Covid-19 2020

Anxiety wall -  started in March 2020 when we all were relegated to stay home.  I stay home happily all the time.  When forced to stay home and worry about the unpredictable virus Covid-19, all of a sudden I had a huge amount of Anxiety.  I had a roll of canvas and stapled a piece on the wall and painted in acrylic. Acrylic is not my usual choice of medium,  but I wanted an immediate drying time for quick layers to honestly paint my anxiety.  No expectations except to put down what anxiety feels like to me. There are 7 canvases stapled to the wall on top of each other. In hind sight not the most brilliant idea I've ever had, but was a spontaneous quick response. The after math of stretching comes later.

 This red one is in response to the microscopic look of the virus with that intense spiky red.

We are in May now and 100,000 + people in the US have died from this deadly virus. I am grateful I am no longer in health care, but feel a certain guilt for not being there to care for pregnant women in this time. The state of NM is beginning to open and the gallery will open mid June.  Our world has changed and although my anxiety has calmed down and I am ready to go out into the world.  There is still an air of uncertainty.

Many layers 48 x 48

Lately I've been painting bigger on canvas stapled to my wall.  I can't help the messy, the layers, the surprise at the end.  Is this moving into a new phase? Or continuing the old phase of messy, layers and surprise only bigger.

Pink Tornado

2019:  The year to prepare for the upcoming elections, there is hope that women and diversity of minorities will help change governmental policy.

At the Crossroads

Retired from Midwifery in May 2018, 22 years of nurturing life into existence.  Hard rewarding work.

I spent 3 months in the Orkney islands, experiencing the Neolithic period on an archeological dig at the Cairns and Ness of Brodgar.  What did I come away with, 5000 years ago there was a thriving community of people, life was seemingly - we don't know what, because the only thing left is the stone.  Structures, bone, a few marks on the stone, and of course our genetically passed on DNA is all that remains.
It's hard not to feel a connection to the remains and it's easy to feel like none of it matters.  All the ephemera is gone, anything that could possibly give clues to day to day life, so we imagine.   It's going to take awhile to process the significance of insignificance, the feeling of being connected to the past. On an individual level we are all just a grain of sand that gets ground down to dust and recycled again into stone.

Paper Tangents Opening

Being all serious in front of Circle Connections

Well and then your kids show up and show you how it is really done.  Leave it to your children to take everything in stride.

Milk Carton Printing

For my birthday, I gave myself the gift of taking a class at Remarque.
So much fun, milk carton printing,  we took milk cartons carved with etching tool into the carton and then printed it.  I used the bottom of the milk carton for one of mine.  This technique has huge possibilities,  is simple and inexpensive way to print.  All I need now is a press.

Paper Tangents

Look its all been done before, 

    but not by us,,,,,, or in this way’’’’’’’’

3 women with paper and pencil. 

Started.

  We worked together weekly, for over a year.

We started small moved forward with material,

bigger paper, different paper, see through paper,

We added color, and then encaustic, sumi ink, india ink, pens, oil pastels, chalk pastels, charcoal, 

and then,

there was no limit, whatever material we wanted, we used.

 This is not unlike what others do to make art, but it brought new concepts to us.

Every week we took half the time to critique, a learning process for all of us, ( we found it really important to think about what we did and why we did it)

If you could defend it then it was finished.

No Judgement, no excuses, no----------

Lots of discussion, about composition, value, form, line, color, layering on, taking off, leaving space - taking space.,.,.,.

We used each others comments, we copied each other, we tried new concepts, and interestingly we each came out being ourselves, 

Our individual work is individually unique.  In the learning we each grew and then found and maintained who we are.!.!

Paper Tangents

Art Gallery 606

606 Broadway SE

Albuquerque, NM 87102

May 4, 2018 5-9

Oscar Butler Music

Jeanette's Retirement party.

Really, the Chaos is Only on the Top

Really, the Chaos is Only on the Top, Oil CWM 14.5 x 22, feelings of anxiety and chaos as we watch our inept politicians be corrupted by power and money.  I long for the days when we find decency, common sense, and a safe place for the children.

Really, Balance is Messy

Really, Balance is Messy, Oil CWM on panel 18 x18 showing at Ghostwolf Gallery for Women in Creativity.
It's that little drip off to the right that keeps the almost complete circle from falling over. Womens' Work, Here we are hanging precariously at the top with a hole at the bottom just waiting to fall out, and yet we manage, we dig in and hang on and at best stay composed in the whole picture.

Over and Under Talking, Really a Landscape

Oil on panel diptych 14 x 22

Finally It's Raining

Finally It's Raining
Oil on panel 18x18

Questions.

Gotta wonder, How do you get from Above painting which hung around for more than a year, to the painting below.

The intuitive process is absolutely befuddling.
And yet I continue to struggle every day, with a certain amount of crazy.

Circles

 Circles I, Oil on panel
40 x30

Circles II Oil on panel
40x30

Thought I was done with blogging.
Here I am posting 2 more paintings.
Still haven't taken the tape off the edges so perhaps not done,
Liking the lightness of these paintings,  happy to see I maybe am moving out of that dark phase.

Spring arrives

Everything- EVERYTHING is on the Line
Oil on panel 24 x 30

Politics continues to befuddle us all. How in the world will we make it through 4 years with out any understanding.  All the programs that have been meticulously put in place over my life time are unraveling at such a rapid pace that I feel dizzy.  Asking the question of where are the checks and balances?  It's hard to feel off balance.

The Line That Divides Us.

Oil on panel work in progress
30x24

After the election, darkness, betrayed by my gender.
We are the same and yet divided by a very narrow margin.
Still trying to Figure it out.