Confusion

Is there anyone out there who isn’t confused about where we’re going with this pandemic? It makes us a bit ditzy, wondering what other people are doing to cope, I mean other than wearing masks in public, taking walks, zooming, and watching whole series’ seasons on Netflix.

Me, I do some deeply satisfying art dawdling in my art studio each day. Sometimes I start by cutting up a doodled painting from another day and seeing where the pieces take me. It feels so right to recycle art at this point in time. This particular one came together when I found the woman, and felt I could relate.

acrylics, black and white gesso, collage, white gel pen

She’s a bit confused. . .aren’t we all?!

Oops! Don’t walk off the edge.

“It” came from China on a wave.

Where is everyone going? We’re still on a Shelter in Place order!

Of course it’s particularly distressing when our medical heros, the scientists we rely on to find the cures, are unable to reassure us. This Covid virus is still eluding the best of them! It seems we still have more questions than answers.

gesso textured w/c paper with acrylic inks, gesso and citrasolv collage.

I almost put cations on this piece as well, but decided to leave it open to interpretation. Please fill in any dialogue that comes to mind.

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New combinations

acrylic inks, interference acrylics, finger printing and photo collage over black gesso on w/c paper

Bits and scraps of techniques tried and abandoned.  Jars of paint rarely used.  Old failed paintings.  Pictures that have been sitting in the picture file for months and years.  Dried up left over paint pealed up.  Sometimes it’s time to get it all out and see how it might fit together.  After all, we can never as artists create something new out of absolutely nothing!  In the end our works are new combinations of what has come before.

Owl Wisdom

Recycled painting collage, 10 X 11″

On a dark night I chanced upon an owl and wondered.  What message of owl wisdom had I invoked?  Was i seriously in need of a course correction?  Had I splintered off into a mine field of errors?  Too much arrogance perhaps, or a fearful spinelessness. . .it could be either.

While I pondered so, a vast assemblage of hooting sages appeared, arriving like the stars to remind me finally, that I live in their world and not vice versa.

If you want to think out of the box with your paintings, try cutting them up.  That’s what we did in the Monday Muse Group.  I started with three paintings, two dark and one more colorful and the words “on a dark night” came to mind.  So I hunted for an owl picture and did some cutting and gluing.  I don’t think one usually finds “flocks of owls”, but perhaps owl spirits?

P.S.  There’s a new weekly Monday Afternoon Muse Group starting in January at my studio in Sebastopol, California.  There are still a couple spots left.  If you’re interested in joining us, visit my workshops page.