Excess Baggage

Excess Baggage   Watercolor   25.5 x 16

is the result of our classroom challenge of "beauty in the marketplace", which is an offshoot of an earlier challenge of "beauty in the basement".  For me, design is everywhere.  Paintings do not need to be inspired by grand cathedrals or exotic foreign destinations to be interesting.  And, indeed, setting up an interesting still life incorporating design can be aggravating as well as time consuming.  Our goal here was to snap photos in any marketplace...and subsequently to  crop, eliminate, and simplify in order to create a wonderful composition.  Artists chose locations with remarkable variety....the deli counter, the produce market and, for me, the local antiques mall. 

My own work is the product of a fusion of two stacks of suitcases.  The glove was added upon the suggestion of one of the classroom artists and was painted from my very own globe. 

I enjoy painting stacks of things....perhaps an attempt to maintain an illusion of balance, as well as to implicate the precarious nature of things....of life itself. 

Most of the luggage was painted first with raw umber to indicate dark and light patterns.  Glazes of color were added later.  The use of this color, to me, not only implies leather, but also creates the feel of "all things vintage"  A license plate with my husband's initials had to be included.

And as for the title "Excess Baggage"....don't we all have some?  I am using this work to inspire me to travel more lightly, to maneuver my way with less stuff.

Enough Said.

The Mile High Book Club

Mile High Book Club   oil   24 x 12 x 1.5

is the result of study in my summer drawing class, but, in actuality, has been in my brain for a long while.  My husband and I love to read...and, sometimes, more than one at a time.  As a result, books tend to accumulate...here, there, everywhere.  Our shelves can no longer accommodate the overflow.  Our books rest in stacks surrounding our seating area where we coffee-and-read each morning.  One of the first things we do when we are expecting guests is to re-position, hide and file our stacks. 

In addition, precarious stacks of things reoccur in my work...perhaps an indication and constant reminder of the chaos that needs to be sorted (both material and emotional) in order to facilitate the calm and simplicity that we both desire.

My reference photos were shot on my patio....this smaller work represents approximately 1/3 of my arranged pile.  Passes were made top-to-bottom and bottom-to-top with a particular goal each time.  Relationships became super-important as I tried to establish a bit of back-and-forth rhythm that maintained at least a posture of stability. 

While I am happy and satisfied that one of my long-held ideas was realized, I found that a composition including so many objects severely restrained my need for creativity...just too many masters that needed to be obeyed.

There.  Done. 

(The) Wood Pile

Wood Pile   oil on canvas   60 x 20 x 1.5

has been our best friend here in bitter-cold northeast Ohio this winter.  Throughout the late summer and autumn my husband carefully plans our "stash" and arranges it priority-wise by its seasoned past.  Large stashes of kindling are collected.  Because of our intimacy with our our wood, it became a lovely subject to me.  While, admittedly, painting stacks of things would probably be boring to some painters, I find the rhythms that abound and the individuality of the logs to be interesting and challenging.  "Wood Pile" is a slice of my life.  I offer it up.

Stacks of Things

Clay Pots   watercolor/paper   19.5 x 11

intrigue me...they are vertical, yet precarious, perhaps a symbol, for me, of the human condition.  One artist in my painting class, in a search for self-definition, has declared her love of the effects of light.  That is, for most artists, the common, yet difficult, quest.  Light creates beautiful patterns on our subjects, as well as transient warm to cool transitions.  I, too, love those patterns as they help to define the planes of my subject matter.  But there I must draw the line, as my love of the more simple shapes and the abstract-ness of my picture plane takes precedence.  For this work, I photographed my subject matter in strong light on my patio from several angles, then selected the one that thrilled me the most.  Clay pots hold great interest for me...we use them.  They crack and break.  We use bits and pieces of them in the bottoms of new plants.  They are weathered and imperfect.

Ah, yes, a metaphor for the human condition.

Clay Pots.

Tension

Precarious Stack of Vintage Bowls   watercolor   12.5 x 9

Tension is definitely an emotion we can all relate to. We can identify tension in sounds and visuals. Tension causes us to pause....at least, that is my take on it. Tension in paintings very often relies on diagonal lines.....those that are momentarily suspended between the vertical (active) and the horizontal (passive, restful). My husband loves photographing the tension of broken tree branches in the forest that have become lodged in the crooks of other trees. We all know that eventually they will fall.....but when? Fences and telephone poles are often more interesting when they stray from the vertical. They become more active and break up the status quo. Robert Genn's twice weekly newsletter of today refers to sterility versus fertility and he lists ways to "shake it up", ways to pull oneself out of the familiar. His list mostly involves ways for the artist to change her/his approach. I would like to add "painting stacks of things" to the list. Stacking is always interesting to me....a piling up of varieties into the grand vertical format. "Precarious Stack of Vintage Bowls" was a lesson from my watercolor class. The values of the white bowls have been exaggerated to bring up the drama and to hold up to the strong dark background. What will happen next? I am involved.