some lil' 5x5s

This morning I dropped off some small encaustic paintings, including these three below at Sacred Art over in Lincoln Square. They are gearing up for the holiday season and wanted some small paintings for my section.



Inside Myself
encaustic and collage
5x5 inches

The title for this bird painting was inspired by this quote:

Inside myself is a place where I live all alone, and that's where I renew my springs that never dry up. ~Pearl Buck



18
encaustic and collage
5x5 inches



14
encaustic and collage
5x5 inches

I really love working with just whites. Of course, I have layers of rioutous colors underneath, that you see poking up here and there. I definitely want to continue this white series, but at a larger size.

contemplating the mystery

Contemplating the Mystery
encaustic and mixed media
5 x 5 x 1.25 inches


Although I long to paint large and I have been painting larger and have some in progress, I still have stacks of small canvases and panels sitting in my studio. I really hate to have things go to waste or take up room, so I have been working on these small canvases lately. It's a good idea too, as the Sacred Art Store Gallery in Lincoln Square has been asking me for more small paintings and I want to put some up for sale on my art page on amanobooks.com for the holidays.

I created this encaustic painting on a 5x5 inch gallery wrapped canvas. Generally one of the "rules" of encaustics is that you need to paint on a hard absorptive surface like wood, clayboard, plaster, etc. This little canvas though is small and the stretcher bars on the back are so thick, that it provides a lot of support. Painting on a large flexible canvas would provide too much movement and the possibility of the wax cracking. But I am confident that this wouldn't happen on these little canvases. I have made a few, but have yet to document them. Hopefully I can get to that this week.

The title was inspired by this quote:

"Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life." ~Rachel Carson

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My son and I just returned from a visit to Maryland to visit my family. Although very busy and very tired, I wanted to go visit before I can't anymore as it will be awhile before we can travel again. It was such a wonderful visit. I am very lucky to count my sisters as my closest friends and companions in this life of ours. Being around them is like putting on a comfortable sweater. I can have fun and be silly and also be quiet, as is my natural inclination. As the baby of the family, my sisters tend to spoil me too, even though we are adults now. I'm not complaining!It was nice to be taken care of for a week and Noah had so much fun with all his cousins. But it's good to be home now too and I have a lot to catch up on.

Rootedness

Rootedness
encaustic
8x8 inches


Another encaustic piece I created while I had my wax on the other day. I may change the title, but it is a word that resonates with me. I think I have always been plagued with a feeling of rootlessness and I always seem to be searching for some anchoring. That search is what spurred our move back to Chicago. But I've been finding myself missing Seattle often these days and daydreaming of our cute colorful cottage on Crockett Street with my wild cottage garden. I wonder how the roses fared during the heat wave they had this summer? Or whether the buds of my Camelia have started to show their shy faces?

I am finding that remaining in the present is what helps. My growing family and my art anchors me. Maybe one day we'll go back. But for now, my home is here and in the present. The constant searching for "home" must be symptomatic of something else, something I have felt since childhood in Maryland. I always wanted to wander when I was a little girl.

some exciting news!

A few months ago I was contacted by someone from the Tyra Banks show about the possibility of including one of my journals in their Luxe Living event that happens once a year where 8 women win a gift bag of the industries top products. This year they are incorporating fabulous luxury chocolates, teas, handmade soaps, candles, and apparantly handmade journals!


Autumn Tree handbound blank journal
4 1/2 x 7 inches


I am excited to announce that they chose one of my handbound journals that I offer over at amanobooks.com as one of the items included in their event. Here is a link to the event and the other products that are going to be included too.

This is one of the reasons why I have been focusing more on creating my handbound journals than my paintings in the recent months! I had to get my inventory up not just for the holiday season, but also for the show. Better get back to work.

woven in the womb of the earth

woven in the womb of the earth
encaustic
8x10 inches

On Sunday I painted all day. It was a good day. I actually painted in encaustics for the first time in a long time. Well, a few months is not eternity, but it felt like it. I had to work on a project that has a deadline looming ahead and so I put on my filter, opened the window, turned on the fan and heated up the wax. I worked on 3 paintings at the same time. It was heaven. I don't know what it is about encaustics and me, but there is never hesitation. Lately when I've been working on my acrylic paintings and panels, I sit there and stare blankly at my canvas, wander around my studio, get distracted. But with encaustics, I just go. It does what I envision. It's the perfect combination for me of paint and clay. No, it's nothing like clay, but it has that tactile quality for me. I can incise, make dots, scrape, etc. Some people go for the smooth, glass like finish with encaustics. I love how that looks. But me? I revel in the lumps and bumps, and the scritches and scratches.

Maybe it's just that I missed working in it so much, that I had a lot of pent up creative energy just waiting for the palette to be heated up. Who knows? I'll take it however it comes.

The title of this painting stems from Psalm 139 as this painting became a meditation for me on my pregnancy. The miracle and wonder at the life growing in me. Hidden in the darkness of my body. I am around 24 weeks now and my belly is already so big, I wonder how I'll make it til the end! It's amazing how much faster we pop out the second time around.

wax on metal

Jen Worden, Seth Apter, and I have been working on a collaborative project together this year. We took a bit of a break this summer, but we are back at it. I just received Jen's metal book from Seth last week and am just floored by the pages that they both have added since I last had her book in my possession. I really shouldn't call it a book anymore, since it's not. Actually, it never was going to be a book. I believe Jen is going to string the metal "pages" together to create a sort of prayer flag. I'm not really sure.... I guess I will see when the project ends!




metal "page" for Jen Worden's book


I actually created this page months ago, but didn't like the photos I took of it before I mailed it back to Jen. So now, that I have it back, I got a better image of it this morning.

I wanted to experiment with putting wax on metal. I wasn't sure it was going to work as metal isn't what you call an absorptive material. But I chose a metal piece that had a lot of corrugation and rust. I thought that would help my cause. I added a polaroid transfer of a fern that I had created years ago. I felt that the transfer really would work well with the rust on the metal already. But I still wanted to add more texture. So I dug in my stash and found pieces of mica that someone had given to me back in 2006. I never knew what to do with them. Then I thought, well, wouldn't it be neat to see what mica plus beeswax would do on top of the transfer? Well, here it is. I had to peel away a lot of the mica, as it needed to be very thin, so that the fern could still show through the mica + wax.

I used oil pastels on top of the wax to finish the piece. And added the string too. One of the reasons why I wanted to work with Jen and Seth is that I knew that I would be pushed to try new and different things. Use materials that I wasn't very comfortable with. I knew Jen wouldn't let me down! I have to do my next "page" and feeling a bit intimidated again. But excited too, as I know I will learn something new from the next experiment.

Towards Wholeness

Towards Wholeness
mixed media, 6x6 inches

This is a recent panel that I made. I have been using a lot of black, and darker colors in general, in my paintings lately. I wonder why? Hmmmm...

Lately I have been listening to book on cd while I work in my studio. When I made this panel I was finishing up listening to Eckhart Tolle's book A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (Oprah's Book Club, Selection 61). I have read the book before, but the lovely Karin sent me the cd version so that I could listen to it. It took me a bit to get used to Tolle's voice, but I felt that the words really started to sink in. It's odd as I usually feel like my mind is so absorbed in what I'm doing in the studio, i.e. time doesn't exist or I forget that it's time to eat, but some part of my brain must be receptive to listening to philosophical meanderings. And it always felt like I heard exactly what I needed to hear at that moment.

Anyway, the title of this piece reflects what I have been listening to. I do feel that somehow this piece embodies those words. Fragility, impermanence, our striving to survive in this world. But survive in a way that is whole and healthy. Acceptance of limitations, appreciation of what is beautiful.

This panel is waiting to be bound as a cover of a blank journal.