New Studio

I have a new studio space! Wow just like that everything came together. Big studio, great light, painting walls...what else could I ask...well maybe a/c. Who cares, the space rocks. It's in the Artisan Resource Center, a big complex, 43,000 sq ft and 25+ artist and craftman studios and workshops. My studio is in such good condition, thanks to the previous lessee that I will have to do nothing but move in, which I will do shortly. You can't see what a great door with wonderful sculptural elements by Marygrace Perkins. I'll have to try for a better photo next time.

New Series

I'm experimenting with encaustic on cast paper. What fun! The paper has such wonderful texture though called cold press it really is quite rough. Love that. The images thus far are subtle to say the least and I have tentatively titled the series secrets and revelations. I start with a drawing that is covered with beeswax continuing to layer with encaustic medium and pigment. Oil and wax sticks have always been one of my favorite mediums and now I'm finding that I like working on the top layer of encaustic with the sticks. I bought my first sticks so long ago, I think R&F Paints was just starting up. They are my favorite because of their rich pigmentation.

Soon I'll begin monotyping again in preparation for a workshop I'll teach this summer. I look forward to testing some new procedures since the last time I worked with prints. This is my favorite time of the year to work and usually as the air heats up..my work does too.

Studio Space

I'm considering studio space. Yes I have a studio and it's big, but I am living where I'm working now for the passed five years. It works on some levels: easy to get to work, work anytime you wish night or day, privacy...and other advantages. But there are many advantages to working in a separate space: going home from work, camaraderie with other artists, letting the gesso Or wax fall where it may. The last reason is one that means the most to me. There is a certain ease being in a rough space where cleanliness means nothing if you don't want it to. In my case I am neat and organized but when I'm painting I can't think, if you know what I mean. Love to sling that paint. Oh yeah, I don't have painting walls...drives me crazy.

So how big and where? The center where I had a studio before is an excellent choice since it's only twenty minutes away, but they don't have the right size studio at the moment. Waiting, I'm not that good at waiting but better than I used to be. Crossing my fingers that something becomes available soon. In the meantime, I work.

Black and White

One of my Platinum prints will be shown in the Mills Pond House Gallery exhibit in St. James, New York that opens in May. Lest anyone doubt that I work in many mediums and often at the same time, here is another case. Black & white photography is a passion of mine. When I began taking photographs and studying at the Southeastern Center for Photographic Arts in Atlanta, I knew immediately that black & white would be my choice. One of my earliest memories is my dad in the darkroom; he let me come in to watch him. I think from that very time I knew photography was going to be important to me, maybe because it was a passion of his.

Although, of course I have done color it never has interested me much; somehow the color print was never true enough no matter how well I learned to print it, it always looked artificial. And print it I did when I was working commercially.

Then there is Platinum with it's warmth and beauty. Glossy was never and is not my thing either. The closest I get to anything glossy is with my encaustic paintings but they are so textured that "really" glossy never happens. "The Argument", the photo above is one of those images that happened without my realizing what it was about. I had spent some time breaking crystal (from my first marriage), mirrors, and then happened upon broken eyeglasses. I still collect eyeglasses usually finding them in parking lots. People evidently just drop their glasses and eventually they are run over by a vehicle several times and presto they are just right for me. I scoop them up and eventually use them for the next project.

Family Circle

Right now I am very pleased. Pleased that "Family Circle" will again be shown. Last summers' work was arduous and in the end successful as it said what I wanted to say. So it's off to the Fine Arts Exhibition at the Dalton Gallery at Agnes Scott College as part of the Decatur Arts Festival 2008. It's been a long time since I entered a work in that show.

Spring

This is the time of the year when I feel the most focus. There is a certain ease about creating that doesn't happen for me any other time of the year. The ease increases as the weather gets warmer and warmer. Summer is the peak time for me to make artwork. Last summer I was working on a sculpture/installation project for an exhibit. This year I am working on a series for a solo exhibit.

The series has already taken shape but working on larger encaustic paintings has slowed me down so that I am working more thoughtfully or maybe a better way to say it is meditatively for there isn't as much thinking as doing. I continue to glaze and scrape back looking for that surface which says something to me. My hues are becoming complex systems of wax and pigment. They are alive. The inspiration for this series came from photos taken through a microscope, my photos. As for the microscope, it is not much more than a toy but once I load the digits into Photoshop, magic happens. Organic systems continue to invade my images. Where is this going? I may not know for a while.

After the series of tornadoes that hit my town this weekend, today spring has arrived and I've never seen the trees more beautiful; they take my breath away.

WCAGA Exhibit "Earth: A Microcosm"

Enjoy a trip to the Women's Caucus for Art of Georgia's regional juried exhibition at the Ferst Center for the Arts and the Networking Day event "The Artist and the Environment: A Day of Discussion".