That Emotional Connection

Gateway, 2010, mixed media with encaustic, 24" x 66"

This painting was the first in my Running Stitch series and it has now been sold by Arden Gallery. I am happy to report the sale and thankful for Arden's expertise in marketing. At the same time, because it was the first of this series, I feel a strong connection to it, and seeing it go brings memories of its creation in the studio -- the excitement I felt as it came together and the pleasure it gave me as I added panels and watched it grow. I felt it could have gone on expanding forever. (Note: you can click on pix to see larger views or click here to see a better image on my website.)

Gleaming in late afternoon

Initially, I called this piece itself Running Stitch before I decided that it should be the first in a series of that name. I took the first picture of it in late afternoon as the light changed and made the copper strips in it gleam.

Detail of Gateway showing elements of  patinated copper, rubber, book pages, book covers and more

There were a lot of copper elements in this piece, most of them with a green or blue patina, but some just pure copper, and all set off with black encaustic.

I feel a bittersweet sense of parting from it that doesn't happen with every sale, but only with the pieces for which I feel a special connection. Farewell, Gateway!


Onward and Upward in the Arts
Tomorrow I am packing up my three works for the invitational sculpture show at Castle Hill that will run from May 30-June 9 in conjunction with The Encaustic Conference. This is the first time I have ever made anything that I wanted to be classified as "sculpture" and I am just playing around at the edges of the process. I think my aesthetic really lives somewhere between painting and sculpture in the twilight of 2.5D.

I'm just calling this "Red Piece" for the time being

So this one is "Blue Piece" until I think more about it

I've shown these two pieces on this blog before, but I haven't shown the third piece that will be in the show. That will be a surprise and is the most "sculptural" of the three. The real sculpture is building boxes to pack these pieces into. Fortunately, my very kind studio neighbor, Kathy Jacobs, is delivering them to Truro for me.


News of El Anatsui
After seeing and blogging about Anatsui, one of my most admired artists, at Wellesley College, I began following Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu's blog. Okeke-Agulu is an artist, curator and art historian as well as an assistant professor in the Art and Archeology Department at Princeton, and he participated in the public conversation with Anatsui at Wellesley. I learned so much from his explication of Anatsui's work that I wanted to read what he had to say about contemporary art, particularly from Africa.

El Anatsui, Intermittent Signals, 2009, photo taken at Jack Shainman Gallery, NY, Feb 2010

Today Okeke-Agulu's blog  had a post about Anatsui's show being installed at the Clark Art Institute in their new Stone Hill Center, designed by Tadao Ando. The works are from the Broad Art Foundation's collection. Okeke-Agulu has visited the Clark with Anatsui and on his own to consult on the installation, which he describes as "fabulous" because of the beautiful space designed by Ando. The show will run from June 12 to October 16 at the Clark in Williamstown, MA -- out here in the other side of Massachusetts where I now live. I plan to see the show and to watch the public screening of the new film about Anatsui by Susan Vogel on July 24th, which I posted about here.

His blog also linked to a new book to be published by Yale University Press about Anatsui's show at the Clark. The book is a transcript of a conversation between Anatsui and Okeke-Agulu as well as an essay by Alisa LaGamma, curator in the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas at the Met.

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As my mother says, never a dull moment.

Champing at the Bit

On Sunday I picked up the panels for my Arden Gallery commission. On Monday I began gathering things together and making the elements for the work. I'm ready to roll, but in between all my preparation, I was framing and wrapping the work that I'm delivering tomorrow. Until I get all that out of my studio, I can't began moving ahead.

Antares, 2007, encaustic and mixed media, 12"x36". This painting was hanging in our living room for more than three years. Will I miss it?

I am really anxious to get going on the new work, but I thought I would show you the pieces that are moving out of the studio and into a new home at Boston Medical Center. (Click on pix to enlarge.)

Halcyon, 2007, encaustic and mixed media, 12"x24". I had this piece hanging in the opposite direction with the leaf at the bottom left, but suddenly I looked at it and decided that it should go this way. Strange after all this time.

All the work is framed in black wood frames that I installed. It always seems like such a good idea to frame the work myself - until I'm actually doing it. Then I wonder how I ever got myself into this and why I am so self-masochistic.

Bellatrix, 2007, encaustic and mixed media, 12"x36". I was always fond of this piece. It has sculptural stenciled areas and embedded flowers.

But it all got done and they are wrapped and ready to travel.

La Dolce Vita, 2007, encaustic and mixed media, 12"x24". This piece has plaster under the pink ovals.

When I look at these pieces now, I recall how much I was experimenting with various techniques, trying to get  it all to come together. I think they are quite decorative, but maybe people in the hospital will find them soothing.

Wrigley's Best, 2009, encaustic and mixed media, 24"x24". This piece was completed by the deep frame I put on it. It looked like enamel or glass after I polished it up.

Happy Family, 2009, encaustic and mixed media. These two are not really soothing - rhythmic?

It's odd that I feel so disconnected from all this work in some ways. Wrigley's Best and Happy Family were made for the show that Lynette Haggard and I had together in 2009 called Physical Geography: Explorations in Rich Surface. That seems like eons ago.

The Portal, 2009, encaustic and mixed media, 20"x32"

The Maze, 2009, encaustic and mixed media, 20"x32"

These last two were also shown in Physical Geography. They were painted on top of old drawings that had those wavy blue lines. The Maze is one of my favorites.


There are also two works on paper included in the selection. These are painted with thin washes of acrylic on Okawara ricepaper. I have sold a lot of this work to corporate collectors in the past until the recession hit.

Fruition, 2009, acrylic on ricepaper, 24"x24"

Correspondence, 2009, acrylic on ricepaper, 24"x24"

These two I did not have to frame personally - luckily for me. That's a whole other thing. You know how those little specks of fluff, dog hair, cat hair and whatever get on the mat and you don't see them until you have fastened on the frame and the glass magnifies everything?

Finally, the piece de resistance - the new Ooooo. I'm sure you must be tired of this painting by now, but rest assured, tomorrow it's history in my studio - and blog.

Ooooo, oil and cold wax on canvas, 36"x36"

And it did look good in the deep frame that Bonnie helped me to attach. It's a good thing that we have four hands when called for, and that I have a willing partner with an expert eye and a propensity for exacting measurements.

Now, on to the new...