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Painting I did in 2012! Diligent 6x8 Acrylic on panel.
Welcome Autumn!
Autumn is my favorite time of year. I relish the rain and the cooler weather.
After the Dog Days of Summer, I always sense that it’s time to snuggle up and get back to whatever projects I’ve laid aside during the long, hot, hazy days.
My summer was busy and went by quickly. Events included a family wedding and my own 40th high school reunion!
But mostly, I was trying to get back into the swing of making art after my show in NYC last June. After every show, there is a period of disintegration and reintegration that an artist has to go through. It’s really uncomfortable.
The only way through it is to make more art—even if it’s “bad art” and you have no idea what you’re doing!
So I’ve had fun doing collage and drawing in small books, including a 1999 day planner I found at Goodwill, which- BTW-is a total score if you're an artist!
It’s mostly a tongue-in-cheek exploration of aging and the funny things I do to try to hold back time.
1999 Day Planner
Books and More Books
I will be participating in the 5th annual Lake Oswego Open Studio Tour. in September. A studio tour is when a group of artists open their studios to the public, show their work and talk about what they do.
I decided I could demonstrate how to make books to the visitors. Thing is, I sort of tend to make things up as I go along, so I wasn't exactly an expert on actual book making! So I buckled down to make some books and practice my technique.
Here are a few books I have made, which will be for sale during the tour.
Below is a video of a small book made with painted paper left over from when I was doing collage with my Film Noir Series.
The colors go from bright red to golden yellow, with a few moments of midnight blue. The pages are not rectangle, but completely irregular, and each spread you can see elements of the other pages sticking out and around.
Back To School!
You may remember I participated in The Canopy Program, an art mentorship program that culminated in my show in NYC last June.
Well, I liked it so much, I’m doing Canopy 2.0!
It starts next week and will end in another show in June 2027.
I’ve also been circling back to my project Atlas, and I created a beautiful cover for the book.
This is the cover, laid flat. It measures 12x21, on dark teal cloth with acrylic paint and gel pen. It depicts four boats of the type I imagine the four lines of my family may have traveled on as they made their way to North America.
Here is a video of the book so far. Everything is temporary. The white strings you see are elastic bands holding the pages in. All the images are temporarily held in the book using tape.