Hacked

A couple of months ago my site was hacked. It's a good thing, as it has long needed reworking and this pushed me over the top. Coincidentally, Adobe came out with MUSE, which is software for Web design. For the first time ever, I was able to create a site...and not in a templated format.
The software is still in beta stages, but has tons of potential. There are little issues of alignment I have not been able to resolve, but all in all I'm very excited and decided to go ahead and post the site. Check it out if you like.

While the design options are limitless, I stuck with a pretty traditional format. Once I get this under my belt I want to start to take some bigger chances.

Working on the site helped me think about my life a bit - how do I want to present myself, if at all. Because I just never know what's ahead, it makes senses to keep a site. I can't imagine my life without some art in it, but I'm feeling pretty low key at the moment.

Resolution or Revelation

2010 was full, to say the least. In April I got a full-time position with ZimmerFish and have spent the last 7+ months adapting, learning, learning, learning, and adjusting. During this time I completed previous freelance commitments, a small ceramics exhibit, and encaustic works/workshops for a grant - and slept.

Now that I've settled into the job, which I love (thank you universe), I'm thinking about what's next for my personal artwork. Till recently, making art has always been tied into making a living. I do think this has affected the nature of the imagery, no matter how hard I've tried to just be true to the work. In the end though, so what. I just want to make art. It's a truly selfish experience.

I'm lucky. I know it and I want to use the celebrational act of making art to make at least some little part of what can be a tough and frightening world better/kinder/easier. I've had times where I tried to say something important with my work, but don't think I've made a butterly's flap of a difference. So, it's time to consider how to bring it all together - what, how, for whom - making me smile and look forward to 2011.

Lansing Art Gallery Demo

Last week, as the conclusion of my grant for the Arts Council of Greater Lansing, I did a hands-on demo of encaustic. The attendees were mostly artists and I'll be curious to see who pursues the medium. Several people tried it out. This is one of the images I worked on...not complete.

If you look at the green and red marks in the lower left corner, you can see where one goes from fat to skinny. This is a technique of incising the was, then filling the groove with color, then scraping away the excess to leave a filled-groove mark. The rest of the marks have yet to be scraped. I like the line quality this creates.

All in all the piece needs some cleaning up and punching here and there. I'm still undecided about whether to add more flowers...could go either way.

Today I'm finishing up the final report for the grant. I'd like to thank the Arts Council for helping me get going with encaustic, which I think will hold my interest for quite some time.

Wroking toward September

It's been a busy time in the studios and much of the work will be going to Lansing Art Gallery this weekend. I'll be Artist of the Month - which means a mini exhibit. This will be an exploration of the landscape, mostly in ceramic. I've really enjoyed working on these pieces which celebrate the natural tendencies of clay and how, like bonsai, small shapes and patterns mimic large ones. I've also experimented with obvara - a Russian technique I learned from Janet Smith after seeing her discuss it on Facebook.

Then - there'll be a number of encautic pieces done in a range of approaches as part of the Individual Artist Grant I received. On September 9 from noon till 2 I'll be offering a hands-on demo (that means people can try it) of encaustic techniques. There will be handouts about encaustic to take. I've very much enjoyed working in these different media over the last several months and hope people will enjoy the results.

As always - the process is the joy, but it doesn't hurt if the product's pretty cool, too!

About Encaustic

In preparation for a September demonstration of encaustic, I've put together a sheet of information, which might be helpful to those who'd like to learn a bit about the medium.
Click here to take a look.

Hoping for a Mackerel Sky

This piece was done for the Mackerel Sky 20th Anniversary Exhibit which is hanging now. In the months before the event I knew I wanted to do something in encaustic involving a mackerel sky cloud formation. Every evening as I walked the dog I watched the clouds and a few times thought they might be headed in the mackerel direction, but not once did I get the real thing. The quest itself became fun and meditative and I got to see some really beautiful skyscapes.

Hake Brushes and Encaustic

Went to the studio today with a few experiments in mind. Thought it wise to limit the image to two, so I could focus. One was glazing, which turns out to be a really great time. It simply means adding a LOT of the plain wax/resin to the colored block chunks - so the colors are used more as tints than paints. I had been frustrated that the colored encaustics were too dense and I lost the luminosity, but it's back using glazes. Glazing would not work for everything, but will be a nice tool in the box.

Having looked at a ton of Byzantine encaustic portraits this morning, I wanted to play with doing a face...large area of flesh. The glazing came into play here, as the tints were very sublte.

BUT - the big surprise today was the brush. I had bought some hake brushes from Dick Blick and have seen hake mentioned in many encaustic publications. Still I had not tried them because the bristles simply seemed too soft and I didn't think they'd let much happen. BOY - was I wrong! The first stroke of the hake brush put down a mark that was as smooth as silk...totally different from any other tool I've tried thus far. Again - not for everything, but I'm going to be ordering a bunch more of these brushes in every size they have.

Still working on finding the best melting containers. I may look for a teeny crock pot for the plain wax, so I have a constantly-available source of melted wax to add to other things. Off to Goodwill.