Resilience

I recently sold the work above and I was asked if it had a title.  I usually don’t title my work unless I have to document it.  The result is that sometimes my titles are random and sometimes they are just descriptive.  I decided to title this work Resilience.

My friend, who owns a small business bought another work like Resilience in October last year and she was talking to me about applying for grants during the pandemic and how difficult it is.  She said she looked at the painting that she bought and felt calmer.  So understandably I was really happy that something I had made had helped my friend and I was inspired to paint another painting with the same process.

painting bought in October 2019

The process for these paintings is somewhat random.  I take watercolor paper and I squirt concentrated watercolor onto the surface.  Sometimes I add water.  The paint falls where it wants to for the most part.  I do a little directing but I let the process dictate how things will look.  Then I paint my small watercolor into a larger acrylic painting.  So I like to think of it as finding beauty in chaos.

I hope you are all doing well and feeling resilient.

Ray Bradbury

“Out on the highway the last faint water colors of the sun were gone beyond the hills and whatever they were chasing was so far ahead as to be only a swift fleck now shown in lamplight now set free, running into the dark.”   -Ray Bradbury Something Wicked This Way Comes

There are so many phrases and words that beg to be illustrated in Ray Bradbury’s books.  He writes in pictures.  This quote struck me as I was reading Something Wicked.  It’s just the way he captures the past turning into the present when he describes the sunlight and the dark.

I did not portray the exact moment in the Bradbury’s writing but it inspired different pictures having to do with boys running outside and the setting sun.  I may return to the book to find some other scenes to paint.

Toys and Stuffed Animals

I have been painting a lot of childhood toys and stuffed animals since moving back to my parents’ house for the quarantine.  It’s funny because I don’t think I would normally, but in these circumstances I just want something comforting that presents a small challenge.  For instance, I painted my old teddy bear.  The challenge was that it’s a white teddy bear and white can be very difficult to get right.  The piece was comforting to me because I feel like I’m in solidarity with places in Silver Spring, and other parts of the world, where people are putting teddy bears in their windows for a children’s scavenger hunt.  It’s a very small thing that I can do to stay connected to other people.

There are other toys I have focused on.  I mostly have made small watercolors because they feel more intimate and the process of painting them is fast.  There’s a toad, a lizard, other teddy bears and Eugene, my elephant.  

Most days I am painting or drawing.  I worry that I’ll run out of ideas but they seem to keep coming.  I think I will move away from the toys but they have been fun to paint.

Contact Improv

Two or three years ago I went to Santa Fe with a friend who is a dancer.  We went to the Currents New Media Festival which is about new technology in art.  Interestingly there was a person exhibiting whose work had nothing to do with new technology.  They wore a jump suit covered in silver glitter and had a mirror strapped to their face.  The exhibitor interacted with passers by through movement.  He did this while staying on a small platform.  My friend walked to the glitter man and they started to move together, taking turns leaning on each other and making different shapes and poses.  This was my introduction to contact improv.

Strangely enough, I haven’t really thought about that moment until recently.  I drew some pictures of couples together and it reminded my of my friend’s dancing.  I started watching a lot of modern dance online and looking at pictures of it.  The poses are so strong and the dancers are so impressive.  

I miss hugging my friends and being close to them.  So to watch people dancing has been very uplifting.  And I have thought about different ways of people being together.  Sometimes people who are touching can be miles apart.  And sometimes people together can make such beautiful forms and show a deep amount of care towards one another.  Dance reminds me of this.  It’s a testament to the power of physical connection.

I have done some paintings of contact improv.  Some poses were borrowed from photos online and some are made up from my head.  I don’t know if I’m going to do a longer series with them.  It may be that what I have done is like a short story that I will elaborate on in the future.  

Home

I stopped by Strathmore to see what art show they had up a few weeks ago.  Interestingly the exhibit was about home, which I have been thinking a lot about.  There were so many artists represented and they all had different interpretations of the theme.  There were all sorts of different art media and techniques: sculpture, painting, printmaking, drawing, abstract, representational, conceptual.  It just showed how different everyone’s experience of home is.  

Some topics involved with home were immigration, natural disaster, the suburbs, family, and familiar things like coffee.  It was clear that there was a divide between artists.  Some seemed more anxious about home while others gave the impression of it being a happy place.  I think the idea of home can be complicated. There are so many things that happen when you’re growing up both inside and outside your control.  I was happy to see such a diverse representation of the subject.

 

Moving clockwise from the top left image work is titled and made by: Sea Rise by George Lorio, Old Fashioned Letter by Stefanie Stark, Marla; At Home in America by Lulu Delacre, My Heart by Kimberley Bursic, Ritual by Kelly Bell, Bird Polyptic: Thrush, Mockingbird, Nuthatch, Wren by Liz Aukamp LaGarde, Trapped Inside This House by Emily Shepardson.

 

In the Winter

In the winter

It is quiet and cold outside

But in the winter

We burn fires and wear layers

We sing songs

And drink hot cider and wine

The winter is really the warmest time of the year

It is the time that we are all together

In the winter the trees look dead

But we have green holly and evergreens

We have bright red cardinals

In the winter the night comes early

But we stay up late and have grand dinners

or we snuggle under blankets and read books

In the winter our hearts are big

In the winter we watch our breath

In the winter we roar at the freezing cold

 

I hope you all like my original poem.  I just wanted to mention that the characters I used for my illustration were borrowed from the book The Selfish Giant.  Kudos to anyone who knows who Lisbeth Zwerger is.

Dance Place Gala

My friend, Ben Levine, is putting together the Dance Place Gala at Dance Place in DC.  He invited me to be a part of it by contributing to an installation piece that he designed.  There will be music, there will be windows, there will be cool lighting, and there will be me painting in the foreground.  I have met up with him and the manager for this project, Sarah Chapin, a few times and we have one more meeting to go before the show.  I’d be happy to see some familiar faces after the performance and happy if people I knew could enjoy the show.  So if anyone is interested in attending it is on the weekend of October 21st.  You can buy tickets through Dance Place.

 

From left to right:  Meredith Osterman, Ben Levine, and Sarah Chapin

This is me playing with some ideas for the show at our second rehearsal.  We will be working with projections of what I am painting during the show.

Explorations in Watercolor and Acrylic

Since abrupt flowers I’ve been working on exploring more about what acrylic can do.  I’m mostly interested in layering colors and blending them.  The painting with the flowers below was started the same week as the last post and helped me to get out some extra energy while exploring those ideas.  If I’m able to have a show I’ll explore it more with the studies I started in watercolor…or maybe I’ll go ahead and do a series without a show.  In any case I’m having fun working with bright colors and learning new techniques.

Poetry and Illustration Show

Come see an installation of my poetry and illustrations at Zed’s Cafe in downtown Silver Spring, off of Georgia Avenue.  I put new versions of two of the illustrations below in the show.

Shadows