Chihuly at RISD

Gallery night in Providence

took the opportunity to check out the Chihuly exhibit

Insane

Gorgeous

Inspired

Light made of glass... sigh

Pics taken with my phone, sorry not the best

Returning

I got back from vacation to find that somehow the X-mas season is upon me already.
As is usual I'm not ready, I don't ever remember being ready for this season. How does it go directly from Halloween to X-mas? Where does November go? Why am I already being assaulted by Little Drummer Boy, Jingle Bell Rock and Felice Navidad? I enjoy the carols during the week before the big day not ad nauseum for 2 months. Probably because I sang in chorus for so many years, Little Drummer Boy is permanently ruined for me now.
So I hit the ground running, a production run of scarves, shirts, and socks was first up. That consumed most of my first week back. Now I am trying to get some more of the runners done, as well as a couple of new items all for my first seasonal show the weekend after Thanksgiving. Hope I can do it.
I was inspired by the Caribbean to try a new coloway on the scarves a soft buff/sand color and turquoise/aqua.
Here they are all dyed up

Here they are all ironed out

I like the results but I will probably adjust the recipes to get a bit more contrast next time...

Turks and Caicos

Once again I find myself halfway through the month wondering were it went. At least I have an excuse this time… I went on vacation!
I spent 5 blissful days in Turks and Caicos visiting my brother and sister-in-law who live in paradise and who welcomed us into their home.

I cannot begin to explain what a big deal this is for me because
A. I have never been anywhere that required a passport before
B. I have never been south of N. Carolina before
C. I never take two vacations in one year
Turks and Caicos is a really interesting place,

the beaches are just beautiful but the interior of the island we were on seemed to be a huge construction zone, partly because of new development but also because they were hit by a hurricane a couple of months ago so there are many buildings being repaired. The disparity between the haves and the have-nots is pretty extreme which is how I understand a great deal of the Caribbean is. Some of the resorts are simply beyond decadent while many people who come over illegally from Haiti for work live in cardboard boxes. We were somewhere in the middle staying at a very nice house of average middle class American size with a remarkable view of the Caribbean Ocean a hell of a pool and lovely gazebos to sit in as day turned into evening. The flowers were gorgeous its funny to see all the “ indoor” tropical plants that I see at Home Depot growing happily in gardens.

I saw my first coconut palms

and I got to snorkel the coral reef (my favorite thing)

and of course my pasty NE skin got a sunburn in spite of my best precautions.
Unfortunately Lar got hit with a virus and wasn’t feeling so terrific for a good deal of the time. He did spend some quality time with the hammock though and we did get to go on a submarine ride out in the coral reef so he got to see the underwater sights. (sea turtles! barracuda! tons of fish!) He was a good sport about it though and brought home a conch shell the size of my head in his carry on bag just cause I wanted it.

It was a wonderful adventure.

Old work part3 Mummies

These are some drawings I did of Chilean Mummies. Charcoal, ink and chalk on paper, I may have mushed in some gesso too. I think I ran into the original images of these in a National Geographic or something. I don’t know a lot about them but if memory serves many of them were children. Here is an actual picture of one:

First they were mummified by desiccation and then much later they were reconstructed with the masks and wrappings.

Then they were left or buried overlooking the sea.

They captured me.

Texture, mystery, age, freakiness I dunno why but I find these both creepy and compelling. I have a hard time trying to figure out why someone would create them in the first place. A photo of them half buried in boxes of sand is really fascinating to me, again not quite sure why and yes I know it is a fairly disturbing thing to be attracted to. As a general rule I’m quite normal but I am willing to accept my weirdness on occasion so I went with it and made the drawings.It is doubly weird in my case because I am really freaked out by dolls and ventriloquism dummies I just don’t like them at all… empty glassy eyes staring at you. It is just too easy to imagine them being possessed by some evil entity and brrrrr…Happy Halloween!

Old Work Pt 2- Figure Drawings

More old stuff… These are some of the drawings I did going forward after my initiation back into classes. I decided to continue with the figure drawing, taking some Cont Ed classes and also going to open studios. I cannot recall how long this went on for, I’m guessing a year or so I know I did at least 1 class at the Attleboro Museum School with Robin Wiseman and attended a bunch of his open studios at his home. Robin has taught at RISD for a long time he is one of the Foundation instructors, teaches Cont Ed and gives a number of lectures each semester. Or at least he did at the time (I am currently out of touch with the state of RISD’s faculty and classes). A very talented man and teacher. I enjoyed his classes a great deal. I also did one figure painting class at RISD, oils, from a model, one long pose per class (no pics of paintings at present, will try to get some photos at some point).

I enjoyed this period of time. I felt as though I fought my way through some weaknesses in technique (such as leaving the head off of the initial sketch then trying to draw it in later- that has got to have some sort of psychological significance) an example:

This would have been a good drawing if the head had been developed at the same time as the rest of the figure not stuck on at the end.

I found I had a resistance to dealing with figure/ground preferring to zoom in on the figure so I didn’t have to deal (come to think of it that probably has a bit of significance too- I have a talent for navel gazing)
The photo at top is a 20 minute sketch that I felt incredibly good about. It was one of those moments when all the skills I had been honing came together and I made it over the "no head" issue. It’s a pretty good likeness too.

Frozen in Time

Once upon a time I made a bunch of heat set ginkgo leaves. I thought I would do a large piece based off of the original sketch for this attempt and what I came up with here. Ginkgo leaves, circles... with the addition of the 3-D quality I started to think of ripples, leaves gently drifting down onto a pool of water, all very poetical and graceful. This is as far as it got and all I know for sure is its missing something... Shawn suggested color... maybe... all I do know is its missing something. For this picture I took it outside in the sun so the textures (which I still love) would be visible. Right now it is sitting in my studio sulking at me as it has done for months. grrr.

Old Work

Reorganizing all of my computer files this summer led me to discover some forgotten work. Thought I’d share…
After I quit college I started trying to draw and paint on my own, frustration quickly set in with my lack of skills and brought me to the beginning of a long career in Cont Ed classes mostly at RISD.
The very first class I took was Victor Lara’s figure drawing class. It was a good choice. The class was open enough in format for me to be able to relax and enjoy the process.

Each class began with an exercise in mark making with charcoal on newsprint. Designed to expand our drawing ”vocabulary” we would sometimes draw with our eyes closed or with charcoal on wet paper.

The point was to learn to make a variety of marks light, heavy, smeary, sharp, fuzzy with the medium. Mine tended to end up looking like cellular structures or gears on strange organic machines.

The second half of class was actual figure drawing from the model. Starting with quick scetches.

Then moving on to longer poses and more developed drawings.

We were to try to apply the vocabulary to express the form with all of the underlying structures of bone and muscle. Wonderful fun and incredibly messy I would emerge from this class looking as though I had just spent time digging in a mine.
Perfect for someone who was a bit shaky about reentering the academic world, even on a Cont Ed basis. It was fun, relaxed and helped me to push some barriers and learn a lot in the process. I gained back an iota of lost confidence with that step. Thanks Victor.