She Wore her Heart on her Apron Pocket

So, it's been a couple weeks.  My slow response is more a matter of getting images off Gavin's camera as I try to get my life back to order (I was a little out of  sorts when I got home, I cleaned for a week! Don't worry, I'm over it) and less a reflection of my enthusiasm to report that: My show was great!  I had so much help from my family and friends, thank you, thank you.  Especially Gavin for doing so many dishes and solo getting the kids to bed and my parents for helping me get everything into frames past midnight the night before I took the paintings up to Park City.  Thanks also to Terzian Galleries for giving me the opportunity.  I learned a lot that I can apply to my next show.  My theme, for example, which I really put my heart into with the images and poetry, was lost as it was not written anywhere.  That was a little disappointing, thank goodness for the blog outlet to curb my sorrow.  Anyway, it was a really fun night, I love seeing old friends, and making new ones, and meeting fellow artists.

I'm back in the studio, working on some exciting projects.  I have quite a year laid out for me!  (Flutter flutter go the butterflies) I love it.   

She Wore her Heart on her Apron Pocket

Tonight!! Yip yip!

6:00-9:00 p.m.

309 Main St.

Park City, Utah

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.

Untied

So my apron strings have come untied

Both dangling loose down by my sides

Unraveled at wits end

Not wanting to defend

Why my apron strings have come untied

Still, my apron strings have come untied

‘Cause of this to you I will confide

I have an urge to fly

Sink in the soft blue sky

While my apron strings remain untied

So my apron strings have come untied

It’s come down to this: I must decide

Forever by duty bound

When you turn back ‘round

Find my apron strings will be retied

Sisters True

I finally called this huge painting finished.  In fact, I have called just about all my paintings finished.  The big show is next week!  This piece is about sisters.  I love my sisters.  Here's a treat, me and my sisters in 1978.  (I'm the baby).  

p.s.  I have two brothers and I love them too.

Juliet:

"My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite."

Set in the world, set apart from the world.  Love transcends all and has no boundaries.  Bounty is a generous gift, as is the giving of one's love.

Mulier

If you are in Arizona and interested, I have all my paintings for my "She Wore her Heart on her Apron Pocket" show on display around my house.  Tonight we are having an open house after seven, so come on by!  I will be packing the bulk of them Monday afternoon.  I'm almost finished!!

Dolls

Sometimes when I look at my three little dolls I think, "Really?  You're trusting me, little me, with taking care these people?"  It's pretty surreal.  Their very mental and physical health is in my hands.  Sometimes I'm not so sure I'm all that good at it.  I yelled at a couple of them today and forgot to make sure they brushed their teeth this morning.  But, sometimes when I look at the three of them I am overwhelmed with love and desire to be better at giving them what they need.

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. 

Love

Love is like the truth, sometimes it prevails, sometimes it hurts.

-unknown

Sewing her Heart on her Apron Pocket

Finished!  Look at me go.  I have nineteen - wait make that eighteen - paintings in various stages of unfinishedness hanging about my studio.  So hip hip for the first finished painting of the year!  With many more to swiftly follow.  This piece is about wearing one's heart on the apron pocket.  The process of "sewing" the heart on the apron is one of selfless sacrifice, unconditional love, and bare vulnerability.  The thing is, at the end of the day you can't feel sorry for yourself or tally up all you've done for others.  It is your role.  No thanks needed, (though it is nice on occasion) it does not come with the job description.

She Wore her Heart on her Apron Pocket

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.

Bound

I just finished a slew of paintings and can't wait to share.  (A "slew" meaning 4)  Here is the first finished painting:Bound

When just a drawing, I wrote a poem about it.

Bound by a duty
That feels a little tight
Bound by love so strong
It holds me day and night
Bound and determined
Not to choke or suffocate
Bound to a promise
I cannot abdicate
Bound for eternity
Wrapped up in an embrace

Tree

My plan was going great, I even managed to finish one miniature. It's a little version of "Big Apron, Little Girl." I plan to do a big version for my show when I get home.

It was going great, my painting plan, till my dad, my sister, and I were told that we need a finished painting advertising for our "Tree of Life" show by the third week of July. The show is in October, so this is unexpected. I have a couple half-finished... at home. I decided, rather than having Gavin send me the paintings to finish, I would start something new. Here is the drawing for the painting I will start tomorrow. I'm really excited about it. And, I am geared up and ready to paint like the wind.

Tree of Life, it gives us shade
Tree of Life, we've got it made
Tree of Life, I better run fast
Tree of Life, I'm late for class

Chump, Muthahardinyourfacejack, 1996

Website

My website has finally been updated! (It's been over a year.) The Current page is all paintings from 2008. And, 2007 on the Archive page is up to date. I've tweeked about everything, but there are still a few kinks to work out. I love my website.I am working on some fun stuff here in Utah, but I miss the paintings I left at home. I had almost finished these two before we left and I'm itchin' to call something done. These are Bound and She Wore her Heart on her Apron Pocket.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

You know how what doesn't kill you makes you stronger? And there is that whole tree growing in the wind thing. Well, given the trials that this painting is going through, it is destined to be really great.
It already had a rough start. I got the drawing just so and and it needed to be cropped. We took a saw to the end and it turned out pretty straight (thank goodness for frames and their eighth inch give). Once I stared painting, I lost all self control and painted all the fun parts before it was prudent. Then...My friend's son came in my studio when we weren't paying attention (rock band can do that to you) and took a crayon to the painting. Luckily the crayon was the color of vomit, so when I threw up all over the painting it blended right in. Just kidding. I'll recover, it will just take more work and more time, which I don't have enough of as it is - but it will work out in the end. Just when I had emotionally recovered from this incident and started to really get into it...I left to make dinner and my little Ezra grabbed a brush and went to town. I've fixed it, but man! I have to say, my kids are very respectful of my paintings and have never done this before. I am grateful for that. I'm trying not to overreact and lock my door. I love that this is "our" studio and my kids get to be creative and make stuff every day. I'll just have to work harder to keep paintings out of little two-year-old reach.

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.