Disparate Thoughts

When I came into the studio this morning I had many thoughts rumbling in my brain. One of course as the result of seeing the three new paintings waiting completion. It all has to do with color. Color is very significant right now. Too much makes me crazy and not enough doesn't seem to work. So how much is enough? It's alarms me to see anything too "colorful" as that does not work in my eye with the story that I am telling. The line is everything right now; it's fast, confidant, moving. Yet there is the blue, yellow staring at me, taunting me. I am trying to let go but that's the hard part.

Then there is the music and the words. Music was so important to this series of paintings. It set the tone for the swiftness of drawing and painting leaving little time for reflection until it was too late and the India ink was dry and permanent. I can hear the music even when it's not playing carrying around like a third hand.

"Now I Become Myself" a poem written by May Sarton and one that tells the tale since the spring this year. "Now I become myself.....Now to stand still, to be here, feel my own weight and density." I am glad that there are those who are so articulate. They can speak for me in words since I have only images.

The Challenge

As I count down to my exhibit at Georgia Perimeter College, I've slowed down today to take stock of the images I've created. I have another three paintings started and can't wait to start but have to wait for gesso to dry before I add the next layers. While contemplating these paintings I realize what a journey it has been since I started in the spring. To put together a themed exhibit is a challenge and what happened as I started surprised me.

The work that I thought I was continuing did not continue and something new and miraculous happened. An entirely new series emerged. Now that would be great except for the fact that the previous series has images that are not entirely related or not related in the way that I would like. So what happens, I have to created more paintings than I thought I would.

Now part of that equation is that I love the new images so much that I want to continue with this theme. They are just the right amount of abstraction married to the decipherable to make me excited with the process. Though I titled my show "Shifting Landscapes", I could have easily titled it "Memory Trance" for that what if feels like to make these paintings.

The image pictured here is "Simultaneity" which sums up the series very well. A large painting 30 x 72 inches. More new work on my website http://www.helenderamus.com .

Going Solo

Too long since I last posted but hey I've been busy. Working in the studio is not easy right now as everyone must know our weather here in the south is ghastly. I say that and truly this year I have just accepted the fact that it is hot and will be hot till sometime in the fall. I have been not comfortable but at least keeping myself in the moment of painting with the goal of finishing the paintings for my solo show at Georgia Perimeter College (Clarkston campus) in the Fine Art Building. The show officially opens on August 15th with the reception set on August 31st.

"Shifting Landscapes" is my chosen title with the inspiration coming from three sources: my Hambidge Residency, the music of John Adams and Lucas Samaras, and the poetry of Mary Oliver. What a line up! The series took on a life of its own when I completed fifteen large drawings that I found compelling. The series then began a quest to transfer the essence of those drawings to encaustic. The trip to encaustic was not a trip that I could have predicted and has led to a series of unexpected images that I'm not sure I totally understand yet. The pure abstraction that I am seeking is only partly realized. The more non-objective they become the happier and more questioning I become. There is no doubt that I am reaching for a deeper understanding of what this painting life is all about.

Summer and Encaustic

Ah summer. There is no easy way to explain the heat generated by all the various heating implements used when painting with encaustic. Suffice it to say, it gets hot in the studio. The answer of course is start early and leave early; my new motto as I paint for my upcoming solo exhibit. Have to keep working or I'll never make the August deadline.

Work is going well. I will never understand why my most creative, productive time occurs in the summer. I don't like the heat and the light is so harsh. Not much to recommend the summer in the South in my book. But I look at it this way. During the cool of the winter I gather ideas, photos, drawings and boom when it gets hot the ideas flow into the paintings. Sounds like a simple answer to me.

The new work is exciting to me. And here is a photo of one of the new paintings in the series.

Summer 2011 Encaustic Workshop

This week I successfully finished three small encaustic paintings with the "feel" I was looking for to translate my mountain experience at Hambidge into encaustic. I have been so in love with my drawings completed during my residency, that it took me two weeks to get back to my usual practice. To say it was a challenge doesn't even begin to explain how hard it has been. Part of the difficulty is the encaustic technique itself. There is a certain amount of preplanning necessary for the images I'm working on and the drawings from which they are inspired were so intuitively and freely created. Of course, as many artists have said before you are never the same artist or person, for that matter, yesterday as you are today. Never was that so true as with the project.

I'm now looking at the solo exhibit in August and the pressure is on to produce more paintings. Although I won't call it pressure because I love having deadlines. There are many times when I need focus for my wandering creative spirit which like to experiment ad infinitum. So here begins my process of deciding size etc. for a twenty or more painting exhibit. Not that many weeks left!

June 18 & 19, Saturday and Sunday are the dates for the summer workshop in encaustic. Visit my website for details. What happens after a residency is a burst of creative thoughts that lead to new ideas that I will share in this workshop. Encaustic is, may I say, an elastic medium.

Residency

It is now time to reflect on the past three weeks. Two of those weeks were spent at a Hambidge residency. This was a remarkable experience that allowed me to work in complete solitude and rediscover myself as an artist. There are many circumstances over the past five years that came between me and my art self and those issues were part of living and were unavoidable but I didn't realize until I had so many hours to draw, meditate, journal and read what cost was necessary to perform the tasks that were required of me.

So here I am happy as can be ready to start a new era in my artwork. Returning to "normal" life is not so easy but the transition is working itself out now. I have incorporated many lessons I learned during the residency to my own studio and my own practice here in the studio. I will continue to assess the rewards received in the coming months.

Above is a drawings 30 x 110 inches titled "Sequence", part of my drawing experience.

Tangled Up In Dreams

It's remarkable to think that I am packed and ready to make my trip to Hambidge for my residency which begins tomorrow at noon. Since before Christmas, when I received my acceptance, I have thought about what I want to do while there for two glorious weeks. This past week I began the process of putting together my supplies and the answer was very clear. I want to draw, to work on paper, to freely work on projects as they create themselves through me.

My decision not to work in encaustic was an easy one because I need time and space to renew myself with my art, to once again get acquainted with myself. If this sounds like a lot of "me me me"...I think it is. There comes a point in a career where you feel you may have lost a little of what you are. Maybe it doesn't happen to everyone but I think that renewal is often the answer when the work starts to come more slowly to feel not so exciting..or relevant.

So in my car trunk is a wonderful assortment of beautiful drawing papers, all imaginable mark making tools and mediums...charcoal, lith crayon, India ink and so much more. I have even thought that I might use some smaller pieces of paper for beginning an artist's book, a project that I've had on my mind for quite some time.

I started reading Twyla Tharps book on creativity and have included in my working tools some of my favorite books of poetry: Mary Oliver, Frerico Lorca, T.S. Eliot...The new memoir by Joyce Carole Oates, and the lovely Louise Bourgeois, Drawings and Observations. The Bourgeois book is always at my side. The Deep Song...resonating with me now.

No cellphone or internet to disrupt my days of musing and drawing. Now, how wonderful is that.