Good Dog

This has been a tough year for many. We lost some great people like Bowie, Prince, and Alan Rickman. We've had an ugly and endless presidential campaign. And in my own life, I lost my sweet doggy companion, Penny, on October 7th after 16 years as a well loved family member.

Although I've done a lot of artwork of animals, and other peoples' pets, not to mention a feral cat, I have not really used Penny as a subject matter other than a sketch here and there.

Penny sketches.

However, over the years I have taken hundreds of photos of her, probably more so than my children, once they reached their teens. Penny was present, available, and endlessly photogenic. In the last year of her life she became a Facebook celebrity for managing to never quite be in her bed. Here then are her top five failed attempts:

And here are her first picture, (when she was rescued from the Dallas Animal Shelter and rode back to Lubbock to her new home), and her last, as she lay quietly in her bed. In between was a life well lived, full of walks and snuggles, love and devotion.

Gazing at the Moon

There is a tradition in British and Celtic lore of a hare gazing up at the moon. Supposedly, when a wild hare does this it symbolizes fertility and abundance, a good harvest, the continuity of life.

Last Christmas I did a small illustration of a moon hare and made it my Christmas card.

I also did a few greeting cards with this motif, beginning with a carved lino block of a leaping rabbit to make prints from, then embellishing each print with paint and ink.

I used the same print to make a small, detailed illustration.

And another one on watercolour paper.

But then I kept seeing other animals gazing at the moon, as many of us tend to do, because that gentle night light in the sky has intrigued us for centuries. We contemplate our place in the universe as we look to its glow, its waxing and waning. So because I also love foxes I did a larger painting of a young fox also gazing at the moon. This one is called Magic Hour. It went to a friend's son and wife for the upcoming birth of their baby.

When my nephew and his wife were expecting their baby I knew their colour scheme was pink and grey so I returned to the image of the moon gazing hare and painted Pink Moon for them.

And for my sister's birthday this year I did this painting for her veterinary clinic called The Night Watch. Two happy friends communing with nature.

The moon appears in a number of my artworks, as does the sun. They define our days and nights, give us rich symbols, myths, legends, and stories, and will be here long after we are gone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgHmOH7VbYw

Hidden Domains

Like many people, I sometimes pass ancient or abandoned dwellings slowly decaying into their surroundings, and I ponder both the stories of the place and the people who long ago left them, The ancient ruins, like those in New Mexico, or Mesa Verde, Colorado have a documented history, even if there are unanswered questions.

Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

 Mesa Verde

Other ruins are often found out on the West Texas flat lands, old farmhouses or barns gently disintegrating into their environment. Just a forgotten place, a lost history.

When I do abstract paintings they may seem to be just an exercise in colour, form, and design, but I often tap into meanings that come forth in the process. In the case of my new series of small works, and in a number of previous abstract paintings, there seems to emerge a mysterious sense of place, geometric forms that suggest structures, often lonely, vacated structures, weathered by time and nature. In each image there seems to be a window, a door, or even a crack opening into another place, another time. I like the fact that my subconscious can dwell in these places, calm, silent, and solitary.

Forgotten Place-2013

The Guardian-2013

Hidden Domain Quartet-2016

 The series, framed.

A smaller image, 5" x 5"

 And sometimes, even a tiny 4" square of scrap watercolour paper, with a few strokes of paint on it, can evoke a sense of place.


Mesa-2016

Cool

I love researching the meanings and origins of words, especially slang words and well known sayings or expressions. If someone remarks on the "dog days of summer" I want to know why they are called that. (hint: it's based on a star in the sky). If you're "throwing me some shade" then I have to know not only what it means but where it began. (aha, it originated in the 1980's LGBT drag culture, as a finely finessed insult, without being blatantly tacky). I can be snarky but throwing shade is a more subtle skill, somewhere above the level of an eye roll.
 In my many years of living through various forms of slang from "groovy" through "amazeballs" I AM actually amazed at the longevity of the word "Cool". Yes there have been variations from "Chill" to "Ice Cold" but "Cool" stays cool because it is the perfect word to define an elusive set of traits. People who are cool are effortless at what they do. If you try to be cool you are not cool, as any hipster or high school teacher will find out. Cool means being perfectly comfortable in your own skin, not easily affected or swayed by the opinions of others, not faddish but eternally in style, poised, self aware, and yet not taking yourself too seriously. It is effortless and unashamed, mysterious and yet accessible, different, sometimes strange, but not to the point of being bizarre or uncomfortably weird. Cool is outside the mainstream, but not too far out.

Shakespeare even described a character as cool, but the modern use came into being in the 1930's in African American culture and specifically the jazz music scene. Black musicians, like Duke Ellington, were the first cool people. In the Forties it migrated into the Beat culture, and into literature like Jack Kerouac's characters in On the Road. Film Noir had a lot of cool actors, from Bogey and Bacall to Alan Ladd and Robert Mitchum. Rock and Roll had loads of cool in the Fifties. Elvis was an example of someone who started out cool but had a hard time keeping it when fame overwhelmed him. John Lennon was the cool Beatle, Jimi Hendrix was definitely cool. (Disco was not cool. It just wasn't. It was fun, but not cool).

 There's nothing wrong with not being cool. Some people are too brimming with emotion and passion to be actually cool, which usually requires a certain contained reserve. Janis Joplin was not cool but she was definitely a red hot ball of messy energy. Even I know I'm not cool. I just admire cool. So in that vein, after all that build up, here are my top five cool people of this year. May they always keep the faith.

#1 Prince

Prince was like a magic unicorn who existed in his own realm. (And I hate referring to him in the past tense.) With his passing everyone had a Prince story, from the pancakes and basketball, to killer ping pong matches, to acts of overwhelming generosity. He was the person who wandered into someone's concert, blew everyone away with a guitar solo, then just wandered off again into the ether. The opposite of every overexposed pop star, he was only occasionally sighted then retreated again to write another thousand songs. There was just something preternaturally calm and poised about the guy, even when an amused smirk played on his lips. Even performing in a downpour at the Superbowl it seemed as if the rain was deliberately avoiding him so as not to mess up his hair and outfit. Sure, some of his persona was smoke and mirrors, but there was also that core of authenticity, not to mention undeniable talent, that kept him so endlessly fascinating.

David Bowie:

Bowie is like the white version of Prince, that same quirky uniqueness, that same somewhat remote persona, and buckets of talent. If anything, Bowie was more detached than Prince, hiding behind a series of created characters that kept him always interesting, always evolving. He could blend into the pop culture scene, as he did in the Eighties, or remain on its' fringes, often being frustratingly obscure. In an age where everyone overshares on the internet, and gives away part of themselves and their private lives to strangers in an attempt to be "liked, the truly cool ones, like Prince and Bowie, keep that core of themselves away from the public eye.

Helen Mirren:

Helen Mirren makes being an older woman sexy, fun, stylish, and sassy. She continues to act in parts well outside the range offered for a woman in her Sixties. (Assassins! Queens!) And as a woman in my Sixties, I look to her as a role model. She is unadulterated in her appearance, showing her wrinkles, her generous nose, her small curvaceous body, without feeling the need for plastic surgery or photoshopping. She's blunt, smart, and funny, cool in a warm, feminine way.

President Barack Obama:

Even if you don't like Barack Obama, he is that rarest of animals, the cool politician. You only have to view the current selection of candidates to observe what is NOT cool. The closest any of them come to cool is Bernie Sanders, just because he's got the whole crumpled clothes, crazy hair, traveling coach thing down. But he tends to be a bit too stern and humourless for real cool. Obama has the dry wit, the unruffled exterior, and the subtle snark (a shade throwing President!) that cause many to view him as distant and detached, when in fact he is caring and personable. Cool people, again, don't wear their hearts on their sleeves, and they don't let their emotions get in the way of being calm, decisive, and rational. Probably the last cool President we had was John F. Kennedy. Jimmy Carter was not a cool President but now he is a cool ex-President, quietly fighting cancer, building homes for needy people, and showing the world what a real Christian is supposed to be. Sometimes coolness has the warmest of hearts. ( I will also argue that Jesus was cool but that's a longer discussion)

Emma Watson:

It's rare for someone this young to be cool, as they are usually struggling to find their identity and voice, and worrying about image, popularity, and being loved, but little Hermione has grown up to be an elegant young woman, a U.N. ambassador, and an eloquent spokesperson for the rights of girls and women everywhere. She is a voice for modern Feminism and has stepped into that role fearlessly and calmly. I would also place Malala Yousafsai in this category.

I first became interested in Cool back in the Eighties when I bought this little book. It's still available on Amazon, as is its sequel. It won't tell you who is cool now but it certainly discusses who was cool then. And if you know some cool people let me know. because that would be cool.

 http://www.amazon.com/Catalog-Cool-Gene-Sculatti/dp/0446375152/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1461872366&sr=1-1&keywords=the+catalog+of+cool

And if you want the lengthier explanation of Cool there is this article:

http://www.neh.gov/humanities/2014/julyaugust/feature/how-did-cool-become-such-big-deal-0

Big and Bold

I used to have a watercolour professor in art school named Juanita Pollard. She encouraged us to paint big and to use the largest brushes possible so we would loosen up and not scratch like chickens in tiny little places. Her philosophy was "Get a broom!" I have to be honest, I like working smaller. It's in my comfort zone and doesn't feel overwhelming. But I got a commission from a friend, as her "consulting artist", and although she has a number of my artworks on her wall, from 5" x 5" quilted squares to 40" x 40" collaged ink drawings, she wanted a BIG painting on her living room wall.

First I needed a canvas, so Naomi, my daughter, and her carpenter-savvy friend, Joseph, built me a beautiful 60" x 60" frame out of poplar wood. Then we stretched it with cotton duck, and I gessoed it (three coats, with sanding in between). The only viable place to paint this, without causing a domestic clean up disaster, was to take it out to the garage, which, fortunately faced north, for the best light.

Step 1 was complete, so now, deep breath, I actually had to paint something. I knew that Ellna loved the colours, turquoise and pink, and that she loved Gerber daisies, but I wanted it to also look lofty and inspiring. Ellna has been slowly remodeling and decorating her house to be a bright, warm, open place to be. She wanted to surround herself in her own special environment, so I knew I wanted her to bask in something that brought her happiness. So first I painted a background.

Disclaimer; None of the colours look accurate in these photos. They show up either too garish, too washed out, or incorrectly coloured, and Naomi with her magic photography skills, hadn't the time for documenting my daily progress so it was just me and a cell phone.

Then I added one giant flower reaching for the sun. I went with white so it would pop out against those rich pastels.

It needed some movement so I added the petals flying away. Nope. Too many petals. And one looked like an extracted tooth.

Painted over two of the petals. Still needed a bit more so I added the silhouettes of other flowers. Then more rays of sun, to which I added some metallic gold paint to give a soft gleam.

Following an internal dialogue to KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid) I added final coats of varnish. We loaded it onto Naomi's truck and delivered it to its' new home. Mission accomplished!

Now I'm going to paint something really, really small.

Printable

I have about 200 different artistic interests, so sometimes I abandon one and focus on something else for awhile. But eventually my need for variety kicks in and I go back with fresh eyes to a previous craft. I hadn't done any block printing in awhile so I dug out some old lino blocks I had carved a long time ago, a snail and bee, but then I bought some more EZ Carve blocks (I call them lino blocks but they are much softer so the carving process can be done in about a quarter of the time with less likelihood of slicing a section of my thumb off) and carved some new images, two foxes, and a leaping hare. So for the past two weeks I have been enjoying the process of printing wild creatures on some nice card stock I ordered from Paper Presentation.com., and also on small scraps of watercolour paper. Most satisfying. Except for the prints that got smudged. It happens a lot. They end up in the trash can.

Here are my carved blocks:

And here are the prints from those carved blocks, in reverse, of course. I have added details in ink and glitter to make each print a one of a kind even as they are part of a series:

I did a double print on the snail to get two layers of colour. Often referred to as off set printing. 

The fun part about printing is the variety of colours and details that make each print unique. I have done the hare in silvery white on indigo paper, and the bee in coppery brown on purple paper. And I always add a dash of metallic paint to each colour run so that when the light hits the shell of the snail or the fur of the hare there is a soft, subtle gleam that cannot always be seen in a photograph.