{ unfiinished painting | artfest 2011 | 19" x 24" }
the first class i took at artfest 2011 was a painting course with jesse reno. so much info to glean and so little time! the class (and jesse himself) were chock full of information and new techniques for this newbie painter (me) and so here is an unfinished work i began in class. with only about 45 minutes to go, i had a discussion with jesse about my work and he suggested i try painting over all or part of this painting. i think what he was getting after was trying to get me to take a risk, maybe go for a different subject matter. in the end, i decided to think about it, and leave it for another time, to revisit it and see. if i had had another day or two with jesse, i probably would have taken this in a totally different direction, but i signed up for just one session with him and i didn’t want to leave my first day at artfest by starting all over again. all in all, even if my work is unfinished, it was a blast of a day, one that came to an end too soon!
{ untitled-1 | tar and encaustic series }
the next class i took was with patricia seggebruch who was teaching an 'encaustic + plaster' class. it was so much fun and luxurious to play all day, uninterrupted (except for a quick lunch)...and boy, what a mess we all made!
{ untitled-2 | tar and encaustic series }
of all the pieces i made this day, i think this one got some of the most enthusiastic reviews! i began with a layer of tar (the brown stuff), which i LOVE! you just have to try this. and then i tried to do a strip of what at the top, which dripped uncontrollably (such is life), so i went with it. then i turned the piece upside down and—being in the pacific northwest—the white drips suddenly looked like tree trunks, so to me, it became a forest. later, i went on to inscribe about being lost in a forest, looking to find my media and voice as an artist...
i’d have to say that the inscription part is my least favorite since it’s too messy and undefined for my tastes, but it was a good experiment!
{ untitled-3 | tar and encaustic series }
this is the last of my 3 part series with tar and wax. the way the white wax accents the peaks of the tar is simply delicious. you just have to try it—trust me. it seemed to tell me that i needed to put that bit of spine right across the top there and that this creepy little girl wanted a place to be. so i did. thank you to crystal neubauer for gifting me with a gigantic ziplock bag of goodies that she hauled from chicago to seattle!
{ memories of seattle | 2011 }
here is my experiement with color. i wanted to challenge myself to work with colored wax on at least one piece before i left artfest, and this was it. i layered black, brown, yellow, blue and white and scraped away with a razor blade to reveal the layers. the result had me “seeing” seattle’s cityscape and so i drizzled the top, wax over plaster portion with blue handwritten script from an old letter to symbolize the rain that seattle is so well known for (even tho’ it didn’t rain much the entire time we were there!) usually when i travel i look for a piece of art to remember the trip by; this is my souvenir piece of art that i came back with. :)
{ the red thread, 3 x 6ish | encaustic, vintage ephemera, thread }
“an invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. the thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break.” ~chinese proverb
this piece was meditative for me. it was small, and therefore not as intimidating, and so it became my “warm-up” piece, the first piece i sat down to do in trish’s class at artfest 2011. i love words. and books. and writing. these are my things. and what i wanted to say with this piece is that i have so many parts, so many things to say, bits of me here and there that are torn, which never seem to come together in any meaningful way. this was my attempt at tying the disconnected parts of me together into a meaningful and cohesive piece. the red thread weaves in and out of some of the strips of paper, all adhered together with wax, and ends up in a mangled heap. my hope is that the pieces of my life will continue to come together, bound by a red thread to lead me to more and more of my life and to hopefully meet myself along the way. like a book that gets bound into a story, i yearn for the letters of my life to become words, words to give way to sentences and paragraphs, chapters and books.
through getting there by getting there, i think i am on my way...
