WIP Middle Panel

This is the largest encaustic I've ever done. 48" x 24" for this center panel.

Here it is and boy, this was a beast to do!

This one is a corporate commission, and it has been a challenge, but I am pleased with the way it's coming along.

Commission in Progress

This is the largest encaustic I've ever done. Three panels totalling 48" x 48" meant to be spaced out.

I have the center panel pretty much done. The picture is the cartoon that went on the panel.

Will post images when it's done!

Art and Science

I am one happy little wax slinger! I've been invited to be a guest speaker at Louisiana State University regarding this fabulous art supply that the director there is making.

Ok, here's how an artist gets to go to be a guest speaker for a chemistry department:

As anyone who knows me well knows, I am no shy violet; nope, I'm more like a curious monkey. Or a magpie. If it's shiny or if it gets my curiosity going, well, I have been known to make mad right turns....

I transferred into Portland State University from a semester system and they're a quarter system. so that caused a wee bit of a discrepancy in the credits that I needed; it turned out that I needed half a credit in Chemistry. I'm a professional artist going to get a psych degree, so I'm totally there for the half a credit and the marvelous cookies, not so much for the actual presentations. Most of those went over my head.

But there was this one presentation....

From LSU, Dr. John Pojman, the director of the Chem department (I'm totally positive that's what it says in the signature at the end of his email) came to show us his current work in polymers for adhesive purposes. Interesting, my ears perk up.

Then he started the presentation, with film clips of these magical substances. My mouth fell open, the cookies almost forgotten!

Before my wondering eyes fantastic textures unfolded. Textures and the ability to bond this to that.

I hear you all rolling your eyes...get on with it, Colleen! OK, OK!

This stuff allows one to apply heat to it which allows one to bond plastic to wood, and to embed glass bits and other cool stuff.

Now all the good Doc is seeing is industrial applications. Not me. Oh no. I'm seeing panels covered in wonderful, crazy cool textures that one touches with the torch and this really cool reaction, the propogation front, marches across the stuff that was applied to the surfaces.

At the end of the presentation, when it was Q & A time, my hand shot up in the air!!

I had one question "Have you thought of art supplies for these wondrous things? I would love to have some of this! I have a problem I've been trying to solve and this is the answer."

He looked at me in surprise and said no, he had not and did I have time to discuss this after the presentation?

Yup, I sure did, and I am VERY happy that I did!

So now I'm off to talk to grad students and some other pretty important sounding folks! I gotta get out my top hat and brush my bowler hat off!! Now for some Mad Scientist goggles for the demo part. did I mention the demo part? Oh yeah...hot wax and torches, in the land of my foremothers on my maternal side!

Hot damn!

What to pack?

Art supplies, camera, torches, batteries, top hat, shoes would be good....I should probably put some clothes in there, too...and my faithful laptop as well as my Droid.

I'm gonna have a bourbon on Bourbon St, then some pecan pralines and some file gumbo!

I'm so freakin' excited!!!

Will post updates! ;]

Seattle was great!

Seattle is a lovely city! I got some great pictures which I will post as soon as I get them off of the camera. I saw the troll under the bridge, my daughter and her friend took me to Pike's market and I got to ride the ferry to Bremerton and back.

Fantastic food, and the exhibition is going to look lovely.

Mother Earth looks fab, and here are some pictures of her.

Busy busy day...

Art and life can sometimes be a difficult mix. Two of my grandsons have been visiting, with Oliver, the granddog. Oliver is a Cocker, on a natural wire. That dog can bounce in a way that would outdo Tigger and is close to Superman's single bounds! That dog can clear an art table in no time flat. Glass went everywhere, and I do mean everywhere.

I'm finishing up Mother Earth, and didn't have the glass from her put away yet. I have the Green Man to finish, so I also had that glass up there.

Doh,

I know better; this was a case of magical thinking on my part. I forgot that this dog can levitate. I think he uses the floppy ears to helicopter up there...

Just to be safe, I put away the gesso mix with the rabbit skin glue. I keep having this disturbing image of acid free dog poo, colored titanium white, all over the yard...and the deck... oh, yeah, can't forget the laundry room....

It's a damned good thing that dog is cute, otherwise he might become a set of slippers...

Mother Earth

Here She is, my latest creation, the Ojibwa creation story. Mother Earth, her body is all of water; Muskrat sacrifices himself to get the mud from the bottom of the waters, to put on Turtle's back, to make a home for us.

Four birds are sent out with sacred seeds to populate the land.

I have Ojibwa DNA. Both of my biological children have Native dentition. I just wish I knew more about our heritage. I don't mean the dry stuff that one finds in books, but the day to day stuff; like the little daily rituals that make up our lives. What we eat for breakfast, what we do as during the day, these things are clear to me as an averaged American.

What these things are in Ojibwa culture is a mystery to me.

With what I have been able to find on my own, this is the story that seemed to reoccur over and over, so I take this one to be the closest to the original as my meager understanding of the story. It's shortened in my explanation; it's much more beautiful in the writings that I have seen.

Tomorrow is a wonderful day!!

Starting tomorrow, I get 10 full days to myself to do art. I have two mosaics to finish, an oil on the easel, and an encaustic piece percolating around in my head; not to mention the sweet little oxy actylene mini torch and tanks I'm going to go get....
Fire and glass, wax and steel, I have SUCH ideas spinning in my head.
In a way, it's full circle. Welding is what led me to art, and now art takes me back to welding.
I feel such a sense of urgency; my hands are slightly numb, my biceps and my triceps are weak and getting weaker. They echo the weakness in my legs and the spikes that seem to be in the balls of both of my feet.
The more it hurts, the more art I feel the need to do.
So tomorrow, I'm off to go buy my sweet little mini-torch, fill my tanks and set up my space. Glass and carbon steel, I want to create dragons and dragonflies; abstract towers made of dark, rusted steel and luminescent glass, lit from within...
I have so many creations that I want to do, and so little time to do them in, I feel. It scares me, actually. Life is just too short! There is so much to learn, so much to create, so many boundaries to push and unexplored concepts to examine!
I'll post progress pics!