At Home In My Body

I take a lot of supplements. So I decided to draw them - some of them - today. Iron. Vitamin E. Flax Seed Oil. Part of this is about finding creative and artistic inspiration in everyday objects - their shapes and colors. Creating compositions out of thin air.

And some of this is about home. A lot of my artwork and writing during the 90's dealt with body image. Now, a lot of my work deals with ideas of home . . . what makes a home and what it is to feel at home or to come home. Some of this is about place, some of it about people.

And some of it is about self. I have gone through long periods of time in my life when I haven't felt at home in my body, or really felt at home anywhere. With anyone. The last few years have been about coming home - getting more comfortable in my own body and my own life.

It's a work in process, but it feels pretty good.

Too bad there's not a supplement for it.

Studio Meme: Essentials and Influences

Dayna started this one, inspired by Alphabetica (which I just ordered) and Gretchin carried it forward: Michael5000 responded in her comments, and now, I'm going to put in my two cents worth. My top ten art studio essentials and my ten major influences . . . in no particular order:

Note: this is tough for someone who works in encaustic, acrylic paint, watercolor, mixed media collage, printmaking and fiber, as well as making jewelry, so I started by looking at what always ends up out of the studio and in the living room because I need it to work on some little project while I watch TV. I also considered what I pack with me or pick up when I travel, and want to be able to make some art along the way.

It also goes without saying that a Refreshing Beverage of Choice (coffee with soy milk in the morning, diet coke or water with Emergen-C in the afternoon, and herbal detox tea in the evening), a Laptop with high-speed internet connection (for Googling, ordering fresh supplies, and downloading episodes of Project Runway) and Public Radio are essentials - no matter whether I'm in the studio, the office, the kitchen, or the car. Ok, I don't really Google while driving. At least not yet. Hello, voice-activated get-it-anywhere internet access.

Studio Essentials:

1. Black Sharpie
2. Exacto Knife and/or sharp scissors
3. Flat and Round medium paintbrushes
4. Gel Medium and/or Mod Podge
5. E6000 and/or Goop glue
6. Big flat surfaces to work on, including a cutting mat
7. Needle and embroidery floss
8. Big surfaces to embellish (paper, fiber or wood)
9. Golden Acrylic Paint or other water-based paints
10. Scrap fabric and scrap paper


Influences: (This includes just about anything I see, but most especially these things)

1. Egon Schiele
2. Eric Booth, The Everyday Work of Art
3. Textiles of all sorts (quilts, ikat, kimono, batik, weaving, embroidery, etc.)
4. Joseph Cornell
5. Traditional devotional and spiritual art (icons, mandalas, shrines, thankas, etc.)
6. fruits and vegetables
7. Costumes and the Fashion Industry, including glossy fashion magazines and Project Runway
8. The Xerox Machine
9. Travel (Garden of the Gods*, the Rockies, Nepal, Bali, Thailand, Route 66, and on and on)
10. Stewart Cubley and Process Painting

and because this one goes to 11 . . .
11. Outsider Art (see Raw Vision), feminism, the DIY Movement (see ReadyMade), word nerds, and other Geeks Who Make Things With Meaning

Tag - you're it. Shu-Ju? Ann?

*Garden of the Gods is a park in Colorado Springs, CO very close to where I went to college . . . I remember seeing those pinkish red and red-orange rocks, all covered with lichens in shades of gray-green and bright-green, contrasting so intensely and looking so beautiful . . . I'd always loved color, but I remember very consciously thinking about how those colors worked in nature and how I could get them to work in a painting.

Geeks With Superpowers

I was listening to NPR today - I can't remember what program - and a TV critic was on talking about the new crop of fall shows. He said that there seems to be a run on shows about geeks with superpowers. And I had to think, "Wow! Am I the new target demographic or what!?"

I do have a tendency to watch shows for geeks (Star Trek Next Generation, Battlestar Galactica), shows about people with superpowers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Medium, Angel, Charmed, The 4400), and shows about geeks and squints (Freaks and Geeks, CSI, Bones, The Closer). Of course, I don't usually watch these shows until they come out on DVD and I can get them from Netflix. Ok, I did break down and watch the premier of Bones Tuesday. (Gift hint: Why, yes, I'd love a Jeffersonian Institute mug!)

I'm not sure what it is about those forensic crime shows - geeky, quirky, socially awkward people in labs fighting evil with their brains . . . ok, well I guess that's it! And too, there's something about the dissections . . . I'm fascinated by anatomy.

And I didn't think of this as having much of a connection to my art until I was looking at some pieces I'm submitting to a Day of the Dead themed show. Skulls, anatomical hearts, bones. The things that are underneath. Evidence and remains.
I guess inspiration is everywhere!

The inspiration for this . . .

I've been thinking about doing this for a very long time. I love the idea of sharing what's going on in the world of my artmaking and creative life, and connecting to a whole community of other making-type people. But sometimes things just have to incubate. Stay warm in the shell before they break out. Now, I've finished grad school, and I'm moved into my new studio, and I've had a month off to start really making things again, and it's just time to come out my shell.

I went with a friend last night to watch the Vaux's swifts gather at sunset at the Chapman School chimney here in Portland. There were these wonderful gentle pulses - thousands of birds swooping in towards the chimney (where they all nest), then dispersing, then swooping in, a few spiraling funneling into the chimney, the rest dispersing out . . . So cool, and it went on for 45 minutes, like the chimney was gently breathing the swifts in and out, sucking a few more in with each breath. I've been doing so many things with images of birds lately that it really resonated with me . . . birds are all about freedom and home . . . lovely contradictions. I made this shrine, which I call "Stirred," from an actual barn swallow nest that a friend saved for me . . . I love how the little bird has two mugs of coffee (hard to tell they're mugs in the picture, and they could be tea, but let's say for the sake of argument that they're Stumptown coffee). It says so much to me about what I want home to be. And then I start thinking that I really don't want to analyze it that much! Anyway - if you want to see it in person, it'll be on display at the 100th Monkey Studio here in Portland as part of their October "Transitions" show. It's my first show in a very long time - I love that feeling of momentum.