NEW WORK

Saturday on the first day of December I delivered new paintings to Powers Gallery

Five are mixed media on birch panels framed in black floaters.  They measure 6" x 6"  to 8" x 8" panels - small and colorful work.  The media is cold wax, oil, graphite, India Ink & crayon.  These are part of my Memory Vessels series.  And cold wax is a new medium for me and I am loving its versatility. 

Along with those I also delivered nine 10" x 10" matted paintings, also mixed media on Arches oil paper.  The paintings measure 5.5" square and are matted with 6 ply archival mat & backing board.  (Note the color of the mat is not color correct as this is leaning towards yellow.)  These paintings I did in June when I was an artist in residence in France.  

This is one of the paintings on panel, titled Mixing Memory & Desire, so inspired by a T.S Eliot poem.  The new work has not been added to my website yet.  That is another project.  However you can see these paintings at Powers Gallery in Acton, MA.  Their hours are Tuesday - Saturday 10 AM to 6 PM.  The telephone number is 978-263-5105.   In the meantime more small works are in process and progressing.  

INSPIRATION

Happy Holidays!  Thanksgiving was delicious and now our thoughts will turn to sugarplums.  I was in Maine over the holiday at my childhood home visiting my family. Early snow has already covered the ground.  The day was cold with a chilling wind and the temperature hovering around 10 degrees (F).  Outside a pile of wood was covered in snow as if to hide from being handled.  After filling the bird feeders and relishing the fact it was also a very sunny day I decided to deal with it. 

Stacking wood can be considered a labor intensive muscle aching boring job.  It is not one I get to do often.  And there are many experts in my family who know how to stack a stable pile.  But I discovered the whole process to be meditative and inspiring realizing I was transforming a pile of haphazardly spilled logs into something different.  As I worked I started to look for certain shapes of wood to make the puzzle all snap into place.  And I relished being outside on a cold day quietly working while listening to the sounds of the wintery world.

Here it is (not quite finished) against the backboard where I hit many a tennis balls growing up and the basketball hoop where my brother and I would play endless games of round the world.  

My sister found this bird nest on the road by the lake.  It was sitting there as if waiting for her.  A gift from the birds.  This nest is small.  It will fit in the palm of your hand.  But to see it is the witness a marvelous creation that these photos do not do justice to.  This is art.

The birds used twigs, pine needles and birch bark to mold this fine nest.  It would be an event of a lifetime to see them actually building this.  

I was thinking of how the wood pile and this nest are both examples of building something from something else.  Of giving new life to what surrounds us.  And taking time to build the things that can bring such joy even though their original goal is more of need... for a home or for heat.

So if your are in the studio stuck with your work not progressing the way you want it to think about stacking wood or better yet take a walk in the woods. breathe the air, listen to the sounds of the forest and look up, down and all around as a gift may fall from the sky.

GREY MATTER

New work oil on paper on panel

This new series Grey Matter is mixed media on Arches oil paper mounted on birch panel.  Each painting measures 7" x 5" x 1.5" deep.  They are created to either be displayed individually or as a group of four.

Grey Matter 1

The mixed media consists of cold wax, oils, graphite, India ink, pencil and pastel.  Cold wax is a new medium of me.  I took a class with my friend Pam Caughey last April in Snow Hill, Maryland.  This is a medium I have wanted to learn for sometime and Pam is the teacher I wanted to learn it from.

Grey Matter 2

I love the versatility of this medium and have been exploring it since spring in many small paintings gradually working bigger.  Painting in black, white and the greys that result from mixing these two colors is a wonderful palette to explore a new medium.  I love black and white and the graphic impact that results.

Grey Matter 4

These paintings are now available on Saatchi Art.  They offer a modern clean graphic punch for any space large and small.

Grey Matter 3

Side view

NEW CLASS

The Wild Unknown
30" x 22"
mixed media on paper

My new class Expressive Non-Realistic Painting with acrylics is starting Wednesday, October 3rd, for 8 weeks at The Eliot School.  The class will be held at the Annex classroom on 253 Amory Street in Jamaica Plain.  Class time is 1-4 PM.

If you are interested in loosening up, become more expressive and push your work towards abstraction this is the class for you.  We will cover foundations of the graphic language, do painting exercises to warm up then explore and experiment with paints, other tools and mediums.  And we will look at the masters from Claude Monet to Jean-Michel Basquiat and present day artists exploring abstraction.

I give each artist personal attention and help each one strengthen her or his unique voice supporting the creative journey.

You can download the catalog here

I hope to see you in class!




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NON-REALISTIC PAINTING

URN
acrylic on yup

I will be teaching a new class at The Eliot School this fall.  Below is the class description and note a slight spelling error of my name - the f & i missing.  I am excited to be an instructor at the Eliot School and I'm honored that the new program director Claudia Fiks invited me.  In the past I too have been a student there taking the exceptional life drawing intensive with Bob Siegelman. I look forward to meeting new students this October and supporting them on their artistic  journey of non-realistic painting.  

Here is the class description from The Eliot School Fall 2018 catalog: 


Non-Realistic Painting AC1012

Paint with an artist who investigates making images in
non-realistic ways. Master light, shade, perspective and composition. Using acrylics, explore graphic language through a series of exercises and demos and studying the works of master artists. Work from a still life each week, honing skills to strengthen your own work and enhance your unique voice—all in a supportive, creative environment. Good for beginners as well as experienced artists. Limit 10 students.

Section 1: 8 Wednesdays, 1–4pm (Martha Wake eld)1F: Oct 3–Nov 28 (no class Nov 21)1W: Jan 9–Feb 27 (snow day make-up Mar 6) $365. Materials list online.

If interested you can download a PDF of the course catalog and register online.  

FRANCE BOUND

Preserving Memories
oil & cold wax on paper

I just mailed this painting to a new collector in France via the USPS.  FYI: They are an excellent source for shipping small works overseas at a reasonable price.  

This work was actually created in France while attending an artist residency in the countryside of Orquevaux, a small town 3 hours due east of Paris.  I was fortunate to spend two weeks at this residency experimenting with a new media for me: cold wax with oil.

In April I took a cold wax medium workshop given by my friend Pamela Caughey.  Pam and I met a few years ago at a workshop with Nicholas Wilton.  She is a very talented multi-discipline artist and an exceptional teacher.  This is a media I have wanted to take up for some time and Pam is the one I wanted to study with.

I will post the new work created at this residency as well as write about my time there in these summer days to come.  If you want to see the work now please visit my Instagram account.

In January I shipped a landscape painting done in 2017 to Tasmania. Its an honor to have international collectors!

NEW HOME

Fragments of March: Chance of Snow
mixed media/paper
22" x 30"

When I arrive home from France last Monday a letter was waiting for me with the exciting news of a  home for this painting.  I am grateful to Powers Gallery for making this happen.  This was shown in their exhibit Contemporary Vision 2018 and is the second of my paintings to sell in this show.  They did a magnificent job framing it too I must add.

I did a series of these paintings last year in March of 2017 (it seems so long ago) when winter was dicey as it was this past March with 4 blizzards.  Each painting is mixed media consisting of acrylics, India ink, acrylic ink, graphite, and crayon on 300 lb cold press Waterford Saunders paper.  If interested in seeing more from this series please visit Powers Gallery.