New Work

I just posted a new image on the index page on my website. I've been working on it for weeks. The photo is really a detail since it is a large painting 30 x 60 inches...the largest that I've attempted so far. I'm now hooked and know that more larger paintings are on the horizon.

Tonight I'm taking it easy. I didn't go to the studio today, taking a little break since I teach tomorrow morning early and then plan to start fusing and painting later in the day. More paintings! Now that I have air conditioning in my studio I can work any time in utter comfort. No, the temp is still around 80-85 but the humidity is gone. Working in the South in the summer can be daunting. When I first moved into my studio I had to take paintings home because the heat was keeping the wax a little too soft when I didn't need it soft. It was a challenge getting ready for the exhibit at Thomas Deans.

Outside my new apartment there is a virtual garden of eden..plum, apple, and fig trees and beautiful flowering plants everywhere. I know that I will be busy with my camera taking advantage of so much beauty as fodder for my new work.

Encaustic Workshop

I'm in the midst of planning for my upcoming workshop. I look forward to conducting workshops for encaustic painting I guess because I love the method of working. There are so many variables involved that no way will I get bored. Fusing is not the most fun I ever had but on the other hand there are times when the process allows me to wait. Yes wait. That time for me is a good thing since I am a bit impulsive...shall I say.

This time around I want to take some photos during the workshop. The last workshop in the fall was so much fun. I always learn as much as I teach to others. Really a win/win. The workshop will be at the Atlanta Artists Center. What a great place. It's a pleasure to work in a room with space to move around, plenty of amenities along with their helpful members. July 19th, all day should prove to be a creative day. We'll work with pastels, monotypes, charcoal, photographs...you name it.

Too Long

Time to post! I have been in the midst of working on a large encaustic, the biggest I've worked on so far and of course I like working big. I think my best work has always been of the larger variety. It's just something that I understand; it's freeing. The work I'm creating now is photo based and that in itself is news because it takes me back to my photographic roots. I feel as if I have come full circle. How phenomenal. I'm energized to keep my camera at my side and this time it's so much easier in the digital world. Though I must admit working in the darkroom was one of my favorite activities. I'll always miss the beauty of the BW print created in the dark. As a matter of fact I even enjoyed the process of developing my film.
My studio is up and running and I love the space, perfect for larger format work and for working in general. The work is flowing in the best way possible.

Great weekend opening at Tannery Row. The "Word" reception was great, poets were interesting and art outstanding. The artists' studios are definitely worth a trip to Buford, Georgia. Interesting town too.

The work above is an encaustic that is now on view at Thomas Deans Fine Art on Bennett Street in Atlanta. Love the gallery and this is one of the paintings that is currently in the exhibit, "From Nature". More to come.

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.