Drawing is one of my most soothing pasttimes. It eases my anxiety to draw line after line and watch the image develop, not unlike those magic 3D posters from the ’90s. Drawing also serves to support my other media, as I practice forms, textures, and levels through my illustrations before I bring them to canvas and clay.
But I’m not drawing these days.
I spend the first half of the day painting and the second half working on dolls, and in between doing all the domestic and family and grooming tasks. I’m not used to being so on deadline with my art, but it’s good: I’m being very productive and I love meeting my goals and thinking more broadly and putting so many resources towards my art.
Still, like a broody tween clucking over a baby-faced crooner, I consider my pens; the exquisite potential of unblemished paper. They call to me.
Maybe after this art show is over I will spend the summer lounging with pen in hand, delightedly developing use callouses and aching fingers, filling sketchbooks with lines and intention. My hands and my back may cramp up but my mind will be unburdened: a totally fair trade.
It’s Easter morning as I type this, and I have a busy day of domestic duties ahead. So in lieu of extrapolating some personal data into a post, I offer instead: a visual celebration of rabbits and bunnies.
UNTIL | 2015 | pen and ink art card, 3.5″ x 2.5″
NERVES | 2015 | Oil on canvas
Devil Bunny | 2016 | commissioned doll
SINEATER | 2016 | oil on canvas, 10.5″ x 8.5″
BRIARS | 2015 | 4″ x 4″, pen and ink on paper art tile
2013 | Gallery 114 | Portland, OR
JACKALOPE
MAGICIAN RABBIT
LONG-EARED HARE
RISE | 2013 | 20″ x 24″, oil on canvas
REX RABBIT | 2015
WAS | 2015 | pen and ink art card, 2.5″ x 3.5″
BLOOM | 2015 | pen and ink on paper, 4″ x 4″
WANT | 2000 | oil on canvas, 28″ x 14″
HARBOR | 2016 | oil paint and sculpted flowers on wooden tray, 7″ x 10″ x 3″
Today is the first day of Spring, but in the Portland area it arrived early: yesterday the weather was comfortably in the 60s with lush sunshine and lazy clouds overhead.
Of course, today we woke up to nothing but rain. It is Portland, after all.
But a week of extended daylight hours and the assurance of warmer weather ahead has seemed to soothe frayed nerves like a miracle tonic, and the world appears filled with flowers and a vulnerable optimism. I’ve been taking advantage of the time by spending even more time in my studio. And by painting flowers.
In Springs past over the last few years, I find myself drawn towards depicting the little, quiet things: insects, birds, flowers. As the world begins to come out of an internal hibernation, they often seem to usher in a more subdued, yet infectious jubilation. I watch them, and enjoy the grace in their unfolding: the quiet elegance of their reveal.
Work in progress: oil painting of poppies (first session), March 2016
(All except mice. Mice and rats skeeve me the hell out.)
I’ve started a new painting of poppies that will grow to encompass a spotted towhee bird, modeled after one who visits me just outside my studio window. And I feel like I may have to revisit caterpillars in my work, as caterpillars seem to me such busy, jolly emissaries of the hope of transformation, and the promise of Spring.
But as I mentioned, it’s raining outside this morning. Luckily, rainy days are perfect days to paint.
I was a lucky little girl, in that my mom regularly read to us children at night. It was a comforting routine in a largely uncomfortable world. One story that was very special to me resided in a children’s compendium of stories, so I can’t recall the exact title. I’ve come to discover that it’s an oft-told tale, but at the time it was like a rare jewel in its truth and its magnitude. It was the story of a little girl with a magic pencil.
It’s been a long time since I’ve heard the story, but I remember the basics: a lonely little girl comes to own a pencil that she discovers is magic, because what she draws becomes real. The downside is that every time she draws the pencil becomes less, but in her hands is the ability to create worlds.
When you’re a child and at the mercy of circumstance and institution, such a notion immediately enters the realm of fairy tale. But I recognized the truth of it.
BABY STEER COWBOY | 2016
Since that time, I will often attempt to harness my best intent into my art, drawing it real. I’ve had good results, though some scenarios take longer to others to solidify. Still, it’s a fun process.
Currently we are working towards the goal of acquiring some acreage and our own homestead, far and away from the thrum of city life. I know we will get there. In the meantime, this future is being reflected in the art I create, as I try to connect potential and probability.
I was still in my teens when I happened upon an art exhibit that shook me up and changed my parameters.
I’d seen a nondescript, text-only advertisement in our local newspaper (No, there was no internet in those days. Really.) and something in it pulled at me. I don’t remember what it was; the copy wasn’t compelling, the venue wasn’t known to me. But I went, and I’m so glad I did.
I’d had no previous experience with hologram art. Walking through a dingy doorway in a downtown business district, a dark room was filled with odd lighting and many panes of glass, some framed like paintings, and several glass-encased stands. I felt a thrumming in the air, or maybe in my veins as I surveyed the unusual landscape.
And then I began to walk and felt the world shift.
The art was moving, making eye contact with me, beckoning. Some pieces appeared to buck the trend and do nothing, until you got close enough to see through the pane and into another tactile dimension. The pieces appeared to physically affirm the many worlds theory, where all things were possible at the same time in different slices of reality. Physically, it was like that scene in a David Lynch movie: the light shifts and the bass undertones take center stage, creating a neural panic; I wanted to run, shrieking, and also never to leave that room again.
I spent as much time as I could take going through the exhibit, which was mostly empty at the time. Some pieces I couldn’t get close to a second time, the scenes were so startling and frightful. Other pieces you couldn’t escape, as they burst out to and followed you from across the room. Some were funny, some clever, many disturbing: but all were vivid, and present, and as though they were real. Or a different real, but still something accessible.
Rise, oil painting / rabbit magician doll
I left there that day with a headache and a deep desire to transcend dimension in expression. Sadly, like with animatronics there exists a deep, technical gap between my desire and my abilities. But I have found a small way to bridge dimensions in my own creations.
These days, I derive great satisfaction from crafting dolls to match scenes from paintings of mine. Creating a 3D stand-alone narrative based upon a 2D landscape I painted feels almost like being able to step into a dream I’ve had. Seeing the dolls stand forefront and hold a real presence before their static doppelgangers truly pleases me.
2013 | Gallery 114 | Portland, OR
Although other worlds might truly exist in which I’ve been able to add motion to my creations, watch them leap and beckon and spring forth from their physical mirings, at least in this world I’ve done this much.
JF Sebastian (Blade Runner) surrounded by his manufactured friends
I realize it’s time to clean my studio.
Like many highly-creative people, I am not a natural organizer. I have a high appreciation for people who are, but my brain does not naturally compartmentalize, label, or sort. I often wish it did, but it does not.
And I find that my projects are an ongoing conversation; the more I see the things I’m working on, the further they speak to me and develop. A good portion of my process I refer to as “air painting,” whereby I paint ahead in my mind. Throughout the day I’ll often stop and stare at my work, as my brain works ahead of my brush.
So you see, although I’ll tidy often it’s not conducive to productivity to stop and clean out my art studio.
But, to be honest, it’s mostly the friends.
I saw the movie Blade Runner as a young girl, and rejoiced in open-mouthed wonder at the scene of JF Sebastian and his home. He was an inventor, and filled his home with living dolls and robotic wonders as companions. I wanted this, too.
Dolls in progress on my workbench, patiently waiting their turn in the process: steer, devil bunny, alpaca
Although I never got the animatronics part figured out (yet), my art studio is filled with the presence of the dolls I create, and I find their company very soothing. Their eyes watch me, seemingly cheering me on even while their heads lie disincorporated and awaiting attachment to forming bodies. Completed, they stand a silent army of compatriots in my personal palette, clothed in velvet and lace, always silent assent. They’re wonderful community. And yet, I need a little more room to create.
My goal today is getting close to an elusive balance of work space and organic sprawl, without losing presence of the company I keep.
