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!
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