I never send out anything from my name at my name dot com that isn’t about art.  Nothing about that male drug that starts with a V, nothing having to do with Russian girls, nothing having to do with bedroom recreational activities, nothing that isn’t about art, and usually about my art!

I have my email settings at my host set up with the tightest security and spam filters, so I can only conjecture that whoever is using my name at my name dot com is spoofing my email address.

So, please, do not open anything that isn’t about art that seems to be from me.

I am looking into the problems and possible solutions (if there are any).

Sigh!

Jetsons’ Holiday
Encaustic on Panel
10″ x 10″

This is the second of my Organics series using encaustic.  I have started several more in this series in oil, and will likely attempt some in acrylic, as well.  And of course, there are all the sketches.

This piece went through quite a few changes during its creation.  That’s one of the challenging things for me about encaustic.  I may think I know where I’m going when I get started on a new piece, but things have a way of getting out of control when fusing each new application of wax to a melted state again (not necessary, but I love the process and especially the glassy smooth outcome) — however, it is fraught with the danger of losing edges and shapes that one already established.

This piece has many layers to it and a very thick coat of gorgeous translucent clear beeswax. Way down almost to the very bottom layer are some lovely shapes cut out of rice paper and coated in a celadon green wax, but you can only see memories of them now. There were also several strands of “beads” of wax paint in lime green that were very carefully applied, one bead at a time, that have now blurred to a few soft, hazy lines.

And, now that I have two solid little paintings and about 8 or 9 of sketches in my new Organics series, I also have a new gallery page on which to gather them all together: Organics.

Happy Together
Encaustic and rice paper on cradled birch panel
10″x 10″ x 1.75″ deep
©2009

Painting in Encaustic: Liberation and Challenge

For about the past year-and-a-half, I have been in a bit of despair over how to continue working in encaustic.

I started using encaustic paints in 2006. Encaustic paint is pigment suspended in a mixture of beeswax and damar resin that the artist heats and paints with while in a melted state (the paint, not the artist ) – you can read more about encaustic here.

My first attempts were simply thick coatings of clear wax covering small pastel drawings of tornadoes.  Then I began painting the tornadoes using the hot wax.  As paradoxical as it may sound, I found the demands of the encaustic medium really liberated me from my former work that was too tight or too representational for my own satisfaction.  One cannot be tight when painting in encaustic AND achieve a smooth surface, and I fell in love with the smooth surface and the unpredictability of what happens to colors melted in wax when you blow them around with hot air. For the next year or so, I was thrilled to continue working in hot wax.

I began a series of nuclear bomb paintings in encaustic, intending to paint about 100 of them, but my idea was too daunting for a subject matter that was so frightening. Having grown up in the days of duck-and-cover, I decided I couldn’t really live with that fright through the creation of 100 paintings, so I quit after completing only five nuclear bomb paintings.

I then did a political piece consisting of nine iconic images that I digitally manipulated, printed and then encased in hot wax: my “What Have We Become?” piece.  However, for most of my painting history, I have been primarily concerned with the formal qualities of art — just the beauty of the stuff on the canvas — and I always meant to avoid political statements, so this piece has (so far) stood as kind of a one-off.

Then I tried animating some encaustic paintings, but my physical set-up made that a very difficult process, so I have also put that aside for the time being.

After trying all of the above, I had a flash of inspiration and painted my set of poppy paintings (the four paintings starting with this one).  Simultaneously, I moved on to painting abstract works in encaustic.  You can see all of those pieces on my Encaustic gallery page.

In the beginning of 2008, I moved back to painting in oil again — which feels so much like home to me — and I also tried acrylic, which has now found a place in my work (when I want to work both large and fast).  But after that, I kind of hit a dead end with encaustic.  The rest of my work was becoming organic, but my next attempts at encaustic took on a design-y kind of rigid structure.  I did about 6-8 paintings like that this past summer at a workshop, and have been really unsatisfied with most of that work.  In fact, I have removed all but two of them from my Encaustic gallery page, though you can view them in the tiny thumbnail gallery below.

I’ve also tried working in ways that I see many other encaustic artists work — collaging paper and fabrics into the hot wax, scraping and carving, and embedding objects in the wax — but so far, for me, these have mostly been dismal failures.

Meanwhile, back at the easel, my latest work was taking on quite an organic shape (see the organic series on the Sketches page – now in it’s very own gallery: Organics), so I thought I’d try this imagery in encaustic as well as oil and acrylic; after three partial days of messing around with this piece, I am pretty happy with the outcome.  I’m preparing several more panels to continue my explorations in this direction.

This one, Happy Together, is just the first of my encaustic pieces for my new Organics series, and I do anticipate that I will be quite happy with subsequent pieces.  What do you think?

I’m not the least bit comfortable with marketing talk and sales pitches, but I am trying to do what I can to make it easy for my collectors, fans, friends and family members to consider a gift of art for that special someone on your holiday shopping list.  For not much more than the cost of a book and for less than a fancy dinner out, you could give someone the gift of an original and inspired painting — a gift that they can enjoy for a lifetime (how am I doing with that marketing thing? ).

To make it quick and easy for you to buy my small paintings, I started a new simplified blog expressly for selling my small art; no muss, no fuss — just small paintings at small prices, with easy Paypal “add to cart” buttons.  It’s called “Small Wonders” and is located here: Small Wonders.

Of course, anything on this website that has not already sold is also for sale; some are listed in my Etsy shop (and all my available 6″x6″ and 5″x7″ paintings are on the Small Wonders blog), but you can always feel free to contact me via email or phone if you are interested in any of my available paintings (or even a limited edition print of a painting).  But don’t wait too long; I just sold three more paintings today!

Perhaps even better news for my followers, fans, and collectors (or would-be collectors) is that in response to the challenges of this recession, I have significantly reduced the prices on all of my paintings — some as much as 33% – 40% less than before.  These are down-to-the-bone prices for me, and chances are they will never be lower!

The Fine Print:

Pricing:

• All paintings currently listed on the Small Wonders website sell for $50.00 each plus shipping (Texas residents add 8.25% sales tax).
• With only two exceptions, all other paintings on this website or listed on Etsy are currently available for between $100.00 – $600.00.  That’s only $600.00 each for beautiful (IMHO; YMMV) 3 foot x 3 foot paintings!!!

Payment:

• Paypal: Payment for any item can be made via Paypal, which does not require you to have a Paypal account, is free for the buyer to use, allows you to use your Visa, MasterCard, Discover, or American Express card, or even a bank account if you do have a Paypal account.
• Other: You may also pay by cash or money order, or if I know you, by personal check.
• Layaway: You may ask me to hold something for you in Lay-away, and make payments in installments, for no extra charge.  I will ship you the artwork after the final payment.

Shipping:

• Shipping is via USPS Priority Mail, which takes about 1 work day for handling and 2-3 days for shipping.
• Priority Mailing in time for Christmas needs to happen within about the next two weeks.
• All shipped artwork is insured, includes Delivery Confirmation™ and may allow for online tracking.
• Multiple purchases to the same address will be packaged together, if possible, to reduce overall shipping costs.
• You can request Express shipping at a higher cost, of course.

Colors:

• Most, if not all, of my paintings look far better in person than online.  The texture of the works does not translate well on screen, nor does the gorgeous surface of encaustic paintings.
• I strive to accurately reflect each painting’s true colors online, but some discrepencies may exist due to variances in monitor settings and monitor quality, and inherent difficulties that arise from translating pigment colors into the RGB colors of light.

I attended E.A.S.T. in 2004 and 2005, and really enjoyed meeting the artists and seeing their artwork and studio spaces.

Then from 2006-2008, I opened my east Austin home and studio (such as it is) to the touring public. It was great to have folks come to my space and talk about my art, to make some friends and sell a few paintings.   But it is a lot of work to prepare for such an event, and having just had my first solo show (which was also a huge amount of work), I decided not to open my studio this year.

I have been thrilled to attend E.A.S.T. as a visitor again. For the past three years, I have really missed visiting other artist’s spaces, seeing their work, talking about their art, and of course, meeting the artists!

This year E.A.S.T. has been expanded to two full weekends, with additional events nightly throughout the week between.  My hubby and I tried to visit as many painter’s spaces as possible on both weekends, though we weren’t able to make it to the weeknight events.  By the end of the first weekend, we had only made it through about 1/3 of the sections listed in this year’s tour book. We started at the Pump Project Art Complex, which houses about 20 artists.

We began with Leanne’s Venier’s great studio, and enjoyed seeing her lovely colorful abstractions and chatting with her for a bit.   We moved on to Josh Dihle’s space —  Josh is currently working on a comic book. He has mad illustration skills, and I love his paintings as well.  Plus, he’s a really nice guy.

Josh Dihle, talented young painter and illustrator with some of his drawings and comic book pages

We also stepped into Debra Broz’s studio for a bit; besides drawing, painting and collage, Debra is also a professional ceramics restorer, and is (or is it was?) a writer and co-editor for local contemporary art magazine, Cantanker, AND manager of the Pump Project Art Complex.  Plus she was selected as one of the artists in this year’s (Twenty-fourth) New American Talent exhibition at the Arthouse.

We checked out the whimsical work of illustrator Audrey Lopata — great stuff!  You can read an interview with her on the Austinist.

We looked at Erika Jaeggli’s rockin’ representational paintings.  Love her reflections!

We then visited with Jan Roset for a bit, and I really enjoyed looking at her gorgeous bodies of work — she and I are are both really into color — lots of it and high intensity, too.  I love her new “monkey brains” series, but then I love all of her series — lots of energy in her work!

Jan Roset, painter extraordinaire, at Pump Project Art Complex (sorry, this is not a good picture of Jan!)

Kid-altered ocelet drawing by Katherine Sheehan

Then we stopped in the studio of Katherine Sheehan, who does some wonderful prints, mixed media and collage works, and very large pastel drawings.  As we were peering at some of her works, she walked in to discover that someone had run their fingers through the fur pattern on a large pastel drawing of an ocelot, kind of ruining the drawing!  She was pretty copecetic about having to fix it, though — much more than I think I would have been.

A few minutes later as we were about to head upstairs, there — next to his mom — stood a small child, hands all covered in brown and black pastel!  Culprit found.

We then checked out most of the studios upstairs, finishing our tour of Pump Project with Mark Johnson.  As we walked in to his small but very cool space, Mark was typing his business cards on an actual typewriter.  He looks like he ought to be wearing a pork-pie hat, and working under one of those old-fashioned green glass lamps.  

Mark incorporates text and wires into his already compelling paintings and drawings.  Normally, I’m not a big fan of text in a painting, but what Mark does with text takes it to a whole other level, and makes his work even more visually interesting.  I almost stumbled into a piece that had wires sticking straight out about 2 feet into the space, and on the ends of the wires were letters which read “Where is the ”  Anyway, Mark is a very cool guy, great fun to talk to, and creates wonderful work.

Just as we were leaving Mark’s studio, in walks the kid with dirty hands, his hands now clean.  As he starts trying to pull the letters off Mark’s piece mentioned above, his mother at least tells him not to touch the art (though she didn’t stop him from touching it).  Sigh!

Mark Johnson "printing" business cards on his typewriter.

On the path to the Ginko Studios complex

After Pump Project, we headed over to the Ginko Studios complex — a place that feels like it’s in the country, but is actually right in the middle of east Austin.  If I have my story straight, after graduating from UT grad school about 20 years ago, Sunyong Chung made a wise investment in the house and land that is now Ginko Studios on the banks of Boggy Creek; she and her husband, sculptor Philippe Klinefelter, have their residence and studios here.

Sunyong is a potter who will be having a solo sculpture exhibition in the Spring of 2010 at the Austin Museum of Art.  Philippe creates large scale public sculptural installations and works in granite, wood and metal.  Her studio and showroom reflect the delicacy of her work; while Philippe’s studio is jammed with all kinds of industrial looking equipment, tools and projects.  Outside on the grounds are huge chunks of granite and 12-foot mounds of leftover granite chips.

Philippe Klinefelter's studio at the Ginko studio compound.

The work of Sunyong Chung and guest artist Melanie Shopper at Ginko Studios.

From thoroughly enjoying wandering around on the grounds and studios at Ginko Studios, we headed over to Ian Shults‘ home studio. I love what he’s doing in his paintings — how they seem to start out as representational works, but become somewhat abstracted in the breaking up and merging of the image and the “background.” Michael Schliefke is also showing at Ian’s space; Michael is a super-nice guy with some fabulous comic books, “Tales of the Really White Vigilante” (East Austin’s Superhero – which I’m looking forward to reading) — and he’s also an accomplished painter.

For our last stop of the day, we headed over to the Bolm Road complex of studios; Big Medium (where it all began), Bay6 Gallery and Studios, where I have spent many wonderful hours in the past couple of years, and Cari Washburn’s new space, Clay Under Fire Studio | Pigoata Studios.

Ian Shults in his studio with one of his lucious paintings.

Chun Hui Pak with one of her origami inspired paintings in her studio at Big Medium.

I think I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story; click on the tiny thumbnails at the bottom of this post to see all the pictures from this day in random order, OR view them in order here: Day One.

I’ll be writing more (or less!) about days two and three of our tour as soon as I can…If you don’t care to read about them, but prefer to just view the pics, they are here: Day Two (Sunday, Nov. 15th); Day Three (for us – Sat., Nov. 21st).

Names/links to other artists/studios visited:

Bay6 Gallery and Studios:

Sharon Kyle-Kuhn
Chris White
Susannah Blanton

Clay Under Fire Studio / Pigoata Studios:

Cari Washburn
Daphne Holland
Juan Moreno
Alec Drummond

I have touched with a sense of art some people – they felt the love and the life. Can you offer me anything to compare to that joy for an artist? — Mary Cassatt

It was such a great experience to spend so much of this year preparing for my first solo show, and then all too soon and before I felt ready, to have the work get hung, to party with friends old and new at the fantastic opening, to have more people stop by throughout the month to look at my body of work, and finally to reach the closing day with my artist talk, at which so many people I know well and really respect came to listen to me talk about my work. Actually, that was a little intimidating for someone who’s a bit of an introvert.

I am also so grateful to Kevin Kuhn and Sharon Kyle Kuhn, who run the Bay6 Gallery and Studios, for giving me this wonderful opportunity to show my work in such a great space! They are delightful folks, and I am so glad to have come to know them. They made the process of having this show so smooth and unscary.

I picked up my paintings yesterday, and am packaging up for delivery the ones that have received a new home. I also picked up the comments left in the guestbook, and thought I’d share some of those with you. I’ll leave off the names in case anyone is shy about having their name plastered on the web, but if you would like your name attached to your comment, just let me know, and I’ll add it. Finally, I received a few more photos of the show courtesy of fellow Austin painter, Marilyn Rea Nasky, which I will share here with you. Without further ado, here are some of the comments and photos:

Takes my imagination on a trip! Love it!

Beautiful and so free!

Awesome!

Lovely stuff!

Beautiful and so “e!”

Lurves it!

I love the duo “Frilly” and “Peeping Out…” especially.

Mind-provokingly spiritual

Everything looks fantastic. Like your colors, of course!

Wonderful show!

Fantastic!

Resounding color!

I can see your work evolving — it’s a fascinating journey to watch.

And now that my show is over, I plan to paint, paint, paint, and create a whole new body of work. I’ll keep you posted. Sooner than you may think! Stay tuned…

Thanks to everyone who came out for my artist talk yesterday.  We had a great little crowd, and a wonderful discussion.  I sold another painting and a print yesterday, too!  But mostly, I really enjoyed talking to and with all those who came!  

Thanks again to all for spending a gorgeous Sunday afternoon with me!

Photo courtesy of Clay Leben.

Come join me while I talk about my work and my process, how I got to this point, and what I think will be interesting to explore in the future.

Sunday, November 1, 2009 at 2pm.
Bay6 Gallery and Studios
5305 Bolm Rd.
Austin, TX

“The E Word,” continues at Bay6 Gallery until November 1st. Bay6 is open on Saturdays and Sundays from 2pm – 5pm, or by appointment.

Tuesday night, my husband and I went to the One World Theater here in Austin to see Little Feat again. We had seen them there several years ago (from a front row seat), and they had really rocked the small 300-seat joint. My husband had seen them often in their heyday, though I think I had somehow missed them until the show a few years ago.

When we arrived at the gorgeous Tuscan-villa style theater Tuesday night, pianist and singer James Speer was playing in the courtyard. He was very good. He made a lot of music for one guy! (I wonder if he would perform at an art opening?).

Our seats Tuesday night were in row five (out of about only 10-15 rows). I love the intimate little theater at One World! Even with all the huge people in front of us, we had a great view of the stage. I wish more bands I like would play here, but I guess it’s just too small.

One World Theater had a special treat for us Tuesday night…a Cuban-American painter created a large oil painting on the side of the stage during the Little Feat performance. I’m pretty sure his name was Roberto Diaz; however, I can find no evidence of his existence online, so either I have his name wrong or I haven’t searched far enough.

Anyway, I don’t know about everyone else, but I found this kind of disturbing at first. I couldn’t NOT watch him paint! I was fascinated by every brushstroke, the rhythm with which he worked, how he worked kind of fast at first, laying down a background that reminded me very much of a beautifully colored Tchelitchew, how he then slowed down to begin adding a surrealistic figure while the music speeded up with a latin style number.

I loved watching him work; I could watch painters paint all day. But, I couldn’t really pay attention to the music or the musicians for about the first half of the show, until I finally pulled myself out of the reverie of watching Diaz at work.

Seems kind of odd when I — like most painters I know — listen to music while I paint. But when I’m painting, the music I’m listening to kind of fades to background or becomes the soundtrack to my painting. Going to see musicians perform usually does demand my whole attention, though — watching them perform is part of the thrill of live music. I guess I’m not really as capable of multi-tasking as I thought.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the stage, Little Feat’s performance was good — though perhaps a little more like an excellent Little Feat tribute band (well, there is no better Little Feat tribute band, is there?). Their drummer, Richie Hayward, is pretty sick right now and has been temporarily replaced by Richie’s drum tech, Gabe Ford. He’s a strong and competent drummer, though not as buoyant a drummer as Richie. Still, their performance was good solid rock and roll, and the audience was justifiably thrilled.

They played mostly older favorites, including a whole marijuana medley sing-along which included “Willin’,” “Don’t Bogart That Joint,” and a reggae riff. According to my husband’s notes of the setlist, they also played “Time Loves a Hero,” “Day or Night,” “Representing the Mambo,” “Truck Stop Girl,” and “Tennessee, There’s No Place I’d Rather Be” (“Tennessee Jed”?) – not sure of this one. They also played a very long “Dixie Chicken” medley, during which various members of the band left stage and later returned, many solos took place, and a lovely duet of sorts was played by Billie Payne and Austin’s own string player par excellence Warren Hood (more on this below). I’m thinking they might also have done “Rag Mama Rag,” “Easy to Slip” and “Oh Atlanta,” but my husband didn’t make note of that, so I can’t be sure.

It was just before the marijuana medley, I think, when young Warren Hood came out on stage. Warren is an amazing young string player, who we first met at one of Nancy Fly’s house parties many years ago. I think this was when he was performing with the South Austin Jug Band, and just before he went off to the Berklee School of Music. He still looks like a teenager, though I believe he’s about 24 now. He was a delight to watch and listen to; I especially enjoyed the jazzy piece (mentioned above) in which he and keyboardist Billie Payne traded licks. It was lovely and quite uplifting.

Warren is the very talented son of Champ Hood. I used to see Champ perform with Uncle Walt’s Band at the Hole in the Wall shortly after I first moved to Austin decades ago, and later when he played with Toni Price at the Continental Club’s Tuesday Night Hippie Hour. Champ, a member of the Texas Music Hall of Fame and five-time winner of the Best String Player in Austin award, shockingly died of cancer in 2001. I’ve been listening to his great guitar, fiddle and mandolin music live and on LP, tape, CD, MP3 and internet radio for over 35 years.

While I’m feeling weepy, at about this time during the show, the band also mentioned two other local musicians who have passed away this year: Tina Marsh (bandleader, vocalist, composer, dreamer, founder of the Creative Opportunity Orchestra), and Stephen Bruton, a wonderful guitar player and singer/songwriter. We had seen Stephen perform many times at the Saxon Pub (a club started many years ago by another friend of mine who was instrumental, so to speak, in the music scene in Austin during the 70’s and 80’s). I met Stephen Bruton years ago when he performed for the inaugural meeting of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Austin chapter. Tony Jones, then the president of SAIC, was a friend of Stephen’s and had come down to sort of christen our new group.

After the show, I met and talked to the artist Roberto Diaz for a few minutes. He says he had been a studio painter, and had somehow stumbled upon this performing the creation of paintings on stage, which has helped with his success. The sales of his works go to help out some disadvantaged group(s); his works are in the collections of people like Liza Minelli; there was something about him meeting or “performing for” President Obama. Sorry I can’t be more specific — wish they’d had a flyer, business card, or something, or that I could find his website or some info about him online – help me out here if you know anything. They were about to auction off the painting we saw him paint for a starting price of $5000 (signed by Diaz and all members of Little Feat); we didn’t stay long enough to see how that went.

Anyway, it was a delightful evening in a beautiful location with some great rock and roll and even art! I really enjoyed watching Little Feat perform again. However, I’m not quite sure how I feel about having painters painting on stage simultaneously. Great to watch, but too distracting for me to really enjoy the music that I came to hear.

Wendell Castle
Music Stand (1964)
Oak, Brazilion Rosewood
55.5″ x 25″ x 20″

I just discovered this great blog post about an artist/craftsman named Wendell Castle at Emily Evans Eerdmans’ blog.  Wendell Castle has been creating amazing furniture for over 50 years.  He has ten “Adopted Rules of Thumb” for staying at the top of one’s creative game that I find very compelling:

1. If you are in love with an idea, you are no judge of its beauty or value.
2. It is difficult to see the whole picture when you are inside the frame.
3. After learning the tricks of the trade, don’t think you know the trade.
4. We hear and apprehend what we already know.
5. The dog that stays on the porch will find no bones.
6. Never state a problem to yourself in the same terms it was brought to you.
7. If it’s offbeat or surprising, it’s probably useful.
8. If you don’t expect the unexpected, you will not find it.
9. Don’t get too serious.
10. If you hit the bullseye everytime, the target is too near.

To find out more about Wendell Castle, and view more of his amazing creations, visit his website at wendellcastle.com