Laurelines

Painting paroxysms, round two

Four more finished to add to the three already done. Three in the wings. After  I finish 8 to 10 of these volcano paintings, I'll move to the next series. Which is still a little glimmer in my mind and heart. We shall see what emerges!

Sketching at the North Carolina Museum of Art

I'm still madly and happily painting volcanoes, but I miss frequent sketching. My husband and I went to the North Carolina Museum of Art this past weekend to remedy the situation. Here is what resulted: 

This polychrome 18th century German, 'Adoring Angel,' calls to me. I've sketched this before,

but wanted to connect to the angel again.

Another view:

On a (very) different plane, here is a self-portrait:

and a vignette from the African Gallery:

The second batch of volcanoes should be ready to share soon. I can't rush the process, much as I wish I could.

Painting paroxysms

Volcanic paroxysms, that is.  A paroxysm is, as you know, a sudden, violent outburst of energy. I have them, you have them. Even educated fleas have them. Ours pale in comparison to volcanic ones. At least, mine do and I hope yours do, too.

So now, after my recent illustration for The Morning News, I can't stop painting volcanoes!  

This subject has grabbed hold of my very being and it won't let go. It's no surprise, really. I was born on a dormant volcano, one of the Aleutian arc volcanoes, in the Bering Sea. A lifelong wanderer, I have felt most at home on this planet in Iceland, a country that absolutely oozes volcanic and other forms of primal energy.

I have long been drawn to exploding, expansive gestures. 

 

 

My love of fountains is another example of my attraction to expulsive energy.

I'm working right now on 7 volcano paintings, the first in what I believe/hope will be a longer series. These are smallish, 11" x 14", a great size for beginning exploration of the subject. Medium is acrylic on board, though I have some water soluble oils I can't wait to try with this series!

 

So, onward, volcanically. I'm learning as I go what works and what doesn't with these paintings and I'm really enjoying the process. I'll have more to say and show soon.

*Postcards from the volcano

I got a commission last week to make an illustration for the website The Morning News. I'd done an illustration for them last summer and both they and I enjoyed the experience a lot. The current article is on natural disasters. Kate Ortega, the editor I've worked with, suggested volcanoes as a theme. I latched onto the subject with glee and ended up submitting three images. This is the one Kate chose:

Here are the two others:

*And here is the poem I've filched my blog post title from:

A Postcard from the Volcano

by Wallace Stevens

 

Children picking up our bones

Will never know that these were once

As quick as foxes on the hill;

 

And that in autumn, when the grapes

Made sharp air sharper by their smell

These had a being, breathing frost;

 

And least will guess that with our bones

We left much more, left what still is

The look of things, left what we felt

 

At what we saw. The spring clouds blow

Above the shuttered mansion-house,

Beyond our gate and the windy sky

 

Cries out a literate despair.

We knew for long the mansion's look

And what we said of it became

 

A part of what it is . . . Children,

Still weaving budded aureoles,

Will speak our speech and never know,

 

Will say of the mansion that it seems

As if he that lived there left behind

A spirit storming in blank walls,

 

A dirty house in a gutted world,

A tatter of shadows peaked to white,

Smeared with the gold of the opulent sun.

 

This has been a favorite poem of mine since I first read it in my late teens, then still practically one of the children Stevens refers to in the first and sixteenth lines. Now, a lifetime later, I'm closer to the 'We' of the poem, hoping that I, too, will have left, when that time comes and in my own modest way, something of 'what I felt/at what I saw.'

Lines, colors, shapes: January

I was only able to dip my toe into the great sea that is lithography during my two-day workshop in Austin, Texas.  I would like to find a way to continue working in this medium. I really like it.

Here are two very different first steps in lithography. One is a face roughly derived from my sketch of the adoring angel below. It sort of just appeared on the plate as I drew.

The second image comes from a recent sketch done in my studio here and is a way of seeing how my normal gestures and lines behave under lithograph conditions. The plates were small, 7"x9", so it was hard to get real momentum going.

Here is the mixed media sketch of the protea mentioned above:

And finally, a little loosening-up sketch from this morning: This loosening up is necessary because I'm going to Rome next Tuesday to see my daughter Cecelia (she who never stands still) and hope to get some sketches of Rome (think fountains) done while I'm there. She, as you may remember, is an avid sketcher now, so we can enjoy this together. I'm also meeting up with Concetta Flore, lovely artist and very nice person. She lives in Rome and wants to sketch with me...I'm really looking forward to it. I'm going to prepare some loose sheets for sketching by applying acrylic washes like the one I used for the Greek/Roman head below. Then I'll use ink and crayon on site. Playing with mixed media outside of the painting studio keeps me open to new ways of doing things inside it.  I'm taking a travel sketchbook, too. Ciao, Roma!

Fall, on the periphery

Since last we spoke, I've had to turn my attention to the kind of thing for which girding one's loins is necessary. No worries, I give it my all and then I can let it go, knowing I can't control the outcome.

On the periphery, art goes on. There's something so reassuring about examining the periphery and finding yourself still there, don't you find ?

They teach you

I've always said that my daughters have been my greatest teachers. Oh, I know a fair amount about child development and I have strong values so, of course, I guided them. But, really, they taught me what they needed as they grew. I learned to pay close attention to, and follow, their signs.

So it is now with my materials. My paints, my brushes, my grounds are leading me on a path I didn't consciously set out on. Oh, I have my ideas and I have imagery I've been drawn to forever, but now when I paint, what comes from my hand surprises me. I'm paying attention to the signs and I'm following them. All I knew when I decided to return to painting earlier this year, was what didn't interest me...rendering the world realistically, for example. I've dashed back and forth between abstract and representational for years, without following any one path to the end. Not this time. This time I'm betting on the process and I'm going where I have to go.

So now, wherever next? I guess we'll find out, won't we?

Here are the latest pieces, working backward chronologically. You'll see that the influence of the Pondshiners' process on what followed it. 

Detail from below:

detail from above:

I'll be leaving for France a week from tomorrow. The Lot River valley and Paris are my destinations. I'll check in here again before I go!

2011, the Unplan

Before anything else,  I must pay homage to my loved ones who died during this year: 

http://laurelines.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/01/margaret-rabb-2241953-132010.html

http://laurelines.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/06/index.html

http://laurelines.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/09/my-mothers-death.html

After such a year of loss and for the first time in my life, I have no appetite for control.  In past years, I devised intricate plans and goals for my art life: here are two examples:

2006, The Plan and 2007, The Plan.

For years, I loved making my plans. I needed them, I benefited from them, and I (mostly) kept to them. 

Now though, I want to let go, be responsive to each day, follow my inner prompts, live more for my art than I ever have. I feel free, hopeful, and excited about what might happen when I pick up brush, pen, pencil! To tell you the truth, I can't wait!

I know there are those of you out there who have been following along with me for a long time. I am, as ever, grateful for your support and interest and your friendship. To new or infrequent readers, welcome and thank you, as well.

Happy 2011 to us all!

 

2008, my watery, wandering, wonderful year

2008 has been the best of years, the worst of years. On the world's front, not the best---though there's reason now to hope for some relief. On a personal front, a meaningful, stimulating year as far as my artwork is concerned.

Travel has been, since my childhood, a huge part of my life and my art, so, not surprisingly, travel figured largely in my world again this year. Our area had suffered from drought on and off since at least 2002, with 2007 as the driest, deadest, saddest, scariest year of my adult memory. I'm a gardener as well as a painter, so I was deeply affected by the brown, sere world outside my windows. The specter of global warming and increasing scarcity of water on our planet shook me to my soul.  I needed to go where there was water and I needed to make paintings about water, half hoping that I could seed the clouds, could become a kind of rain maker myself.  As is my wont, I made a plan.

Hawaii and Iceland beckoned to me. These waterfall-studded, rain-blessed, sea-surrounded volcanic islands were perfect locations for experiencing water. Paris,  coastal mid-California, Montréal, Barcelona and even Austin, Texas were on my itinerary, as I explored both the sublime and the ordinary aspects of water. I wanted to avoid making obvious paintings. There are few subjects so prone to cliché as the one I'd chosen. I gave myself lots of leeway---I could draw and paint sea life, fountains, bottles of water, running water in sinks, in tubs, water in all forms and occurrences. Though I filled up many sketchbooks and renewed my commitment to more sustained paintings, it is clear, from late December's vantage point, that I've only just begun to get my sea legs. I'm beginning to understand what there is about water that calls to me and I'm feeling my way to a personal visual vocabulary for expressing it.

I'll be continuing on this watery path in 2009, working on my series of rocks and water paintings, being fully receptive to following new currents as I go. I've found a topic in water that is deeply important to me. As far as travel goes, I dream of Newfoundland and Labrador and Cornwall. I want to spend September in Brittany, to paint and to be. I have other hopes and plans for travel which I'll tell you about in time, but our global recession may freeze all, most, or some of my wanderings. We shall see. I have enough sketches, photos, studies, and memories from this year's explorations to supply me with subject matter for months of painting. There's more to tell, more about other art projects I've got on tap, two group blogs I participate in and love,  some really exciting new directions, not expressly water-related, but these will have to wait because... I'm leaving Monday to spend the last days of 2008 and the first of 2009 in Paris, with a side trip to Bruges to celebrate my birthday. There'll be sketches and stories to share with you. Thank you so much, dear friends, for your continued support and interest. I've cherished your company this year and every year. Happy 2009 to you, each and all.

2007, the plan

In 2006, I had a single focus in my art life. Drawing was what I did, and although I started out using various mediums such as colored pencil, crayons, pen and ink, I settled halfway through on pencil and watercolor.

In 2007, I feel the call to go inward and deeper, but also to be more multifaceted. I‘ve got so much I want to do, so many different levels I want to work on!

Here are the various projects I’ll be pursuing:

A 101 Faces series:
I’ll make a series of 101 paintings/drawings of faces. The faces will have the same format---  about 7” x 10” on a support like masonite or 300lb watercolor paper mounted on board--- but I’ll be using different mediums. I’ll draw and paint from life,  from photographs, from faces in the art of museums I visit, from memory. And I’ll install them as a narrative, from left to right, in rows, as lines on a page, on a blank wall--- in my house at first, but with an eye to a later public installation.  I’m really excited about this project---it is very manageable, it will be ongoing through the entire year, and it will encourage me to be loose, experimental, playful. It will tell a story, but I have no idea yet what that story will be!  And, best of all, it will provide structure without being restrictive. I can imagine that I will have one or two such series, with different focuses, each year from now on.

Two Women Drawing Together:
My beautiful friend Ippy Patterson and I are going to draw together for a year, on a collaborative project. I will say more about this later. I’m very excited about this and I think you will be, too.

A return to acrylic and/or oil painting:
This will require a completely different state of mind from the one that has been lately dominant in my life. This is the most introverted of my 2007 paths, especially at first, as I begin the process of going deep down and seeing what is there to be painted.

A travel sketchbook project: I’d like to make a sketchbook exploring the nexus between the old world/Europe and the new world/North America. I haven’t quite worked out the details of this one yet or the places I’ll be going, but I will within the next few weeks. Watch the blog for it!

Two art-related trips to France: details to be revealed!

My homely, local sketchbook:
How I’ve enjoyed, in 2006, making drawings of my town, my home, my garden, my family, my pets, the surrounding countryside. I can’t stop now! There’ll be weekly posts from this sketchbook.

And so, the plan for 2007. Unlike last year, when my project was under my control completely, some elements of the 2007 plan call for working with others and some depend on several external factors.  Many of my ideas are more open-ended than last year’s, so the exact shape of what’s to come is unknown.  Isn’t that exciting? I leap into 2007 with a sense of great possibility and the commitment to work really, really hard.  Come along and let’s see what happens!  And thank you from my very heart for all of your support and enthusiasm. Happy New Year!

Four sketches from yesterday:

A purple cabbage from my garden:

Early morning narcissus:

Two crowd scenes, drawn quickly and in increasing dark and chill: