Mapping

Starting to paint a bit.
I'm hooked on
maps and mapping,
life's journey,
layers,
and searching for a pattern.



This painting is made up of four 8"x10" canvases.
click to enlarge.

line

texture

The Earth Laughs in Flowers
- Ralph Waldo Emerson


a cachinnation
of flower photo's
from this year

The Electric Light Parade

Nothing is more festive than wrapping yourself and your bicycle with lights and peddling/parading down main street!

Winter Sunset

I took this series of photo's after cutting down our Christmas tree in the La Sal mountains.

Halloween Leaf

I found this miraculous Halloween leaf
on our weekend trip to the cabin.
I've spent quite a bit of time
trying to figure out how some
little artistic insect
ate such a delightfully
symmetrical jack-o-lantern design in it.

burn

There was a fire in the mountains this summer.
This is part of the burned aftermath,
on a rainy day.

more leaves

ripple

reflect

I love nature.
It inspires me.
But, it's also intimidating--
with all it's big, overwhelming beauty.
I've never been successful at landscape photography.
However, in an early autumn evening,
high in he mountains,
I couldn't help but try.

on my doorstep

I read the quote by Paul Strand, (at the top of my sidebar), and it made me feel better about the randomness of my photo's lately. Starting a new job (art teacher at the middle school), and raising four boys make it hard to seriously focus on my own art. I do need to get back to my hand series, it's always in the back of my mind, unfinished. But for now, I find myself fitting in art where ever I go--on a hike miles away,

or a few feet away,

on my doorstep.

cactus carcass

My dear cactus succomed to disease.

Once healthy and tall, now hollow.

Cactus triptych

squash bugs

insect army

(in a cup)

A backyard war has been waged
over precious natural resources in my garden.

The sheer numbers of the enemy are staggering.

We're losing the battle.

worlds without number

cosmic marbles

Seeing a bigger picture by looking more closely.

delicately fearsome

You can find many fearsome looking things

in dark dank cracks,

that appear to be larger than life.

In reality, this spider was at most half an inch long,

and such a delicate little creature.

click to enlarge...if you dare

a leaf

leaves.
I adore them.
look for more to come.

ripple

This was taken after a downpour in the desert.

I tried capturing the pattern of light reflected off the water

that was streaming over the slick rock.

Although the pattern is mostly lost,

I thought the squiggled lines of light were interesting

(click on the image to enlarge).

music to my eyes

This is an old clarinet that I took a few photo's of this weekend.

plants

I have always been amazed by plants and seeds, for their innate beauty and their symbolic qualities. Having lived mainly in small desert towns in the western U.S., I especially love desert plants and their abilities to adapt to harsh environments. They capture the spirit of hope, resiliency and the rugged beauty of the west.

photo's on the farm

Here a photo--there a photo--everywhere photo's, photo's!

I've decided to try and go through my photo's from the last year. Every hike we go on, when we visit grandparents and family, wherever we go, I'm taking pictures of things that catch my eye. But, to be honest, my eye gets caught quite easily. In these millions of photographs, I think very few cross over that line of snapshot, into art. However, I will post some of my favorites,
and you can be the judge.

The photo's below were taken at my parents home, which is a little house out in the country, built by my grandfather. It's surrounded by lots of interesting old farm implements and treasures. The picture of me above, is with an old frame of my dad's. He used to be a sculptor for a frame company and carved reproductions of period pieces, and designed original frames. I love the ornate, gaudy, bagpipe grandeur of this one. And I like to imagine what kind of painting it was commissioned for.

an old window screen

a rusty saw

sunflower seeds

HANDSTONE revisited

Living in a place surrounded by sandstone, I can't help but be drawn to it. I've done a few "Handstone" pieces in the past, and don't know if they were very successful. However, when we're out hiking, I always see the similarities and differences between the rock and flesh. Visually, I think the comparisons between color, line, and pattern is interesting contrasted with the harshness of the two textures. And when shown together, in an abstracted way, it tends to soften both or make them both more fluid. I also love the symbolics of rock and flesh, or nature and human kind-- the dominance and dependence, order and chaos, the connection yet disconnect we have with the earth. I don't know if these pieces really capture the symbolic part, or even if they're aesthetically successful still, but are worth a little more exploration.

hand print topography:ryder

This is the second piece in this series.

I started with,

a scan of Ryder's hands.

Below is the finished piece, 25"x 25".
I started out thinking that because of his youth,
his "map" would be more open and simplistic.
But as I worked and thought about it,
I decided that age had nothing to do with it.
If anything, his piece is more complex than mine
(the first piece in the series),
showing potential--undiscovered places
waiting to be explored.

below is a closer view of the piece above.

portraits

I took a little break from the current

hand piece I'm working on,

and played around with

these self portraits today.

hand print topography: alina

I've been working on this for so long, I feel I need to take a break, to regain a fresh perspective. I thought I'd post it and get your critiques as well, which would be ever so helpful. It needs to be seen at its full size, 25"x 25", but for now, this will have to do (I've tried to show close-up views below).

This is a two part series, Inside and Outside. I used the inside of the hand in this part of the series, because it is the the part that grips and manipulates and carries out the commands of the mind, heart, and soul. With the unique lines, fingerprints, crevices, and calluses, I hoped to create a representational map of the individual.

I've started with my own hand print.

full piece (click the image to enlarge)

close up view

even closer

working on it....

inside outside

I agree with a friend who advised me to really pinpoint my intent before delving into this series. So bear with me, and criticism and thoughts are welcome--even the negative.

This series will be in two parts, the outside (a pound of flesh), and the inside (a topographical map).

In the Shakespeare play, The Merchant of Venice, Antonio is required to repay the borrowed money, or a pound of flesh--closest to his heart. In the play, he was unable to repay the debt and was dependent on others to help him. In mortality, we too depend on saviors. I believe that The Savior paid a price that we could not in order to progress beyond mortal flesh. But there are others throughout life who help and influence us in things we alone can not do. We also act as saviors in others lives. For this part of the series, I will photograph the BACK's of people's hands--the OUTside. The side of the hand that can't grab or manipulate--the side that is more acted upon than does the acting.

The second part of the series will be the topographical map of who we are between life and death. The choices we make that show who we are and what we believe. For this, I will photograph the INside of the hand, the part that grips and manipulates and carries out the commands of the mind, heart, and soul. The lines, fingerprints, crevices, and calluses, that give a unique map of the individual.

My Pound of Flesh

I've always spoken through my art, or through other's art (quotes from gifted verbalists). It's always been difficult for me to translate my artwork into words. But through this particular flesh series, I've decided that I need to risk more to push further.

It's interesting to look at art history and artists and see the stages and metamorphoses they go through. This blog has been a vehicle for me to see my own changes. Change is not always easy or comfortable, and to share that process is difficult. I'm hoping that by working through my own uneasiness, it will aid in my growth.

This flesh series has gone through many stages. I first started working on it after I attended a viewing at a funeral. Seeing a person's lifeless body is a piercing experience. I had difficulty in finding the right descriptive word--I decided on "piercing". Mariam-Webster defines the word as: 1 causing intense discomfort to one's skin. Seeing a body separate from the part that makes a person who they are, pierces you--or rather through you. For me, it makes the belief in the spirit side of a person very apparent. Other's may call it the mind or consciousness. The fact is, that life here on earth is a unique and even fleeting experience. Everyone enters it the same way, and exits it the same--through birth and death. By using skin as a medium, I hoped to show that connection, through disconnection. Everyone wears a skin--a canvas for the spirit.

My first efforts disturbed many. Which is in a way what I intended. Flesh apart from the spirit is alien, even though it is an intimate part of us. Others viewed it as sexual. Another interesting part of flesh, tied to our earthy existence and survival as a species. Even that part of our flesh, sexuality, disconnected from emotion, in my opinion, have the same disturbing results.

I then got lost in the medium and the process. I strayed from any one point and went wild, playing with ideas--the connection/disconnection we have with the earth/environment, with humanity, with spirituality, focusing too much on our flesh and the decoration, painting of the flesh, painting on the flesh. Line, color and texture were becoming the focus in some pieces more than any real meaning. Which was fun. But confusing.

So, back to the basics. Black and white. A pound of flesh. A topographical map of one's life between birth and death. The choices we make that make us--the sacrifices and the unrepayable debts. I may be getting to a closer focus, I hope, but am still at the beginning of the process.