While dogsitting, I knew that I wanted to continue to create something, anything, but didn’t want to deal with the mess of painting or charcoal or pastel in someone else’s house, so I limited myself to using markers, both alcohol and acrylic, and focused on playing with colour and trying to translate ideas into image.
Here are the drawings that I completed throughout May. All of these are 11 x 14 inches on Canson bristol board.
Juxtaposed
Puppets in the Dark
Girl on Cube 1 and Girl on Cube 2
If you can see this pony you are not colour blind
Sky Pilots
Maybe Unnamed (after Anil Seth)
When you live in a world of metaphor, you need nothing and can do anything
Dancers
Dancing (not really the title)
Another Dancer
When the Corpus Collosum Breaks Down
Atlantic Ocean
Gulf of St Lawrence 1, 2, 3 4
Boys on Beach 1 (iphone photo)
Boys on Beach 2 (iphone photo)
Boys on Beach 3 (iphone photo)
As June approaches, I’m gearing up to make the transition from drawing with markers to making figures using wire, aluminum foil, and air-drying clay. I’m “on the road” throughout June, so these things will be portable and clean.
Here are the tools and the beginnings of the first figure:
I’ve just come up for air after another semester at school. I think I have two more required courses to complete before I gain my diploma, which will take me to April 2024.
Here are the pieces that I created in drawing and printmaking courses. And maybe a couple that I made on my own time (I can’t recall if I had any of my own time)
The first drawing immediately below is part of an exercise in drawing class. First, I had to draw something that I would not ordinarily draw, something that I “hate”, for whatever reason: colour, medium, line use. So I drew a princess who came with a saying:
The second part of the assignment involved converting the first drawing into another drawing, working on top of it and doing whatever I needed to do to make the next drawing. I ended up with this:
Also, I continued to go to the gym.
In printmaking, I created my first linocut, entitled “Measure by Cod”.
I think the following sketch would have made an interesting screen print.
Instead, though, I opted to convert a drawing I had done last June for the basis of a screen print. First, below, the drawing (pastel), and then the screen print. I had called the drawing “Re-evolution” (for reasons that are now lost to me) and the screen print has the title of “Cod Surfing”.
In printmaking we also did an etching; I had grand ideas for the etching, but it didn’t turn out as I had hoped. I’ll post it here anyway, but without explaining the grand idea.
In drawing we had two other assignments: model studies that we did in class, and a drawing project for which we had to write a proposal…and then carry it through.
One of the model studies involved drawing a live model who sat and played the drum for different lengths of time. At one point we were to prepare a substrate for our model drawing, and using acrylic paint, I created two backgrounds for two 30 minute drawings. Here are the backgrounds and the drawings that they became. I think I may eventually return to the first drawing to get rid of the Homer Simpson-looking head; the second completed drawing below is called “Heartbeat”.
For the other drawing project, I had to write a proposal for what I intended to do, and I planned to use thick card board sheets and use markers to draw a series of 10 pieces, each of which would be a depiction of a “transit”; I was thinking of all the changes I had gone through in my life, and was currently going through, and saw myself as moving through a series of portals. I saw each of the ten pieces as a part of an autobiographical graphic novel. Things did not go exactly as planned, which is exactly why I like proposals: they just show you where you started and where you ended up. I won’t include all the process photographs in here, but this is what I ended up with…each section of the nine is 20 x 24 inches, which means the total size of the drawing is 60″ x 66″; I used markers for the most part, and the large black bird was made with oil stick. Maybe it’s needless to say that I have left behind the idea of turning this into a graphic novel, as the black bird pulls all the separate panels into one. Of course I have process photographs, so I suppose it is not impossible.
The following drawings are all from after the end of school. I’m living a bit of an ungrounded life at the moment, so I’m working very small scale and allowing myself to be a bit silly. Here is the silliness from my 11 x 14 sketchbook:
Finally, here are some photographs of me, included here because in all three of them I am goofing around. For the last two, I was pretending that I was sitting for my book jacket photograph; it seems important to have one’s hands under one’s chin, and in my case it’s a good idea to keep my neck covered.
And finally finally, here is the book that I am reading to keep my mind occupied while my access to comfortable drawing spaces is limited.
Maybe that wasn’t really the finally finally. Music. I’ll end with some music. I “found” the following piece, mentioned in an article I had been reading about some of the most sublime art ever made. I had never heard of it, or heard it. Now I’m listening to it over and over again so that it becomes part of my cellular structure.
I’ve started going to the gym. Yeah. I decided I would do before, during, and after drawings of my self. maybe these drawings will be the prototype of where I want to get to with putting myself into a calorie deficit and getting active.
Farther down on this post I’ve included some photographs of myself. I feel a bit self-conscious about doing so, but this part of my life, this “getting healthy” part of my life, demands that I record my self…illustrate for myself what I am doing, how I am progressing, which is made difficult by prosopagnosia and perhaps a touch of body dysmorphia…?
June 4, 2022
Each one of these pieces is 22″ x 30″, so the total height when they are added together is 88 inches, or 7 feet, 3 inches high; the figure is larger than life. I did this in recognition of my ongoing struggle to “see” myself; maybe if I make myself larger, I’ll be able to see. It does seem like a good start to this project; I don’t know where the project will go, but I will add to it as I progress in my going-to-the-gym journey. I can see that I’ve not included anything about my “gym” experiences so far. I’ll address that in my next post.
I have something called “prosopagnosia”, which means “face blindness”. I also have a very difficult time seeing what I look like. Not just my face, but also my whole body. My body got larger and larger and although I knew it had, in some ways I couldn’t tell except that my clothes had to get bigger and bigger.
bangs…I decided to give myself some bangs.
I did an assessment of my eating habits. I realized that I was lactose intolerant and that I could not tolerate eating eggs. When I looked at how I might improve my eating habits, I realized that eating a plant-based diet might be a good way to go. So that’s what I did. But then I missed seafood, so I added prawns and salmon back into my diet, which means I don’t need to take an omega-3 supplement.
I lost 40 pounds between July 1 and January 1.
I’d like to lose another 20 pounds, but the last 20 will be harder. When I look at this most recent photograph below, I can see that my upper body has benefitted from the weight loss. Visually. But I also keep track of my bodily measurements, and I know that in terms of inches, I’ve lost inches proportionately at my chest, waist, hips, upper thighs, and lower thighs.
But really, to express how difficult it is for me to see myself, I don’t really see a huge difference between the photograph that follows and the one that comes before. Except my shoulders looks skinnier,
…is over tomorrow…and I return to the classroom, this time to take three classes. I had registered in five classes, in part in an attempt to bring my “schooling” to a close, and to focus on drawing/sculpting, whatever, outside of an academic setting. At some point I really need to stop going to a school, although I’ve come to wonder if there is some sort of astrological arrangement that condemns me to formal classrooms into infinity.
This winter I’ll be taking the second half of a second year drawing class, a first year art history class that I’ve been avoiding, and a philosophy of art class, which I’ve been looking forward to. Kind of. After this year, I think I’ll have one or two more credits to complete before I can get my diploma, and the two year diploma will have taken me four years. Next year I’ll take a couple of printmaking classes and the second half of the required first year painting class.
WRITTEN IN EARLY DECEMBER:
…as soon as school ends, I experience a burst of new creativity; I feel as if I must draw something that is undefined by an assignment but which comes from inside of me. I’d like to get at least ten drawings completed, six of them on 8ft x 3ft paper.
This drawing, which started out being an anti-red piece, eventually morphed into an “ode to the release of colour”. Elements of red-dislike remain in the drawing, so clearly there is something to figure out in there. The following drawings begin with the finished piece and then show a few close-ups.
This first one feels like a warm-up, a precursor to the much larger ones that follow.
the following drawing is entitled: “the girls loved their mother but they did not understand her” (8 ft x 3 ft; pastel and charcoal on heavy duty flooring paper)
some day I may say more about this drawing, or I may draw more on this theme. I am attracted to representing women at the many stages of their lives.
Solstice drawing (completed December 21, 2022)
“the returning light brings its own new darkness”
8 ft x 3 ft; pastel and charcoal on heavy duty flooring paper.
this drawing expresses the human condition as I see it: that our light embraces the darkness within. I suppose another drawing might express the opposite. I am a fan of the dark side of being human.
“Nashville Cats”, 8ft x 3ft, pastel on brown paper.
This drawing is based on a photograph of her two cats posted on IG by a friend. With permission. The cats remind me of the cats I painted for “Lola’s Blue Cats”. I like their playfulness.
I had hoped to draw six very large (8 feet by 3 feet) drawings over the break, but I found the sheer amount of pastel I was consuming to make the drawings to be financially prohibitive. And raised the question for me…why draw these very large drawings using very expensive materials for no particular purpose other than to draw them?
These three are rolled up on a shelf, and will likely remain that way until some person in the future decides they must be recycled. This thought raises questions of meaning…and purpose.
Anyway, I decided to draw the next few drawings on a much smaller scale, which is less fun but more economical. I do like those very large drawings; I like the feeling of drawing big, and as I draw big, I feel like I’m emphasizing the importance of whatever it is I think I’m saying in the drawing that goes beyond just the drawing itself…kind of the energy that informs the drawing. I think that having titles for my drawings that are a snippet of the stories I’m telling myself while I’m drawing are part of that impulse to express something that I think is important.
The following drawing, completed on December 26, entitled “Peter with red umbrella”. I consider this one to be a “study” for a more complex drawing that I will need to do a few different studies for. I won’t get them all done during this break, but this starter piece has given me some ideas that I’ll work with for subsequent pieces; I think it might take me a while to “get it right”.
35″ x 23″, pastel.
“Thinking by a window”. 35″ x 23″, pastel.
I spend time with my granddaughter, Lola. While she is active, I try to make quick sketches of her. Here are two drawings that came about as a result of some sketches, and then the sketches follow.
The next drawing is called “Girls in Dresses, Part I”. I’m not sure if there will ever be any other parts, but my intention had been to make several parts over the break. But I got to the point where I needed a break from drawing, and instead of continuing with the series, I rested quite a bit.
“Girls in Dresses, Part I” is based on my granddaughter’s love of dresses and of movement. I am also inspired by Rumer Godden’s 1955 book called “Impunity Jane, the story of a pocket doll”, my favorite book for most of my life.
This drawing is really a study, and my intention had been to make the subsequent drawings more detailed. I have no idea if I will return to this series, or if it will end at part 1, or merely pause for months or years.
I haven’t posted anything since early October, and that’s because I’ve been going to art school and working on assignments that look like…assignments. But I have done a few things and I’ll post them here.
The Birth of Colour
Some raku
Scorpion Eater
Versions of my self looking back at me
Woman with many arms
Self (unbearable weight of being)
untitled drawing (6 feet by 8 feet)
After the end of semester…
I feel compelled to draw things that I really want to draw, that aren’t assignments. Here are three drawings that come from that sense of relief I feel once a semester (and assignments) are complete. Pastel and charcoal, model studies of live model.
I’m back at school, working on the second year of a two year diploma program, and although I hadn’t originally intended to be a full time art student thinking about my “art future”, I do find myself in the odd place of doing just that.
At the beginning of the summer break, I asked myself what it would be like to put my “self” as the subject of a design brief, a planning document that could guide my work, my material investigations, my material practice. So I created an extensive document that laid out what might well be a life’s work; or at least work for the next several years.
I spent the summer launching myself into the project, and as I’m working on my coursework, I am attempting to both meet the criteria of the course requirements and the goal of my self-oriented design brief.
In the design brief, I ask the question: how can a person deliberately change the self, as if the self were a living sculpture that is open to, or vulnerable to, deliberate change. I lay out several categories that comprise a self: physical, emotional, psychological, political, environmental, familial, cultural, and spiritual. My intention and plan is to take unflinching look at my self as it manifests each of those areas, and while taking this unflinching look and possible unflinching responses to changes that I see I would like to make, I will document how I see and experience my changing self through writing, drawing, photography, and painting.
The pastel drawings I did this summer were the beginning of that, a way to keep myself focused on the project, but before I began in earnest.
The following pieces are a subset of what I am working on in the classes I am taking, first and second year college courses in which I’m still learning.
Having lost thirty pounds, I am able to fit into the $6 rain suit I found at Dollarama because my hips are less intrusive. I need a rainsuit so that I can continue to ride my bicycle throughout the winter.In painting, we are working with greyscale and painting self-portraits without using brushes. These four here are studies in which I am experimenting with grey tones and using mostly my fingers and rags to make marks. The next step is to paint a self portrait in greyscale. This is the photograph I’m using to paint the greyscale self-portrait.
On October 1, I spent the morning at the studio at the college, where I prefer painting, especially with acrylics. I’m a pretty messy painter (well, I’m pretty messy at just about everything). Below is where I left off at the end of the session. Total hours = 5. So much further to go until I no longer look like a ghost.
Self portrait in greyscale (unfinished)In drawing, we are working with melting ice. Through the material investigations both in the studio at school and at home, I came to see my self as melting, just as glaciers are melting, and the frame of my larger project helped me to conceptualize the shrinking self as a metaphor for the shrinking glaciers. This is one of 9 drawings that I did in class using a block of ice, charcoal powder, and burnt umber charcoal stick to make a melting ice field seen from a distance, where the fact of its melting is not immediately obvious. In this photograph, a block of ice into which I have frozen a small doll, is melting onto a sheet of watercolor paper onto which I have sprinkled some powdered charcoal. The intention is to see the patterns the water creates in and with the charcoal. The patterns change as the water becomes heavier and pushes across the paper, carrying the charcoal powder with it. The purpose of this practice is to get a close up view of melting ice. This close up view is created by the melting block of ice into which the doll has been frozen. As the layers of ice melt away from the doll, she is released from that prison. This is one of my selves, emerging as the ice melts. I think she must be responsible for all the messiness.
and here are some photographs from the second ice melt session:
I wrapped the block of ice in string and suspended it over a sheet of watercolour paper sprinkled with powdered charcoal. I set up a video camera so I could capture some of the action; the cat watched, too. I haven’t processed the video yet. Out of the hundreds of photographs I took, occasionally I managed to capture something interesting. This shows a string a water falling from the bottom of the melting ice block. Sometimes I managed to capture the surface of the water as it responded to a new drip. This photograph shows the rounded edge of the water as it advances across the paper. downloading a couple of hundred photos at a time. I went through them later and deleted most of the duplicates. many of the photographs look like landscapes. barren landscapes. which is appropriate, seeing as how I’m trying to capture something of the feeling of melting glaciers…cutting down the melting ice block. it eventually became too dark and the video camera battery was down to 5% and the memory card was full.
I’m excited to get to the video editing to see if the camera captured anything not captured by the camera or by my eyes.
So, yeah, I go into the zone when I do these multiple hour sessions, and for now I think I’ll take these photographs of myself to see if I can capture the zoned-out look. Maybe I’ll start to think I’m being too narcissistic, but for now it feels okay.
This post closes off the summer of 2022, a time during which I spent making adjustments to my “self” and which culminated in learning that I had received a BC Arts Council scholarship, an award that requires that I study art full time this coming academic year. This means that I will be entering new territories, both in terms of the challenges that my courses offer me and in terms of continuing to grow personally, the deeper I get into the third act. As a friend pointed out to me, I am a “free agent”, and free agency means, for me, being able to explore my humanity as deeply as my imagination can take me. At this point in my life, this exploration is enabled through visual art and to a lesser extent, through writing.
Keep Your Sisters Close, 20″ x 26″; charcoal and pastel“when you shed that stuff where does it go?”, 22″ x 26″, pastel, India ink, and charcoal.“Blue Balm”, 22″ x 26″, pastel and charcoal.Untitled; 26″ x 22″; pastel and acrylic ink. The Open Door, 22″ x 26″, pastel.So Many Words, 22″ x 26″, pastel. unflinching glimmer of a smile, 22 x 26, pastel.
S.P. #20, 20″ x 24″, charcoal and pastel. Bitumen Shower, 20″ x 24″, charcoal and a soupcon of pastel.Unfinished Finished (people on the ferry), 20″ x 26″, pastel.Only a Matter of Time, 20″ X 26″, pastel and charcoal.Sources, 20″ x 26″; pastel and charcoal.
I see this male figure as both arising from and sinking into a hot, melting landscape. The cool areas are an illusion. The creator is the destroyer.
Legs. 18″ x 24″. Charcoal and pastel on vellum.
I love the angularity of these legs.
A Slightly Damaged Fence. Charcoal and pastel on vellum. 18″ x 24″.
In the writing I’ve been doing recently, I’ve been drilling down to identify my passions, and one of the things that I’m exploring is a love of pattern. This fence is the first exploration of this.
Wingspan, charcoal and pastel, 18″ x 24″
This particular drawing has several layers as I kept trying to get to where I thought I was going; I never quite got there, and I’m dissatisfied with where it sits at this point. I’m going to let it sit for a while, and get back to it after a few days of hanging it on the line where I can look at it casually from time to time.
When I photograph the sketches as they “cure” on the line, other pieces I’ve made show up beside it, behind it, and shadows sometimes fall across the paper. I’m enjoying this accumulation of figures, both 2D and 3D, as they inhabit the space in whatever ways that they will. Bamboo. 18″ x 24″. charcoal and pastel.That’s Some Dance, pastel. 18″ x 24″
This next sketch is a wip. I’m not sure what to do with the head; also, the spikes on the head really need a lot of work. I might try to make another version of this, fixing the head.
Pink Mist. 20″ x 26″. Charcoal, pastel, acrylic. WIP.untitled, 22 x 30untitled, 20″ x 26″untitled, 20″ x 26″figure studiesfigure studies
A few years ago I made a Barbie tree from a basic wire structure. I added some dolls that I had partially painted with green and orange paint, and who had pieces of broken mirror glued to their body parts. I think this may have been my attempt to deal with body dysmorphia. I’m not sure if I actually have body dysmorphia, but I have a limited ability to know what I look like, probably related to something I know I “have”, which is prosopagnosia, the inability to recognize others by their facial features…unless I know them really well. Even then, if someone I know really well dyes their hair, or shows up where I’ve never seen them before, I just might not recognize them until I hear their voice.
Anyway, a few years ago I made a Barbie tree, and it has been sitting on a high shelf in my apartment, gathering dust. I never look at it. In fact, it scares me a bit, with all its broken mirror bits.
Also, I find that people who see this tend to feel sorry for me; but I just find this funny, so maybe there is something off about my sense of humour. Well, I don’t really care, but I don’t need to keep this any more.
And I really don’t like Barbie dolls. As you can see.
Today I decided to dismantle it. I did this in the kitchen, as you can also see.
I also decided to record the dismantling, and put it here, because really this is my only diary to speak of, and I guess I’ll continue to keep this diary until…I can no longer write or do art or take photographs.
I think she might be a Disney princess.She looks pretty good on this little stand, so I’ll keep her for now. Also, I like that her lower right leg is made from a mirror shard.She has the best face, so I’ve decided to keep her. And hair. I’d love to have hair like that.Even if I cut myself a fringe, I still wouldn’t look like her.can they be recycled?I’ve decided to keep the stand because it can be repurposed.
thinking about some stuff (that makes me sad) aka S.P.#18. 22″ x 30″. Pastel on paper.woman with red straps (revised) 22″ x 30″; charcoal and pastellooking at fingerswoman with green arms aka S.P. #19 (22″ x 30″); coloured charcoal and pastel.Climate change? it’s over that way. Charcoal and pastel. 22″ x 30″. Re-evolution. charcoal and pastel. 22″ x 30″.
she took to her bed with a terrible illness, 22″ x 30″, charcoal with pastel. inspired by Hollyhock Flats, across the river from where I walk and liveplaying around with a piece I did in drawing class this past winter by adding coloured lines4 eggs.
I’m taking a drawing course through the Banff Centre this spring, a course which focuses on drawing with pencils, something I avoided doing in my college drawing classes by always opting for charcoal. But, I felt that I wanted to dedicate some time to drawing with graphite, and this course popped up in my FB feed. We are drawing eggs. Day 1, I drew one egg. Day 2, two eggs, and so on. These are the four eggs I drew on day four. I’m not getting better at drawing eggs yet, but the great thing about drawing is that I can SEE what I am doing better or not doing better. Doing something “better” doesn’t necessarily result in a better drawing, though.
woman with red straps, 22″ x 30″, charcoal and pastel.
Trying to draw self-portraits seems to be important to me. I’ve never known what I look like, so drawing focuses my attention on the details that I can’t see on my own. I sit at my easel and look into a mirror propped up to the right, so it feels as if I’m always looking back at myself. I don’t feel as haunted as these self-portraits suggest. I like looking back at self-portraits I tried when I first started art school, and will continue to do self-portraits from time to time as a way to gauge what is important to me at any given time.
There’s something else I like about drawing real people, including but not limited to my self. When I take a photograph of someone, a photograph of my self, I have captured the image at a particular point in time. The picture is taken, and then it is over. When I draw myself, I do this over an extended period of time, making observations of my face, which may be affected in microcosmic ways by what I may be thinking about throughout the drawing process, so I feel as if, unlike a photograph, a drawing is a reflection of the changes that can impact a face over the time of the sitting.
Different micro expressions show up in different parts of the face at different times. So the drawing of a face is a composite of those expressions over the time that the face was observed, not a “moment in time” expression of a photograph. It might be interesting to animate a drawn portrait.
Woman With Pink Scarf (S.P. #13); 22″ x 30″ charcoal, pastel.
After sitting with the self-portrait #13 for a day, I made some changes, reflected below. It still doesn’t really look like me, but I’m keeping both up here so I have a record on my blog, and a reminder not to jump the gun, so to speak, but to let things settle in for a while before I declare them finished. In the next iteration, I fixed the jaw line; toned down the ear by making it smaller and lighter; added some light blue in the background; darkened the sweater collar and shoulders.
Woman With Pink Scarf, s.p. #13 (revised); 22″ x 30″, charcoal and pastel.
Next, I want to try a self-portrait using only shades of blue. And in the next version, I’ll work on getting the eyes smaller and farther apart.
Woman with Blue Scarf, s.p. #14, 22″ x 30″. Pastel. Version 1 Woman With Blue Scarf (revised). S.P. # 14. 22 x 30. Pastel.Softly, Softly. S.P. #15. 24″ x 28″. Pastel and charcoal on brown paper.
I have a number of “projects” that I’m working on, or planned, for the next few months. Right now, while I’m gearing up for the other things I am doing, I’m focusing on drawing with pastels. I also have a small air-dry clay sculpture on the go, but I have ordered a back-iron, a contraption that will help me to make sculptures without having them collapse from the weight.
In my last blog post I included an earlier version of this drawing, not realizing that it wasn’t complete.
I Really Love Your Outfit is a 22 x 30 inch drawing I started working on while seeing outfits from the Met Gala appear on social media. I always find the disconnect between environmental degradation and the “follies” of star culture to be jarring. To the left of this figure is Comox Lake, the local source of water for the communities in the watershed, which has been damaged by logging, especially around Comox Lake but also around the whole watershed. For several years, water advisories were necessary because of increased silt levels in the water supply. Final Sunset, another 22 x 30 piece, is inspired by my sense of present and impending cataclysm, both political and environmental.
I find it impossible to draw anything that does not include some sort of comment on how humans inhabit a dying planet. I am astounded by and curious about my own willingness to continue to turn over my van’s engine, to turn up the heat in my apartment, to run water from a tap. My own contradictions bother me and I try to turn my face away from the contradictions of others, at least until I can get my own under control.
This past winter I did a sketch in my drawing class which I called The Man Who Reached Into Himself. I decided that I wanted to try to turn the drawing into a small sculpture; unfortunately I didn’t plan well enough, and the weight of the air-dry clay on the armature has caused knee-collapse. I’ve got a back-iron on the way, and although I still plan to finish this one, I will make another one using the back-iron, which will provide stability to the armature while I am working on the piece, and until the clay dries. Another mistake I made while creating the armature was starting with one of the hands. I really wanted the hand to be large, I wanted it to look a certain way, and was impatient to get the first hand made. I wouldn’t advise this as a good strategy (driven, as it is, by impatience); much better to get the torso and legs created and then add the hands, feet, and head afterwards, but there it is. That’s what I did and the whole process made me feel unbalanced as I made this piece in an unbalanced way. I do, however, like the hands, and am looking forward to finishing this piece.This is a 20 minute sketch from a drawing class. The 20-minute sketch turned into The Man Who Reached Into Himself. I prefer the original sketch to the one I ended up with after I took it home and kept adding colour, but this is the sketch I used to develop the sculpture.
I haven’t posted anything on this blog for a few months because I’ve been busy, but here are some photographs of some of the work I did in school and out of school since February. My focus this semester was ceramics and drawing, and I’m trying to use materials that are as natural as possible. My question is: how do I make things while at the same time thinking that there are enough things in the world already? I liked working with clay because that’s like working with the earth: some people love gardening, and I love getting my hands into the clay. I didn’t think I would. And what do I draw? I tried to draw with charcoal and pastel, avoiding plastics. Do we need more plastic? No. And I tried to draw things that I am concerned about: the impacts of climate change on water, air, animals (including people).
The Promise. 22 x 30, charcoal and conte. The Promise 2, 22 x 30, charcoal, conte, graphite. Three clay cylinders. ~30 inches high. Existential Threat, 33 x 40 inches. Charcoal, graphite, pastel. The Way of Things. Installation with Chinook salmon made from local clay that cracked in the process. Photographs represent location where I would have installed the completed clay salmon had it not cracked (bottom) and site directly across the river from the proposed installation site (top). From NIC end of year student art show. Chinook salmon maquette with comments compiled as people watched me making the (unsuccessful) Chinook salmon for installation with local clay. The Procession (Cassandra Players) from NIC year end student art show. The Entities Who Visit at the Time of Death (Cassandra Players) from NIC end of year student art show. Installing The Promise 2, NIC year end student art show.
The series of ceramics sculptures entitled Open 1, Open 2, Open 3, and Open 3.2 (immediately below) are pieces through which I was trying to express the ways in which my relationships nurture me. I used a different glaze for each of the pieces, and tried two different firing processes, Raku and Cone 10.
Sculptural ceramics pieces: Open 3 (raku) and Open 2 (cone 10 reduction) (from NIC end of year student art show)Sculptural Ceramics: Open 2 close up (cone 10 reduction)Sculptural ceramics: Open 3.2 (from NIC end of year student art show)Sculptural ceramics: Open 3.2 close-upSculptural ceramics: Open 1. Cone 10 reduction.
This next series of drawings have been embarked upon since school ended in early April. My relationship with colour in my drawings has been tentative, so my first project for the intersession is to push myself into adding colour to drawings, while also staying with the theme of environmental degradation.
River Folk, 22 x 30, charcoal and pastel. Mixed Memories, 22 x 30 inches; charcoal and pastel. I have lived most of my adult life in Alberta and British Columbia, and lived the early part of my life in Quebec and Ontario, and a small amount of time in New Brunswick. I particularly loved Alberta sunsets and blue skies, and am nostalgic for Alberta days. It’s impossible for me to know which part of this drawing represents which province or which season as water and various types of farming are everywhere; I will never forget the first time I saw the Rockies pop up on the horizon from behind the foothills as I drove across western Alberta. currently working on “I Really Love Your Outfit”, 22 x 30.
it’s quite odd to see many of the figures that I have been working on over the past six months sitting in the window of the local art gallery. I’ve tried to keep the exhibit dynamic by moving the figures around among the three plinths, onto the floor, and onto the four wooden crates in the window.The wire-only figure on the right is a new addition, created since the exhibit went up. And the wire figure on the far left is another new addition, also created since the exhibit first went up.
Pottery
This piece is entitled “open” and is the first coil piece I tried. I think of these two vessels as “monstrosities”, and when I told one of my instructors that I thought of them in that way, she suggested I make a third one. So I did.The third monstrosity is not yet complete, and to be fair, I don’t call them “monstrosities”, but instead have entitled them “One of Three”, “Two of Three”, and “Three of Three”. “Three of Three” closer look.“Three of Three” base, which will need to be retextured. These vertical coils are meant to represent underwater grass, and I like the way they swirl and twist around one another.
I’ve been experimenting with rawhide for the past couple of weeks, but took a break for four days, more or less, over Christmas. I bought some pieces of rawhide “seconds”, and had wanted to see how they would look wrapped around some wires, so I constructed a few wire armatures and started wrapped the hydrated rawhide around the wires. I tried sewing some pieces together while wet, but that proved to be difficult, so I bought a leather punch, which made things much easier.
However, I also made a couple of pieces without any rawhide, and they are much cleaner to look at.
Here are some photographs of five different wire sculptures, three with rawhide and two without.
#1 in window with Le Petit chat. These rawhide pieces look like insects to me. #1 (base)Figure #2. This is what the rawhide looks like while its drying. I have to clip it onto the wire.Figure #2. A few additions to the figure, and it looks “noisy” to me. But it feels like a noisy entity. The hips, the knees, and the insect body on the back of the figure are all made with airdry clay. This figure doesn’t yet have a head, and I’m not sure if I’m going to add one. Figure #3. This was the first iteration of the figure, but after this dried, I added a few more elements. The hands are made with airdry clay. Figure #3. Figure #4 The Dancer. I would like to do more of this minimal type of wire sculpture. I love how I can made wire look like a figure. Figure # 4. The Dancer. Figure #4. The Dancer. Figure #5. Insect Woman.Figure #5. Insect Woman. legs.
And, finally, some photographs of cloth (painting tarp, actually)
I realize that I’ve been silent for the past month, and that is because I didn’t really have much that is shareable. I’ve finished my courses for the fall semester, and am moving into Christmas break. Here are a few images of what I’ve been working on.
This is my 21st century representation of Euterpe, the Greek muse of lyric poetry and song. Traditionally, representations of Euterpe have been of a wistful-faced female carrying a harp, a lute, or an aulos, her long hair falling over her shoulders or tied up around her head and held by a wreath. She looks vulnerable, as if herself waiting for inspiration. I wanted to make a muse that is more “practical” looking, more chthonic than ethereal. Originally I was going to have this non-binary figure playing a bass guitar, but the guitar evolved into a bicycle, meant to represent the urgency I feel that we (dwellers on the earth) must change our actions, change our minds, change how we experience the world and act within it. But we shoot the messenger, don’t we? I was aware, am aware, that this figure is quite repulsive. They are made from a wire armature covered with tissue paper taken from old dress patterns, and then covered with photocopied sheet music from a book of music by Chopin, papier mached around the figure. I have used yellow because yellow is both an attractive and repulsive colour; I believe that for the most part people want to engage in “right action”, and/or they want to stop engaging in actions that continue to harm the earth. At the same time, we want to continue to do the things that we have come to love; we are attracted by calls to action (we love the earth), and we are repulsed by those calls to action because if we heed them we will need to stop doing many of the things we love. Although I have largely left behind the work I was doing on the Apocalypse Theatre for the past few months, I realized upon making this figure of Euterpe that I need to return to the theatre and the Cassandra Players. There is so much more to do, and I think now that I have a slightly better idea about how to “plan”, I can return and make a better plan and will have a sense of where I need to go and how to get there with this project, which has been sleeping.
Here are a few photographs I took with my cell phone camera. I seem to be attracted to photographing these monochromatic scenes, where grey disappears into grey. I love this type of weather, this type of light.
Sometimes I can’t help myself from taking more photographs of these entities that live on the shelves and window sills around me. As the light behind them changes, so they change too.
Book binding and poetry
Finally, I’m teaching myself some basic bookbinding techniques, including Japanese bookbinding. I have a basic plan to make a small book with two of my own poems in it, and I’m thinking of making the pages out of watercolour paper and then typing the poems and printing them out on high quality computer paper; I’ll attach the poems to the watercolour paper and draw/paint small watercolour illustrations around the poems, and bind it all together with a Japanese binding technique.
Here is a link to one of the videos I’ve watched. I think this technique looks repeatable, and I plan to use it for this first small book. I haven’t yet decided on a cover.
As I frequently do, I’ll start with the music. Jerusalem in my Heart is a group out of Montreal. Just when I think I’ve found the music that I love the most, I come across something that bumps it out of the way. “that’s the sound I’ve been looking for”, I think to myself, when the new music arrives. And I live, breathe, obsess about the new music until something else arrives out of nowhere.
Here is a link to Jerusalem in my Heart, including a whole bunch of information about the group, and some music samples.
After spending another few hours in the photography studio photographing the entities again, but this time in groupings of two, three, or four (or more), a process during which I became more intimate with each of their personalities, I came away with a concept that will, in a large format that I won’t share here (yet) include the wooden figures I made last year, the white skeletal entities I made in the summer, and the current figures that I’m working on and sharing here now. As part of this concept where I’m starting to see how the figures are “related”, I decided it was time to make a baby. Here is the first baby, and it is called “Before I Was Born”; it’s not really supposed to be me, but that’s the title that popped into my head, so there you go.
Before I Was Born LaDoll air dry stone clay, two inches by one inch. View #1.
I also finished Cat Body since my last post. Baby Body (before I was born) and Cat Body, as well as being part of the larger work I creating, are also part of my assignment for 3D design and integrated studies at the college.
Here is Cat Body.
Cat Body. Six inches high at the head, and ~8 inches from ear to tip of tail. This is the first time I’ve used water colour on one of these figures, and I think this figure might be the transitional figure as I move away from using acrylic (plastic) paint to the more environmentally friendly watercolours. I was really intrigued to watch as the watercolour paint filled the cracks and imperfections of the cat’s head, feet, and tail, and I think there might be some great opportunities to explore in that relationship between the paint and the clay.
Entities in studio for second photoshoot
I have the studio booked again for photoshoots on November 9 and 10. Each time I go into the studio I’m adding the new entities and learning more about their interrelationships.
It takes a really long time to upload each photograph to WP, so I’m only including a small handful of the 200 or so that I took last week. Also, most of them are kind of crappy, so I’ll try to include only those that I think capture some of what I’m trying to express. I have annotated the photographs, as all the entities are “named” now, and it will provide a sense of the narrative.
The Empath is sitting next to The Dreamer, who is in the final hours of life. An entity looks on from behind. The Empath is present during the limen, as the ailing dreamer is about to pass through. Opera Singer, consoled by her earthly consort, The Cowpoke, expresses deep sorrow. The Receiver/The Dreamed (the figure on the left has two names) sits with the Opera Singer next to The Dreamer.The Opera Singer and The Receiver/The Dreamed recede as The Dreamer prepares to leave.Two unnamed entities watch over the moment when the breath stops moving in and out of The Dreamer.Time arrives to claim the breath.The Empath attempts to intercede, but Time will not be stopped. The veil is thin.Time claims breath, The Dreamer ceases to dream. Dog Body accompanies Time as it backs away. Gold Fallen From the Hem of Her Dress embraces the departed Dreamer.
But first…some music. Try Dorothy Ashby. In my musical explorations, I came upon the harp playing of Mary Lattimore (contemporary American harpist), which took me to a BBC radio show (available on the BBC app called BBC Sounds) called Late Junction, hosted by Verity Sharp. In the 29 October podcast is a Mary Lattimore mixtape, introduced by Mary Lattimore, and featuring a number of harpists who influenced her own development as a harpist. The mixtape features harp greats like Alice Coltrane and Dorothy Ashby, the latter of whom was active in the 50s and 60s playing “afro harp”, and “jazz harp”…
If you don’t really like harp, the playing of Dorothy Ashby or Mary Lattimore or Alice Coltrane may change your mind.
Here is a link to Dorothy Ashby on the album “Hip Harp”, from 1958.
And here is Alice Coltrane in a late career harp solo:
And here is a link to Mary Lattimore’s 2016 album called “The Withdrawing Room”. I chose to include this one instead of her more recent “Silver Ladders” because I’m more familiar with it, and I love the atmosphere it creates – I listen to this while in my studio. Beautiful.
Jive Body
Continuing on the theme of “body”
I made this for my friend Lynda, who is a dancer. It’s called Jive Body; I don’t think she jives. But she would if she could. Maybe she used to. Lynda asked me what the wire was for, what she was supposed to do with it. I told her that it is both an energy receiver and an energy transmitter, and that she should/could attach the wire to whatever she wants…including the air. I think she should connect to the harp music of Mary Lattimore.
Cat Body
Gourd Project update
The gourds have been washed in warm soapy water. I chose these four gourds for their exterior appearance. It’s not a sure thing that all of them (or any of them) will “make it” through the drying process, which takes six months, but I’ll work with what I get.
Here is a reminder of the process I’m following to dry the gourds.
After these have dried, I’ll cover them with rubbing alcohol and then put them on a open-to-the-air (indoors) drying rack for a week before removing them to a somewhat darker and cooler space where they will wait for six months. That will take me to the end of April, just in time for a summer project. In the meantime I’ll research and source the materials I’ll use to build the harps that fit across the cut gourd, the type of skin/s that I can use to cover the open side of the gourd, and the types of materials that I might want to use as strings or other percussives that will vibrate to make sounds.
I am not a musician, nor do I have any experience as a luthier. But I love sound. Right now as I write this post I’m listening to Mary Lattimore’s album The Withdrawing Room. Here is the link again, just in case I can tempt you.
The word “desiderium” means “desire, characterized by grief, because the desire can never be met”.
This tableau that I pulled together out of various elements is meant to represent the entities surrounding a person in their last hours. The first photograph, which tries to capture everything, is a fail, so I’ve added a number of other photographs to focus on some of the individual elements. The shell hanging in the middle is a pendulum and the small book covered in cellophane is a book of poems called “Loveletting”, in which each of five poems is an attempt at loveletting, a word based on the concept of bloodletting. A band called Sons of an Illustrious Father has a song called “Loveletting” (lyrics here: https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Sons-of-an-Illustrious-Father/Loveletting), and here is a YouTube video of the song by the actual band (sound, no visuals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duOKZHs7-LY), but other than that I could not find it mentioned anywhere on the big bad interwebs. I used the word and then later found the song by Sons of an Illustrious Father.
Desiderium (full on view)Desiderium (with focus on far left entity and poetry booklet)Desiderium (with focus on silver entity and reclining figure under light blanket)Desiderium (with focus on far right entities)Desiderium (with focus on shell pendulum)Desiderium (reclining figure with wires)
Here is the music, sort of. I love Laurie Anderson, and I love the idea of making my own instrument, something that has no preexisting rules for how to play it, and something that is not necessarily tuned to any currently used scale. I’m not sure if that is possible. But I’m going to try.
Catastrophic Water Event
This is a short post this week, in part because I’ve had problems with the plumbing in my condo, with plumbers, ServiceMaster folk, and building management traipsing around in here. I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say that my life has been disrupted and I’ve not been feeling that great. Mostly I’m riddled with worry.
Skateboarder
The skateboarder is now lashed to a plexiglass rod in an attempt to create “air”. I have to continue to build it up with the plasteline, but I know I’m stalling on this because I don’t really like where this piece is going, and it feels like I might put in a lot of work for nothing. So, that will require some strength of will that I didn’t have this week. Here’s another view of the skateboarder on the plexiglass rod. I drilled a 3/4 inch hole in a piece of wood which will become the stand for the piece. I think the rod is probably a bit too high, so I’ll cut it back a couple of inches. I’m thinking of getting a 1/4 inch rod for the angelfish.
This skateboarder is part of an assignment in the sculpture class, as is the following piece that I worked on while the plumbing was making life horrible. Generally speaking, I love working on long-term projects, ones that I have to put together piece by piece over a long period of time. However, I also need smaller projects to work on at the same time, so that I get some feeling of accomplishment along the way. This is why I have the two projects running side by side, and then of course the lyre-making project, which makes it three projects.
From above, this piece is based on a watercolour drawing I did in 2019. Like this sculpture, the drawing is simple, and my purpose was/is to capture the posture of a person in the final hours of their life. This figure is lying on a simple bed and in a position that he has been placed by a care aide. In an earlier phase, I just really wanted to capture the simplicity of the end of life. As I watched my father dying months before I drew the original picture that this is based on, I was struck by his breath, how even as it seemed that most of everything else about “him” had shut down, his breath kept entering and exiting his body, and then it seemed that it wasn’t even “his” breath but that it was what I started to think of as “life”. And I kept thinking, watching the air go in and out, that “life wants to live”. After he stopped breathing, his heart continued to beat for another ten minutes.
All life really wants is to live. A convenient metaphor right now is to think of the breath of life as a virus occupying our bodies until our bodies give out.
Here is the original drawing, which I called The Yellow Rose. The yellow flower in the window is meant to be a rose, and I placed it there because my mother had loved yellow roses, and I imagined her, in the form of that rose, to be in the room. My father outlived my mother by thirty years.
So, the skateboarder and the small sculptures I’m making here are both part of my sculpture class. I have proposed to make a life-sized skateboarder, using my grandson as my primary model, and 100 “entities”, these small sculptures made of air-drying clay. 100 is an arbitrarily chosen number, but I chose it because I consider myself to be a slow learner, and I’m hoping that by the time I get to the 100th entity, it might actually be pretty good. Also, when you do multiples of things like this, set a goal of 100, that gives room for what I do and how I do it to change and evolve, which may be the same as saying that I might get better. Ideas beget ideas. It’s addictive.
Lyre-making
Making a lyre is a longer term project that is not necessarily attached to any course I’m taking, or going to take. I introduced the project in an earlier post, and have since managed to find some squashes to turn into gourds to turn into lyres.
I also bought some strings for an eight-string ukulele. The next step is to clean and sanitize the squash, put on a screen to dry for six months, and then once dry, hollow them out and start to prepare for covering with a skin.
Next steps for lyre making:
find skin for covering
design a “harp” structure to be placed over the skin which is covering the hollowed out half-gourd. The process I’m following for making the harp is described in an earlier post, and while that maker cut out and shaped pieces of wood for his lyre, I’m going to look into other possible materials to use for the harp part of the lyre, and because I love working with figures so much, I’m going to see if I can make the harp structure look like figures instead of just pieces of wood.
This is a short youtube video showing the lyre maker playing his handmade lyre. Paul Butler is actually also a musician, and wanted his lyre to be playable.
I gathered together these five items and MIGHT make an assemblage from them for FIN 140, Creative Processes.Bacon Grease on the bottom of a pan.
I made two more entities this week. They each have a set of wings, although it’s difficult to see them in these pictures. More to come.
Last year I saw some art that used sausage casing…hmmm…I can’t recall who the artist was, so I’ll have to look that up and update this post later, if I can find her.
I want to use sausage casing for the wings on this second entity, so before diving in, I did a test.
I grabbed a random piece of wire and twisted it, also randomly.
I then cut off a piece of sausage casing from one of the strings of casing, dipped it in water, and wrapped the casing around part of the wire, to see what would happen.
The casing immediately became very difficult to handle as the water made it very slippery. Next time, a bit less water before wrapping it around the wire, and maybe use tweezers to handle the wet casing.
I dabbed a small amount of blue acrylic paint (Golden transparent phthalo blue green shade high flow acrylic).I like the way that the blue infuses the cracks of the sausage casing. I think I’ll try doing the same thing with some watercolour paint to see what the difference is. I left this to dry overnight.This is what the dried sausage casing with dried acrylic paint looks like this morning. I like the look, but will also try using watercolour paints to see if I can get a subtler look. Sausage casing infused with watercolour cobalt blue hue is a much better fit for the entity. Entity is painted and one wing has been added. Paint will be repainted and details added. Entity is painted.
Entities on a Window Sill
This morning’s rising sun looked great on the entities on the windowsill, casting shadows on their bodies and reflections onto the window behind. Well done, Sun and Entities!The orb of an interior light fixture reflects onto the window, providing a backdrop for the entities.
Lyre-Making Progress
I’ve found a couple of squashes to turn into gourds, and one, or both of them, will become a lyre. I also have a set of eight strings ready. This project will likely take me a year or longer. Updates kept here.
The Skateboarder and the Angelfish
I made this watercolour drawing in 2019. Here’s the armature for the first maquette. The long term goal is to create a life-size sculpture, using duoMatrix-G. Right now there are two test pieces of duoMatrix-G sitting outside to see how they fare in the weather. This armature will be covered with Plastilene, which will allow me to change the configuration of the arms and legs because as an oil-based non-drying clay, it will not harden. After I decide on the position of the body, I’ll make another armature with the “final” posture, and use LaDoll clay and work on more accurate body proportions to see how it all works together.Here is the armature with some Plasteline on it. The pants need to get narrower at the ankles. I can work on that on the next armature, as well.
Well, I gave it a body and a HEAD! Oh my gosh, his head is awful.
Wrinkles on his forehead.The cat mostly ignores me until I start to work on these figures. Here the cat is starting to chew on the small copper coloured wire bits that I inserted into the end of the scarf as tassels. This view shows the Skipping Man with his feet glued to the base, and the base partly painted with bronze paint. The front foot is surrounded by LaDoll clay. I know better; I should keep the feet to the end and put the wires from the armature into drilled holes in the wood. Having to stabilize the figure this way with paint containers while the glue dries is not really the right way to do things.
The scarf has been painted, but I still have a few more details to add on the scarf, and I need to remove the paint containers and paint the rest of the base.
At this point I’m starting to get excited about putting on the finishing touches and looking at the whole ridiculousness of what I’ve created.
And, and, and…
Art School stuff:
one of the courses I am taking (I am taking two) is called Creative Processes. The first assignment is to make an assemblage.
I had an assignment which I documented elsewhere (in an actual physical process book, and on my school blog), so I won’t include all the process documentation here. But here are some photographs I took along the way.
Research
My Modern Met, from June 9, 2017, has a full article with photographs of wire sculptures. I’d like to get to the point where I can work JUST in wire, and have it look good. For now, though, I’ll continue on the current trajectory until I’ve learned everything that I want to learn.
I can’t include the link to the Met here, because the Met doesn’t seem to allow itself to be linked to (?).
Last year I thought I’d like to try to make a lyre. I found a great website describing how to do so, and I put the idea aside until this fall, when I’d be able to find some gourds at the market.
I don’t actually have much new to add this week. I started school AND I was really tired so I took too many naps.
But, I did “finish” the cowpoke, and here are some photographs of the cowpoke, and then some with the cowpoke and opera singer.
You can just see one of the spurs in front of the green. I had to embed the cowpoke’s feet into a bed of stones, all held together with glue gun glue. The boots feel apart at one point, so I also had to rebuild them. The belt buckle has an “A” on it, put there not to stand for my name, but because the capital letter “A” is so fun to paint.
I modelled the hat on a stetson that I saw on the Stetson webpage. I like how I managed to keep the ears sticking out of the hat. Everything is really rough, lots of cracks, uneven coloration. I’m torn between thinking its not good enough and thinking that I love the imperfections, that anyone playing with this cowpoke will not only be in relationship with the “toy”, but also will be aware that there was a “maker”, also with imperfections.
I have a thing about “perfect” toys, mass produced or not.
Here the cowpoke is about to lasso themselves an opera singer. shadows and reflections…After I put the cowpoke and the opera singer on the shelf to marinate, I started to make a little wire dog. Under the wire dog are two paint brushes marinating in coloured water. Bad bad.I also pulled out an armature I had made a couple of weeks ago. I had planned to return to this AFTER making the horse, but apparently I’m stalling on the horse (haha, unintended pun).I added a skipping rope to the blue figure and hung it from a lamp. I’m really drawn to those “ropes” and hanging figures…because they move, or have the potential to. As soon as I picked up the clay for this figure, my fingers immediately started to work differently as they applied the clay to the body. I wasn’t as focused on defining the limbs; rather, I started by creating clothes on the figure. It felt really different, and maybe that’s why I needed to sleep for a few days before returning to the figures. I embedded a tiny stone in the figure’s chest. Well, um, I really like doing this. Glad I found a retirement hobby…but I also have another hobby in retirement:
DIGRESSION in which I received the following TM:
LATER:
Interesting to note in the above screen-shot that all but one of my crypto choices are (were) in the red. Also interesting to note is my total investment is just over $200. I know my limit!
BACK TO THE MAIN STORY:
ART SCHOOL STUFF:
So, I went to my first class in FIN 140 this past week; our first assignment is an assemblage. Here is what I have done so far to get ready. We are to gather up 4 – 5 non-precious objects, do an object analysis, and then bring them to class with various connecting devices such as string, tape, glue.
(I’m taking two classes this fall, and I suspect there may be some competition between what I WANT to do and what I HAVE to do for my assignments. Lots of naps.)
Object #1. Found in a ditch, and is apparently a connector piece to hold together sections of temporary fencing. I love my ditch finds. Object #2: A doll I bought at a thrift store several years ago. I have a box of such thrifty dolls, and I pulled her out for this project because she has a very weird face.Object #3. I don’t know what this is really, but I think its for gas lines. Or maybe water? I like it because those two black things move. And because it has the word “no” on it…heh, or likely that’s the word “on”. object #4: this is a tiny bottle I found on a beach. It may be too small for this project.Object #5. A thrift store find several years ago, I like this because it still works. It too might be too small for the project. Object #6: the top of a much longer bottle. I forgot to take a photograph of the whole bottle because I got distracted…as I will demonstrate below.Doll looking through bottle #1Doll looking through bottle #2Doll looking through bottle #3
And then, because I was into taking photographs of the doll, I kept going…
Poor thing is merely a repro. But she has a great face and doesn’t seem to mind her status as a repro. I detect a slight smile on her lips, although her eyes look a little deadened.I wonder what is in the light in the middle of her eye?
Okay, enough with the doll already. But I’m putting these pictures in here to remind myself (if I ever read this again) that I tend to get carried away with figures, especially human (doll) figures. Because yeah, I had a lot of fun on Friday night taking those photos.
Because I have quite a bit of human hair, and because I’m currently working on model figures, some of which have hair, I’ve been curious about how to best add the hair to the figures. Last week I made the opera singer, who has long grey hair, but I just fumbled around with attaching hair to their head. I thought it might be a good idea to find out a better way (better ways?) to work with hair. The following video is a start in that direction. It actually looks really easy.
I returned to an earlier painting I had been working on, but which got covered by a black cloth and so I forgot about it. Much of this week has been about returning again and again to this painting, adding layer after layer. It started out as a charcoal and pastel drawing, but morphed into an acrylic painting. 16 x 22. The last time I posted it, it looked like this:
Figure with container next to it. After another layer, it looked like this. In this iteration, I addressed the container on the right, starting to give it more definition again. The container on the right turns into an entity. I want to return to this piece and enhance the lime green of the figure on the left.
Opera Singer With a Cowboy (and a horse)
The other thing I’ve been working on is the Opera Singer With a Cowboy. Here are some progress shots.
I have a lot yet to do on both figures, but especially the cowboy: hat, belt buckle, maybe some chaps? But definitely the cowboy needs a horse.
When I resumed work on the above drawing/painting, I found another drawing beneath it, so I started to add to this one, too.
Last spring, Angela suggest that I try videotaping myself while I am making something. Talk out loud, Anne, she said, while you are in your process, and record that too. The following two videos are attempts at doing that.
“The Disagreement”. While working on this piece, I was thinking about the differences in perspective between those who object to getting the covid vaccine, and those who have been vaccinated. It seems to be a conflict between emotional and logical arguments, and I can’t see how this can be resolved without coercion.
Research horses
I’ve had this sculpture since leaving home; given to me by my mother as I left home, as apparently I was the only one of the family who actually liked it. I’ve been dragging it around…no, actually, I love this horse very much. Today I decided to try to figure out (again) its provenance.
The original sculpture was created by P.J. Mene, and if this is an original Mene, I should be able to find his name on the right of the base. I can’t find his name, but I can see the first word of the title, which is Djinn.The full title of the piece is Djinn, Etalon Barbe and I think I can barely see the rest of the title.
The first word of the title, Djinn, is barely visible. But this is not an indication of the validity of this piece; Mene’s casts were also used in Russia, and Russian casts often include a Cyrillic inscription. I can’t find any Cyrillic inscription on this piece.
Here is a photograph of an “original”, in excellent condition. My sculpture is missing the fence (broken off many years ago when I was a child, maybe even by me?).
Menagerie.
making a horse
Before I could start making a horse, I needed to understand both the proportions of a horse, and the relative proportions of the horse I wanted to make compared to the figure that the horse is intended to accompany (the cowpoke).
Using the proportions illustrated in the diagram above, I drew the following on a piece of scrap newsprint.
Using a diagram of a horse skeleton that is approximately the same size as the drawing, I started to bend some wire for the horse armature. I plan to make the skeleton armature as complete as possible, so will not finish this week.
Lola with Unicorn Rainbow Juice (hot chocolate with whipped cream and sprinkles)
Today’s music is the album Bismillah (translates as “in the name of allah, spoken before any undertaking), by Peter Cat Recording Co.. Here’s a link to the album on Apple music.
No apple music? Try listening to this one track from the album, available on YouTube.
Liked that one? Try this:
The singer needs legs, so using canon of proportions to decide how long they need to be…roughly. Also pictured is the so far headless cowboy and the armature for a skipping as yet undefined figure. Lying beneath is sculpture #1, a reminder of what needed to change. Poor dear. These legs seem right. My new smartphone holder for making videos…if only I could find a pink skateboard & a Malibu beach tshirt. Set up with blueberry jam in background
Sound on test of new video setup. (With broken weird glasses found in a ditch)
In this 28 second fast motion video, I’m preparing the legs by attaching them to the interior armature, covering them with smaller gauge wire to ready them for clay addition, and glueing them to frame. While doing this prep, I decided to have a seated singer, mostly because I didn’t want to have to solve the problem of an external armature/support. You can see that my cat is visiting me while I’m working, which I think attests to my concentration and emission of alpha waves…is that what cats love to bathe in?
In this quick video, another fast motion, I’m securing the legs to the edge of the dress with clay, then adding a ridge of clay along the bottom edge of the dress. While working, I decide to fatten the legs with the addition of aluminum foil. I hadn’t been thinking about that until this stage.
Adding aluminum foil. I know I used the word “fatten”, but really, those legs are damned skinny…
Legs…and a tongue! A yard sale find…several baggies of real human hair…the grey seems suitable for this figure. Refreshed eyes and tongue. The bright pink settled down into something more tongue-like by the next morning. The bright green backdrop is part of the tripod kit I bought. The folds, I am told by the accompanying literature, will go away in time, and I’m not to iron them out (probably because the heat of the iron will melt the fabric). So, I’ve hung the fabric on the line where I hang the awaiting armatures, and will see how long it takes for the folds to disappear.Anyway, the green is not meant to be a permanent backdrop, but merely a place holder so that I can edit the photos or videos that I make with the green backdrop by a background of my making or choosing. So…the next step, is it to find editing software that I can work with, change the background, create “sets”, write the libretto for the opera, engaging all the characters in some kind of “processional”…because, yes, I’m thinking that the original wooden characters from FIN 131 are not only the inspiration for these current characters (who will likely be the inspiration for another cast of characters made with something else as I move forward), but also function as the prototypes within the opera that I write for them. Now, there’s a big statement…someone who understands very little about music is going to write an opera…hmmmm.
The gauntlet has been tossed on the ground…
Back to the cowboy, now…
Notes to self: This cowboy has animal ears. I think I added ears because I was too impatient to take the time to make a proportionate human head; it’s “easier” to create a fantastical creature because I don’t have to really pay attention to proportions, or getting something right. I seem to be more focused on making something a little bit strange looking, rather than making something “right”. Is this a fault? “Should” I be trying for perfection? I think this habit is in part related to lack of skill, but also related to lack of knowledge about how to work with the media I’m working with. How can I make things look better…for example, how do I get rid of or cover the cracks with this medium that dries so quickly? Could I be putting a coating of some other medium over the clay before I paint? Should I have a clearer sense of the outcome I am seeking, and work diligently towards that outcome, instead of letting myself go with what occurs to me as I’m working? For instance, I had intended and visualized a human cowboy, but as I was working with the head, I allowed myself to be distracted by a non-human head that was forming in my hands. Should I push against that tendency and guide my hands back to making a human head?
How do I get better working with the medium, yet maintain the “rough” look?
…some of the questions I ask myself while I am making relate to the struggle between process and product…
I find myself getting impatient to finish, and not only to finish, but to move on to the next piece.
Because there is a next piece, a new armature, waiting to be filled out. I create the armature for the next piece because I am “afraid” that if I don’t have something waiting for me to do, I’ll not do anything at all, I’ll lose the drive, I’ll lose the ideas, the creativity.
But by having the next thing to do on deck, I’m also in a constant state of excitement about moving on to that next thing, to see “what will happen next”, and of course to continue to build the cast of strange characters that is populating my apartment, and giving me amusing things to look at.
So, what’s this “amusing things to look at” about? Each piece I make is imbued somehow with the intentions I had for the piece, the process I engaged in to make the piece, the challenges and decisions I made about the piece, the thoughts I had about the characters and their personalities as I made them, and an excitement about how the most recent piece would “fit in” with the existing pieces. When I look at each piece, I can see the story of that piece.
I can’t overstate the depth of curiosity I feel about the growing field of characters that are filling up the upper reaches of my living space, and I imagine them moving around, dancing and talking to one another, coming alive. I find those imaginings to be entertaining, and I get a lot of pleasure from knowing that I have created those creatures who cavort, either while I am watching them, or just on their own without me.
I have a sense that I am not finished making these pieces, some more human than not, and some more not human, but imbued with human motivations yet not constrained by the mainstream of society…because of course they don’t won’t “fit in”, and so they’re free to be the goofy strange beings that they are. Lucky them.
Too much writing.
The opera singer is sitting behind me, the cowboy is on the table beside me. They would like me to write them an opera (libretto), and all the other characters need their lines, too.
How the heck do I do that? Write a libretto. Sheesh.
But first, today’s suggested music. I’ve listened to Einaudi quite a bit, and these two numbers are a bit of a departure for him. I like where he is going in his musical journey.
I pulled an old drawing out of the pile of old drawings that I don’t like and started to add some colour to it. There is no date on the drawing, and no photograph in my files, which means I must have not seen any possibilities inherent in the drawing. Yet I tossed it on a table, and pulled it out and started adding to it. I still “don’t like” it, but have learned that me not liking something is a mostly meaningless response.
In this light, the charcoal looks a bit purple, but it’s just regular charcoal. Maybe the green does that, too.
I can’t recall my original intention for this drawing other than I love working with charcoal and I might have wanted to depict an ethereality between the figure on the left and the pithos on the right. I’m not overly fond of green, so I often use it when working on something I am struggling with.
And I worked on a sculpture, adding some colour to its “wing-hands”; wanted to photograph the sculpture, and the only place that seemed like a good place to photograph it was on the extended arm-ature of The Sensate, the central piece from The Procession, which itself is a work in progress.
Here’s an older picture of The Sensate (nee The Watcher)“Time”It’s terrible to try to photograph these things with so much visual noise around
Adding this new piece to The Sensate redefined the piece, and it now represents time, and so together, the piece is called Sensate Reaches Out to Time…it looks like time is escaping.
Even more returns…
I can’t help but take photographs of the figures hanging out in the windows. They look different every time I look at them in different lighting conditions.
Here are a few photographs of existing figures in the studio, seen in new light.
These two…I MUST take them outside for a photoshoot. I know they’d love that. This one is up a little higher, so most shots make it look heroic.These two cats get to hang out together. A shot of the “left window” gang. Early morning picture on my way to the bathroom. I had to stop to take photographs as they were calling out to me to notice them, their silhouettes.These two are always on about something, chattering away to one another. Sunrise pushes through the shutter slats and changes the drawing on the easel. Sunrise shadows. More shadow play
Today’s inspirational artist is Luo Li Rong. This link takes you to her Instagram page.
Today’s music. This YouTube video is my go-to whenever I need inspiration to take me into the depths of my own emotions. Etta James’ timing, the backup group’s ability to go where she takes them, the way her emotional depth is revealed as she sings…yes, I watch this piece frequently enough. Her soul revealed during eight minutes of raw emotion, and likely fueled by heroin.
(I think that the version I used to watch on YouTube has been taken down and replaced by this version, edited to remove some of her “vocal digressions”. This version is still good, but quite heavily edited, maybe several minutes shorter than the one I used to watch, and includes an ad 3/4 of the way through.
It’s one of my dreams to be able to make a sculpture of Etta James as she looks in this video, her expressive face, her eyes.
I’m calling this post “Aria” because I’m trying to make an opera singer. Eventually I’d like to make a sculpture of Etta James, so this piece is a start towards that, a kind of skill-building exercise working towards making her. I still have a long way to go, and may never get there skill-wise, but I’ll get somewhere different from where I started.
This is where I started with the singer, as I attempted to break away from the two arms/two legs armature.I didn’t like the tissue paper results, so I tore it all off.I also removed its head when I draped plaster bandage around its body. …and started another series of five armatures destined to “hang”. At this point I envision that they will be black. The singer’s arms and neck have been created with La Doll clay; her head will also be sculpted from clay. the figure on the right has now morphed into a cowpoke, complete with a lasso, and……complete with spurs…The singer is covered with slip. And has a head.
I’m not exactly sure about the relationship between the singer and the cowboy, but it may become clear to me as I work on each.
…and to put me in the mood (for the cowboy)…I just have to say, I loved living in Alberta…
I didn’t listen to much music while in the woods, but just before I left, I was listening to Maria Teriaeva. Here’s a link to some of her stuff on Soundcloud.
As I write this, I’m listening to a number entitled Paris Texas.
I brought this one with me on the south Vancouver Island camping tour. This photo taken in Goldstream Park. Armatures for human figure and dogAt this point I’m thinking that I don’t like the body language for this piece, especially the arms. But I know I’ll leave them like this and focus on the crossed legs and the “scarf”. Every piece feels like something I’m learning through. Eventually, I think, I’ll make something very beautiful. From the back, this rounded bum will flatten as the figure sits on the picnic table (Juan de Fuca park, China Beach campground)The dog gets a base. As I work on the piece, I start to “see” what needs to be added, subtracted, what’s wrong, and what’s right. I never let myself get distracted for very long by the imperfections. I just keep going because I’m curious to see what will happen next. As I worked up the dog’s body, I could see (too late) that the body is WAAAAY too long. Still, I like the doggo. It’ll stay as is.I imagine horns for the human figure, and I see that the neck is too short on the dog (not to mention all the other disproportions). But what can I do, I ask myself, to partially correct this disproportion, because I know it will bug me.So, I decide to cut the lower wire of the dog’s neck and tilt dog’s head back. At Heather campground, on the far (west) end of Lake Cowichan, the human figure gets wound wire hands and feet, and the antlers become more like feelers. You can barely see the faint teal wires joining the hands to the feet. Later, I’ll add some wound wire on the figure’s lap, with pieces joining one hand and one “horn”.The dog gets a teal-coloured “aura”, to match the teal wiring around the human figure.Here’s a better view of the dog’s right ear, which is slightly askew. Yes, proportions are all wrong, so I tell myself that this is a mixed breed dog, a rescue. Rescued from the depths of my imagination.
I read somewhere that there’s a lantern making event in the Comox Valley, so I decide that my next figure will be “lantern-like”. I don’t have a plan for the figure other than to get away from making legs and try a different type of armature.
At the end of each arm is a twisted wire “hand”. I chose black because that was in my travel kit.The head gets black wire bits added to it; I’m thinking of an eventual spiky look for this piece. Black spikes, like coarse hairs or something vague like that. Vertical wire reinforcements so that the figure doesn’t collapse when I finally decide how to finish it. Elk on the main road through Youbou, early morning on the way back home. It’s smokey from all the fires to the south and the east of Vancouver Island. Back home on the workbench, and the human figure gets some paint. Not content with this colour, so I wonder what will happen next. The dog gets a coat of silver paint. “Friends” Both pieces arrive at a natural resting place. I can put them aside for now, watch them to see how they change in front of my eyes, listen to hear what they ask of me.This is a favourite photo, as it shows the cracks, the silver that has been put in the cracks, and the mess of wire on the figure’s lap.
