an obligation to continue to point them out. The fourth estate has betrayed us, presenting us with stories about celebrity bad behavior, when what should have been reported, was what was going on in Congress.
It's up to us, because our politicians don't care, the middle class is too fearful to care, and the lower class doesn't have the resources to care.

Sniffles

I don't know what I caught, but I'd sure like to take it back! I have the sniffles and the sneezes and this is just not conducive to art work! I'm looking at my Angry Chair. It sits on the easel, oozing irritation, and I know part of that is at me, cause it's still sitting on the easel...
I'm having a bad arm day, and these are getting to be more frequent as time goes on.
The doctor told me that the loss of the use of my arms, in particular my left, is in my future. I'm ambidexterous, so it's not that I couldn't rally back from the loss of one, but both?!
Damn. That chair on the easel isn't the only angry thing around here. I'm just ever so better at hiding it behind the well trained feminine facade. We women of a certain age learned that face real early on.
As I've gotten older, that facade has gotten some cracks; I did a series on that. I have to get the panels cut for a new series on pain. Real grit your teeth and break-0ut-in-a-cold sweat kinda pain. I've been experiencing that a lot lately, too.
That kinda pain can take a woman's facade and twist it up in no time flat! It exposes every character flaw, every petty trait, and if a person is smart, then it's an opportunity to do something about those very unpleasant things. There has to be a silver lining, so to speak, into every bad situation. If I didn't have that outlook, humour, and not least of all art, I'd probably just go postal.
Hurray for art!

Time for reflections and a new direction

Those who've been to my site, know that I had an accident. It's caused a degenerative condition, but for the last few years it's been there, but in the background. Now it's very much in the picture, meaning it's time for me to start thinking about my art, what it means to me and where I'm going with it.
I have been blessed with a fantastic group of online friends; fellow artists who are a perfect mix of sympathy and butt kicking!
Friendships in this computer age, have undergone a revolution. People who never would have met otherwise have formed a cohesive group of talent. We all come from far flung places, some of us are close to some, while the rest are from coast to coast.
They are proof that there are good things to be found in cyberspace. They are top of the list!