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Here are some of my newest small works below! Thank you for your interest and kindness always! What do you think of the name Fool Stilt Studio? :) I hope you are all well.
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Here are just some little ones, at the affordable price of $50 each. There will be 18+ LARGE paintings on display as well! This work is very special to me and has taken a LONG time to evolve to this point.I am SO excited to be exhibiting in Chicago for my first real solo exhibit! I know my Dad will be there in spirit, with bells on...and I hope my dear friend Amy and Uncle Keith are as well. I hope to see you all there! :)
Loss, illness, healing, and forced change have truly shaped the body of my work over the past ten years. As an artist and human, I have been greatly altered by the illness and loss of my father, caring for a sick child and watching her heal, and my dearest friend’s journey with breast and brain cancer. My current work does not focus solely on the cancer, since my friend never defined herself by her disease. It focuses on the journey cancer led her on, to seek out healing, both mentally and physically. These paintings also illustrate our friendship, our similarities, my friend’s recent death, and the great hole cancer has left in my life. These works express the inherent dichotomy of life, exhibiting both beauty and pain, illness and healing, and loss and triumph in each work. I further express this mix of emotions and subject matter, by mixing materials, layering imagery, and with a heavily textured surface. still running through rain" 48x24, acrylic & mixed media on canvas"40-candle journey, and after" 48x36, acrylic & mixed media on canvas"brain tree featuring Mr. Rogers" OR "a sampling of the contents of her brain" 16x20, acrylic & mixed media on canvas
I am really excited about these new, large pieces. Can you tell? I keep posting about them, harassing my friends about them, but being obnoxiously secretive at the same time. I can't wait to share them with you soon!
Isn't it amazing how quickly humans change? This work was completed just four months ago...and it is already so different from my current work. I am finally took better quality photos of this series. I wanted these works to be dreamy, deep, small, and blue. And now, they are truly about change, as well. Our adaptability is incredible to me. HOW HAVE YOU CHANGED IN FOUR MONTHS? Please tell me. :) a hole in her memory.... 12x12burying a lot of ships.....middle school state of mind.....a dream of protection from life's lemons.....she buried the kitchen knives in their backyard.... 12x12a dream of a childhood past....A brain tree grows out of one's head and is decorated with allegories of a life path, totems of fears and joys, and symbols of memories collected by the owner. Always cats, now, for some reason. The cats are both ironic and iconic, I think. Head-mug. Two brains. These pieces are about mental health for all. I feel that mental health is an issue for all people, not only the mentally ill. Healthy people fall into depression, anxiety, and sometimes just have rough days. Being able to talk about it through artwork is one way to cast light on a sometimes hidden story. How are YOU doing today?! :) This photo is poor....very blue. I need to start using my new camera. I like these girls......content with their lemons.The one on the right has whole lemons, while the lemon's of the girl on the left have been cut in half. She needs to make lemonade now. Mr. Rogers is there to help, of course. There is two of everything, except for the girl. (Poor photo, again.) Two brains on the brain tree...... This one is very nice in person. #cats #braintree #tree #painting #art #chicagoartist #katrinadavissalazar #watermelons #smallpaintings #flowers #scissors #mr.rogers #lemons #cactus #brains #hands #birds #nametag #heart #heartart #portrait
Here more info. about the brain trees: :It is portraits, open and real and fleshy and able to swim, frames anchored by a mermaid and a captain. It is cats with nine lives, who were on their last. It is a dirty comal for dirty eggs. It is identical crying over post office tape. It is framed geishas, in a sister’s room. It braids our hair together like bumblebees. It describes the lack of a dollhouse. It is a brain broken. It is a tree with family roots. It is replete and beautiful, with broken pieces and parts. It is whale fins and octopi. It is events happened and events predicted. It is counting and repetition. It is loss and mental fragility and happiness and beauty. It is bendable, unbreakable, honest, and searching for an audience. Hi friends! I hope you are lucky enough to be creative today. Please take a few minutes to do something that makes you happy! Whatever it is...maybe making a beautiful veggie sandwich for yourself, cooking dinner for your family, sketching for five minutes, taking the stairs instead of the elevator and making a mental list of things that make you happy, etc. I am so lucky to be able to express my own creativity, as part of a figure exhibit, entitled "Human Nature" at Urban Edge in Waukegan. There will be another reception on May 16th, 2015 from 5pm to 9pm. When I am at my exhibits, people often ask me to describe the meaning of each of my pieces. Sometimes it is difficult for me to be verbal in this way (as is true for most artists, I am VISUAL person and the work is highly intuitive). I am going to try, however, in this blog, to BRIEFLY describe each piece and my intent. I hope you enjoy my words. Have a wonderful, creative day! "Thank you for sending the tube of cerulean blue." 36x36, acrylic on canvas, 2015 I wanted a sense of loneliness, mystery, but mostly human-ness and vulnerability. I found a tape that my father sent me in 1993 (he died last October). On it, he kept telling me he was mailing me a tube of cerulean blue watercolor paint, that I apparently needed. He was so earnest and sweet. My father was also a sailor. This piece is inspired by my dad, but is also just about sincerity. I wanted the words to not quite match up with the images, in these works. I wanted them to seem very specific and personal, but to leave room for inserting your own histories. Intrapersonal and Interpersonal connections. I wanted the words to seem very obscure. The best way to do this is to be very specific and personal. Only I know that my dear friend Amy and I cracked up, almost rolling on the floor laughing, about scissors last June. (Our partners use our GOOD sewing scissors to cut metal insulation tape and branches outside! OMG) Now that Amy has passed, I use her scissors every day, the very ones I was holding as we were laughing that day, and the ones painted in this piece. The figure here is faceless and waiting by the sea, Amy's last wish, to go to the sea. This information is all very specific, but the IMAGE itself is just about peace and tension and love, thanking an imaginary person for something very simple. When Amy and I were in college, we decided to run through the neighborhood and campus, in the rain, in our swimsuits. This is simply an illustration of that. It is about freindship. Sometimes paintings are just pretty. The following works are very intuitive. I might not have much to say about them. They are all "eulogies" to various body parts. They are about being thankful for what we have lost, and for what we have. They are eerie and creepy and beautiful and sweet. I wanted to express the violence of loss (and when your body betrays you with things like cancer), while still maintaining hope and beauty and strength. One of the last times I saw Amy, we ate watermelon together. I thought, if the body were severed, but contained watermelon, instead of blood, it would be less shocking, and this dichotomy of loss and strength would be expressed. The piece on the left thanks my father for one of the million simple things he did for me. A simple act of kindness. Cleaning you daughter's paint-covered hands with mineral spirits, outside by our garage. I apologize for these poor photographs. I do the best I can, with the equipment I have, but these pieces were particularly difficult to capture. :) These works are about how it is sometimes difficult to communicate, with the living, and the departed. You think you are listening....but you are listening to nothing. I wanted the piece to not be TOO sad though, and still contain beauty and mystery. I hope you enjoyed my words! Have a super week!
12 new works for the "Made with Heart" show at Re-Invent on February 13th, 2015. This piece is entitled "Dear Amy" and is in honor of my dear friend Amy T. Here I will show PROCESS to PRODUCT, of this 12 piece ( 9x12 each) small installation. Acrylic on canvas, 36x36 finished size. Please contact me if you have any ideas on how to reach out to people living with brain cancer and other forms of cancer....through art. At this point, the textured paint has dried and cracked. I have begun to paint imagery over the thick, bumpy surface, completely disregarding this heavy texture. Prepping canvases with textured acrylic. First shot of 4 out of the 12 finished components. Photo taken on Instagram, and thus washed out. Here is a photo of how this installation will look somewhat, when it is hung together. The photos below are of each piece separately, and were also taken on Instagram, thus the acidic colors. This is not a true representation of the color of these pieces. I am really happy with these works...... they remind me of Amy.
My dearest friend of 20 years has passed on. Words cannot describe the forever-imprint she has left in this earth. We are heartbroken. Strongest, most peaceful, whip smart, silly, intuitive, beautiful, caring girl.......amazing beyond description. Here are some paintings about amy, painted over the years. There are more around..........that I need to find. amy once had a friend that said she was a "turtle spirit," ...sometimes i felt amy and i shared a brain......our trip to see amy....poppies, watermelon, coconut juice, koi, pillows, letters,one of my earliest memories with amy....running outside in the rain in our swimsuits on the college campusa memory of a piece of art amy made (bags filled with water to match the color of the sky each day), and a piece of art I made (a paper dress)....years ago.....A Friend Afar, acrylic on cavas, 48x48, 2012amy and i talked about snails, and i made these paintings...2013 |
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