This is a new one, just brought

home from the clay studio. I was thinking he was walking through water.


涅莫夫的故事
Posted on April 11, 2012 by notnow
So last Friday I forgot to take pix after I had worked. Tuesdayended up being a studio day, and I continued working on the pieces Istarted last Friday.

Flowers!They’re outside busting out all over, and thank goodness for thatbecause that has been the galleries’ requests this week, too.
I have been out sketching and looking as the spring beauties just keep doing their thing. I was at
Fearrington Village in Pittsboro last weekend marveling at the varied and lovely gardens.


I really maybe oughta learn the names of some of these. It’s helpswith titles and with answering the inevitable question –”what kind offlowers are they?”
oh well. It’s low on my to-do list. I am doing a another version of“sun-seeking mums,” the one on the right with the big swoopy stems. It’skind of kick to do.
I like cat-tails for that nice repetition and vertical energy I’m so fond of.
As I put things back after the stairs re-do, I’m reluctant to crowdmy space like I had it before. I am trying out the easels over on thelighter side of the room.
It’s good to be back at work.
涅莫夫的故事
Posted on April 7, 2012 by notnow
Part of my travel west included hanging out with my sister andher menagerie in Tulsa, OK. She has 6 horses and rides, takes lessons,runs a biz and her household. Phew! My one art job seems so simple incomparison.
And work I did, tho. I did some sketching while she and my niece had a riding lesson.


This first one is compressed charcoal. The ones below are charcoalpencil. I was mostly working on proportions of horse and rider.
All the tack (saddle, bridle, etc) is distracting to me. It covers so much of the horse’s body.
I think I’d like to do a whole sketchbook just on their legs. I’d love for those to flow effortlessly from my hand.
Their faces are elegant and boney and their eyes huge and deep. Allof these sketches are fast, of course, gestures made while the horsesare moving and doing their thing. I haven’t re-worked or correctedanything.
And this horse’s markings! I just had to draw because they were sounusual and square! Who would believe it if I just painted it that way.
studio remods part 1–the stairs
Posted on April 6, 2012 by notnow
Before my trip out west, you mayrecall, I was quickly, crazily, collapsing half of my studio to cleararound the perilous, precipitous stairs for reconstruction. They lookedlike this: Note the small underneath space and angle of decent.

Fortunately for me, my neighbor is David Scott of Caledonia Construction.David and his partner, Charlie Straughn, had the brilliant idea to dothe stair-fix while I was out of town, so we wouldn’t be in each other’sway thru the process.
I came home to these rock-solid, easily traversed, roomy stairs!
There’s a landing I can turn around in, and I don’t have to duck toavoid hitting my head when I step down to the second flight of stairs. Ican even take work up and down with ease.

And as a bonus–check it out–they came with spacious storage underneath, too!
I’ve been running up and down them just for fun. That is, after I GOTit that these were my stairs to the basement studio. It took me a fewdays to stop looking for my old steep, white ones.
I’m working in half the studio, trying to decide how much finishing Iwant on these stairs (drywall, etc), and the other side is still mostlycompressed and stacked like a puzzle.
.

Show Biz–old vs new
Posted on April 3, 2012 by notnow
One of the nice things about showing in alternative spaces(restaurants, community centers, art centers) is that I can group “old”work and new work.

“Old”is not a very descriptive word. In most juried situations and in thegallery world, work over two years-old is considered “old.” Work thathas been shown before in other places is considered stale by some.
It’s a word I want to be careful with because I start to believe thatold work or work that hasn’t sold despite being shown many places isnot good work or is somehow flawed. And along side that is theassumption that “new” is better. That refrain is thick in our veryinsistent, impatient, super-fast world.
Here are some paintings that are currently up at the Carolina Brewery in Pittsboro. Some are brand new, some are from last year’s work or a year before that.

Can you tell the age of these paintings?
If my palette is consistent, and thematically, I can create a relatedgrouping of works, then I can still put together a really good-lookingshow.
I remember an artist-teacher recommending to students not to sign thedate on the front of their pieces. The thinking is that it could deterbuyers if the piece is perceived as old. I really like it, though, whenI’ve seen the date by a signature, especially when I’ve been in a museumin front of a piece I really love, ancient or recent. It’s like anotherpiece of the artist’s story.

I am a prolific painter and have a lot of work living in my studio.Many pieces are years-old. They still have meaning for me. They stillare a surprise to people who see them for the first time; they’re “new”to them.
I will continue to remind myself that a piece’s worth is notdetermined by its age or the market or even whether it sells. There areso many variables outside of my control. The bigger picture for me isall of the work, the different series, the themes that appear anddisappear, the cycles of subject matter and techniques, the wholeshebang.