Old Dream, New Kimono

My son gave me a card one Mother's day that had a Chinese character on it meaning "To Revive an Old Dream." Going back to creating mixed-media kimonos is definitely a revival of sorts. I just finished this piece and am not sure how I feel about it other than that it is artistically satisfying. But my style has changed enough that I don't do these on art-autopilot like I used to, which is probably good. At any rate, this one is finished and I plan to do at least one more kimono for the show. We'll see how they are received.

Postcard for Exhibit

Yesterday I printed a preliminary design for my show at La Vida, partly because I wanted to experiment with the images, and partly to remind myself that there is still a lot of work to be done and time's getting short. Hard to believe all of this has happened since I made my first Kindle cover for sale in June of last year. Until then, I hadn't done any real studio art in a decade.

It was good to have a few copies with me when we went to an open house at Inspire Art Center because I saw several old friends who are artists and was able to give them away as a way of saying "I'm back!" That was fun. Have changed the title of the show to "Mythologie."

But wait, there's more . . .

Amazing burst of energy today. I finished another piece based on what I had learned with the previous work. It may be one of my favorites, titled (right now, anyway) "Noh Festival. Unfortunately, I was so excited about it that I framed it before taking a photo, so this photo is shot through Plexiglas! I will probably take it apart and re-take later, but right now I'm happy to just relax. I'd hoped to get six paintings done over spring break - this makes four. Remind self - it's quality, not quantity that counts. Er, right...?

Unblocked!

I worked all day Friday on an Asian-themed collage that just did not work - I had the mat cut and was ready to just go ahead and frame it, but it felt so NOT-RIGHT. Scrapped it, worried about why I couldn't get it to work, and started over with a result that I really like and gave me a zillion new ideas. One of those is scanning and printing fragments of previous work onto rice paper - it's amazing how different those images look from the original collages.
Here's the new piece, titled "Not for the Cat." It has lots of little areas that I want to incorporate in the next piece.
Here's the piece that didn't work (below) - let me count the ways why - too cluttered, no story, no unity, just matchy-matchy images stuck on without enough thought to relationships and values. It's valuable because it's a lesson. Sometimes it's so frustrating to keep adding things , thinking it might get fixed, but that's a mistake.
Look at the difference that a fresh start and clear artistic purpose makes!
I do so love telling stories with images, paint and paper.

Work, work, work (and titles)

I seriously don't know how working artists who blog get any studio work done - obviously my good intentions to blog often about my work have been sunk by the work itself. Arg. But here are two new pieces. I had hoped to finish six over spring break, but that's rapidly evaporating.
Titles for paintings are always a challenge. On of these collages is titled "The Laying" - it's a semi-serious allusion to laying of hands, laying eggs - healing. The other new one is titled "Alberta's Dream" because it features peaches (!?). And some other things, of course :).
OK, off the computer and back to the studio.

Spray adhesive shield trick

I use spray adhesive, the 3M kind that's extra strong, when I'm first constructing my Kindle covers to make sure the delicate rice paper adheres to the archival matboard without tearing or wrinkling. Even though I spray briefly, everything around the aerosol can gets sticky - so I made a "tent" out of watercolor paper that is mounted on the inside of the door of the cabinet where I keep glues and drills and such. It folds out when the door is open, and folds back in like a book when I close the door. It isn't perfect, but it helps a lot to contain the adhesive. Just sharing!