Little Miss Muffet

Little Miss Muffet 

sat on a tuffet

eating her curds and whey

along came a spider
who sat down beside her

and frightened Miss Muffet away.

300 Plates

Art Access Gallery

Salt Lake City, Utah

May 19, 2011

I wish these pictures were better!  My Little Miss Ezra was learning nursery rhymes in preschool and Miss Muffet was her favorite.  So, she let me dress her up and take lots of pictures.  I love how she is looking at the spider like, "um, I don't think so."    

For my New Gallery

I'm really excited about the new paintings I'm working on.  My deadlines are coming up, I'm working so hard!!  I love the energy summer brings. 

4 Plates

Audacious

Bibelot

Operose

Hugger Mugger

Feeling like a Circus around here.

300 Plates 

Art Access Gallery

17 May 2010

Friday

I'll be flying to Utah this Friday for "Hortus Conclusus (The Enclosed Garden)" group show. My dad, sister Cass, and I will have a variety of paintings on display. I will have these four paintings and nine mixed media pieces on paper.

(Sorry the pictures aren't so good).

In her Garden - One

In her Garden - Two

In her Garden - Three

In her Garden - Four

There was a fabulous article in the Arts and Entertainment section of the Deseret News last Sunday (or here it looks better and easier to read) about the show and our artsy-fartsy-family.

The idea that gave us inspiration for this show last year, was medieval European enclosed gardens and the question, "What is in your garden?" As put in the article, "..the idea of enclosure was to create a protected and nurtured space, 'where ideas and people, like plants and flowers, can flourish. The idea of a controlled safe place can represent the family, the community or even the space in one's own mind."

I know this will come off as somewhat predictable, but my mind went to motherhood. Ya, ya, I can't help it. I was thinking about all the decisions we make for our children, from what they eat to what they wear and even the vocabulary they use. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but I've got the scissors and am thinking about when we can cut those strings. My oldest, who just turned eight and gets baptized this Saturday, is on the left. She is just recognizing the strings are there. Then there is my middle. I feel like I am always pushing her to do things she doesn't want to do. And my youngest who I am still keeping close. I'm not really sure what to do with the scissors, and honestly am feeling a little guilty for wanting to use them. I've put us in our garden with a slightly weathered fence which is rainbow in my attempts to make everything beautiful and everyone happy.

Come, if you can, Friday night. It should be a good time. Art Access Gallery, Salt Lake City, six to nine pm. The show will be up through October seventh.

**Gavin: a variant of the Scottish name Gawain, meaning little hawk or white hawk.**

More Plates

A couple more plates for the Art Access 300 Plates show.  These are really fun to paint.  I will deliver them the day after tomorrow when I go to Utah for Women's Conference at BYU.  Come see me there if you are around.  Third floor of the Bookstore, all day Thursday and Friday!!

I love Gesso

I love gesso so much.  I love preparing a panel.  I love starting new paintings.  I love what I do, I can barely contain myself.

The promise of a newly gessoed panel.  This one is a piece I am doing for BYU's Women's Conference this Spring.  I'm really excited about it.  I am trying to document a progression, so more to come.

Two Sisters

One of the greatest challenges life gives us is finding balance. We have to balance our time between family, work, self, church etc. It requires constant evaluation and adjustment. I feel like I threw my family a little out of balance in preparing this show. So now, I keep asking myself questions about the balance of my painting time, like: what is this worth, what is it for, but mostly, am I anything so special that I can ask my family for their sacrifice? When Kate Winslet won the best actress Oscar tonight, she thanked her husband and two kids for allowing her to do what she loves. Gavin told me that he knows painting makes me happy and so it is worth any sacrifice to him. Still, it begs to ask, how much can I give it? Where is the balance? I haven't quite figured out my role as an artist.

The diptych above is about a search for balance between the me-self and the mother-self. One side has a drab apron and bright outfit, the other vice versa. Though these two selves are intertwined, I sometimes feel a need to separate them for clarity in sorting out identity.

Upon Finishing

I'm on a count down to my big show. I'm eating, drinking, and sleeping paintings! I've given up most of my sleep, my gym time, and enlisted Gavin to take care of everything (i.e. dishes and kids) after six o'clock. Among so many other things, my bloggage has been slacking. Here are a couple of finished paintings to catch you up.  I have a good seventeen to finish in the next two weeks, and possibly a few more to start... and finish.  
I don't have a title for this piece yet.  I wanted to paint those apples, that hair, and immortalize that beautiful bowl that broke a few days later.  I loved that bowl.  Crate and Barrel doesn't have it anymore.  She is a little sassy and empowered.  A domestic goddess, if you will.
This piece is titled Little Girl in a Big Apron.  I did a smaller piece, Big Apron, Little Girl a while ago and wanted to expand on the idea.  I don't wear red, it gives me anxiety, so when I use red, I really mean it.  It is bold and powerful, zealous and impassioned.  The concept of the over-large apron is the daunting task, the overwhelming responsibility of family and home.   It is also the overwhelming love and dedication to these things. 

Nines

I had to put off so many pieces to finish my Tree of Life show. Now that I can finally get back to them, I'm having a hard time focusing. I'm all over the place! One of the things I'm excited about this nine piece series. All nine will hang in a row and will be interwoven, interacting, and a cohesive set. The series is a study of the attitudes of sisterhood. Also known as the Pam paintings. She is a good model and looks a little like a Kershisnik painting in real life.

Tree of Life Show

Tomorrow I am off to Connecticut.  I managed to put together a show of nine paintings to add to my dad and my sister's pieces.  You can get the low down on the show by visiting our Tree of Life blog.

Knot

I am finally calling this painting finished.  I tweaked everything, but the noticeable difference will be the orange poppies.  Aaah, poppies.  I have never had opium, but it sure does sound nice. Let's say her poppies come in the form of her analgesic/angelic husband just outside the frame on his way to untie her knot.  She shakes out her arms and lets out a long deep sigh.  Swiftly his long cold fingers loosen the ties and the apron falls to the table perfectly folded.  "Thanks" she says as she turns into his arms.  He slowly inhales her scent and she gets a little light headed.  Oh, sorry, just warming up to disappear into Breaking Dawn.

Miniatures

In a couple of days we head off to Utah. I will get some painting time (hopefully) bumming space in my dad and my sister's studios. Deciding what to take to work on was too complicated, so I am leaving everything here - unfinished, hanging in mid air, thoughts and images hibernating in the corners of my mind (and studio) - and I am starting all new pieces. I have committed to three miniature shows (small paintings that don't make you disloyal to your galleries because they hardly count) over the next year. They all want two pieces each, so that will be six little paintings I will need to squeeze in here and there. Why not get them all done in one shot and have six less things to worry about.I want paint this one like Andrew Wyeth. I seriously doubt my capability, but with my dad's help I'll see how close I can get. Hopefully I'll learn something. If I could paint like Andrew Wyath.... sigh.
This one is a spin off of my fifteen piece apron series. It's really small, get out the magnifying glass. It has a full circle thing going on, the ends match up.
This one should be interesting... A Christmas tree ornament?

A Piece of Bound

Oh sleep, sweet nectar of mortality. How I wish I could do without you. As much as I love the magical land you take me to and the comfort you give me, I ask for only a night or two...elve. If I could have this time, the next eight hours, to work away uninterrupted, it would be a dream.

Pop

I have so many ideas that my head is about to pop. I can't get them out fast enough because I never get enough painting time. (I am only half complaining, I would much rather have this than too much painting time and not enough ideas - I never get bored). So, a couple weeks ago my friend/dentist/fellow ward member gave me a box with sixty-something 8"x11" masonite panels that were used as clip boards at a youth conference. Just when I thought I had a handle on things and could sit back and actually finish something.

Picture this: You walk into the gallery, you see a few amazing paintings with beautiful colors, captivating figures in aprons and intense ideas on a room divider, obscuring hidden treasures waiting to be explored deeper in the cavern. You look right, a trio of more of such paintings. You look left, strung across the wall, fifteen paintings identical in size and simple frames, spaced an inch or two apart suck you in. As you walk along viewing the small paintings, you feel their tension and tensegrity, each pushing and pulling and weaving into and out of the next. Till you get to the last piece and are released.

That is my vision and I can hardly wait to get to it. So, I got a model over here and got to work. I will play with ideas of duty, sisterhood, toil and a little tenderness. Will I ever finish anything? Will my head explode or stay in tact? Is there anyone who will clean up the mess? Stay tuned.

Knot (the unfinished painting)

I try to be positive in my art - to uplift, praise, glorify, encourage, define, idealize and unite. I also can't help but be honest and speak from my heart. Sometimes these two concepts will not coexist. This piece is very expressive about how I sometimes feel about my role as mother/homemaker. I have talked a lot about bees and their dichotomy: they make honey and they sting. Motherhood is like that. I hesitate to put my frustrations and inadequacies out there, I don't want to bring anyone down. So, I kind of want cop-out with, "read into this what you will," and leave it at that. I think the image is obvious enough and we all feel it at times - that our apron strings are tied in a knot. Maybe we should talk about it, I don't know.

She Wore her Heart on her Apron Pocket

My heart was tucked away securely in my chest.
Love brought it out and stitched to my sleeve.
As I evolved into my new role, domestic travails
wrapped themselves tightly around my waist.
Again, my heart was transplanted.
It inched its way, so gradually I hardly noticed,
and turned up sewn to the pocket of my apron.

I think I have finally come up with a title for my show.

Sneak Peek

Here is a peek at one of my new paintings. I think it is going to be one of my all time favorites. Oo, I feel some poetry coming on.

So, I turn thirty and the next thing I know I've gained five pounds and I start writing poetry. Life is full of surprises - some pleasant, some not so much. I'll compose a masterpiece for you next time I'm in spin class.

Oiseau

I feel like such a let down when I don't have anything to say about a painting. Nothing poignant or profound, no deep meaning. Isn't it OK if I paint a painting just because it's pretty? That is all this one is, just pretty. Feel absolutely free to make it your own and let it express your innermost something. As for me, pretty will have to do. That is, along with a french title, c'est belle, non?

Desiree

I had a completely different vision for this painting before I started it. It took me on a wild and very long ride. I think I started it last summer. The last thing I did was lay in the red ribbon. It was an absolute delight, there is nothing I love to paint more than ribbons. For an explanation of the ribbon I would refer you to a couple posts ago where I went into detail of this ribbon as a symbol. Simply put, she is delicately bound by her passions, and quite enjoying the idea of it.

That said, let's name the fruits in this painting. Ahem... Mango, lime, kiwi, tangerine, orange, cherry, pomegranate, lemon, and pear. Spring is in the air!

Tangerine Dreams

This piece is ode to Lisa-Marie-Presley-Walker-Harris. It is named after one of the colorful pairs of overalls we found in the ceramic room at Waterford. She named them all: tangerine dream, club soda with a twist, something about lavender and orange crush. Though that really has nothing to do with the subject of this painting, it is a fun memory and a lovely title.

I let my little girls take colored pencils to this painting. They drew little figures on her skirt. Sometimes I feel like I practically wear my children like I wear clothing. Even more, sometimes I feel like they have been woven into the fabric of my very being. The rest of the painting followed the little girl's style, with lollipop clouds on a warm and wacky summer day.