Lizard Humor

Folks who know me well know I've been talking a lot about Coyote lately. So much so that he really rates his own post - but that will come later. (Yes, yes, let's keep Coyote waiting and see what happens... wanna play with fire anyone?) We think of Coyote as the trickster and the funny guy - but my personal experiences have shown me many animal teachers have a sense of humor. I know a few ravens and magpies who've enjoyed endless amusement at my expense. I laugh and like to think I'm in on the joke which, no doubt, makes them laugh harder.

I was a little surprised, however, to discover Lizard's sense of humor. I had always thought of the dreamtime as a sort of serious sacred place you shouldn't poke fun at. While working on this piece in my studio, Lizard begged to differ. And I love him for it!

Come see the Art!

In a flurry of creative activity I managed to wade through the dust and chaos of my studio (currently a construction zone) and produce some new pieces. I now have four new pieces -- just in time for the Coastside Mixed Media Artists Show and Sale going on the month of June. Here's a sampler. You can go to my Flickr page to see them closer - or, hey, come to the show!

It's All About the Love: The What I Love Series #1

Yeowzas - it's been a while since I posted. Winter was tough - but Spring is here and I'm starting a new series of posts about Love. Specifically, what I love. And for the first post of this series I'm featuring a piece I did last summer, in tribute to the passing of my cat, Rocky, entitled, It's All About the Love. Nuff said.

This is a small piece, approximately 4" across and hangs from a black cord. Here's a close up.

Crow Entendre

Here's the other piece that will be featured in the Coastside Mixed Media Artist's show in February. This piece is 9x12 and includes acrylic paint, original artwork and digital photography.

OctoPop

No, it's not a blue frozen popsicle treat. My father turned 80 this past April and due to several unforeseen circumstances, I wasn't able to give him his birthday gift until recently. Obviously I couldn't post the picture of it until he had received the actual item, but here it is. Happy birthday Pop - you are officially an Octogenarian!
This piece is all about fun and reminder to me to lighten up once in a while. Not everything has to be deep, personal, and meaningful. Art is about expression, and there really is a lighter, goofy side to me. This is a mixture of digital artwork, using a photo I took of his dog Ruthie, textured papers, more words as visual elements, and lots of acrylic paint and medium.

Hippo Birdies to Bro

The subtitle of my blog is Explorations in art, love, and speechlessness. This post is about all three.

You can't know me for long without hearing about my brother. We survived childhood together, and in our family that's no small feat. To say we're close is an understatement but I often find it difficult to tell the people most important to me how much I love them. He's a multi-talented carpenter, artist, river rafter, musician and he just turned 50. You can see his ceramics at www.sloanearts.com. Aint he something?

I made this piece for my brother, in celebration of his half-century mark this time around. This 11 X 14, mixed-media collage piece has a matte finish. The vintage photos of the mountains and digitally altered topographic map are the San Gabriel mountains, specifically Icehouse Canyon. We grew up at the root of these mountains and I think they are part of our cell structure. The photo of the two of us was taken on my 17th birthday. Hey, we all looked like that back then! Spider walked into this piece of her own accord.

Digital disclaimer: this is a scan of the unframed piece and not only is the resolution pretty poor, but it loses something without the frame. I gave it to him before I could get an image of the framed piece. If I do I'll replace this image, but use your imagination in the meantime.

Wolf Pup

Never take a job on commission. Especially when it's for family. Especially when it's for your teenage daughter.

OR - Go ahead and take the job. Then throw out everything they say they want and do what you want.

I have a word box. I cut out words and phrases from magazines, comic books, and catalogs and keep them in my word box. It's best if I keep this a totally right-brained activity (tricky since I think language is left-brained in origin) and not have any expectations for what I cut out. I just snip what jumps out at me. Then, when I'm constructing a piece I go through and see who wants to come out and play. While many of my smaller pieces incorporate these words, I haven't used them in my larger pieces -- yet.

My daughter, Mara, saw the words "No Accident" one day and asked that I create a piece for her with these words. After picking her brain for some inspiration I realized I couldn't work with her vision -- I had to work with my own vision for her. Wolves are important to Mara (I sometimes call her Wolf Pup) and the rest of the words chose themselves. I really wanted more of a street or graffiti art look for this piece -- something less polished and little messy. I'm not sure if I achieved that but I'm pleased with the end result. I worked with acrylic emulsions, medium, and many, many layers of different paints and papers. The digital image really doesn't do this piece justice (it's too big for my scanner -- this is a digital picture. As soon as I can get it scanned I'll repost). There's a lot of texture going on and I can't look at it without touching it and experiencing the textures. This piece, called "Mara's Wolf", is 9X12 on canvas board.

Some folks have been
puzzled by this piece. Mara and I both really like it -- so both client and artist are happy.

Things I learned:
- Feel the force, Luke. Trust yourself, you know best.
- Composition, composition, composition. It doesn't really work here, I know.
- Life is messy sometimes.
- Wolves really are teachers.

Holiday Cards. Performance Anxiety Anyone?

It all started many (don't ask how many) years ago, in a tiny dorm room at San Francisco State, ironically designed by the same guy who designed San Quentin. Armed with typing paper, paint brushes, and green and red paint, I splatter painted my way into what became the first of many holiday cards. What can I say, it was the 80's and splatter paint was big. Over the years the process, and the artist, have evolved -- moving from splatter paint and potato stamps to color copies and finally desktop publishing. I've rarely missed a year, with the exception of a couple when my daughter, Mara, was small. As she's grown she's become an active partner in the process and each year has been a tougher act to follow than the last. We start asking each other in November what we'd like to do this year and we never have a clue. As a matter of fact, we rarely know what we're doing when we're actually doing it and some years, like this year, the cards go out on Christmas Eve (or later...) We've run the gamut from the rediculous to some pretty deep thinking. I'm still not sure how I feel about this year's card - but here it is.

Since I've been working a lot with images of bird, mostly corvids and raptors, I really wanted to do something with wings. I also love using words as integral visual elements, so used a favorite quote from Mother Theresa to illustrate the image of a wing and a recent poem my daughter wrote for the heart. (And for folks who want to know what the words actually say, we've put them on the back of the card this year.) The background is textured and painted acrylic medium and the whole kit and kaboodle is scanned and assembled digitally. (Gotta love Photoshop!)

Happy Holidays! The sentiment in this year's card goes out to all.