small friends, nanoscapes and 9/11

I made my very first batch of jam right after the Towers went down in 2001. I began with Laurie Colwin's Plum Jam, filling jar after jar, making batch after batch. I kept this up for about three years with jams, pickles, Onion Relish, and Barbecue Sauce. During that time, I always had 6 cases of jars in my car -- in case of any emergency that couldn't be handled by the dozen cases that I stored in my house.

Time passes and people change.On this 10th anniversary, I turned off the radio and tv, and got on with what what I do now, which is to paint with watercolors. I paint geometric abstractions called nanoscapes and whimsical creatures called small friends. Instead of fretting about an anniversary attack that had been strongly suggested in the media, I made two new paintings, and nearly completed the Stained Glass Cat.

Both Mama & Baby Elephant and the Two Squirrels are painted on 140# Arches Hot Press Paper. They are experiments and not for sale.

It was a good day.

Stained Glass Cat: progress report

First color

September 6

Friends and fans of nanoscapes may remember the Fractured Glass paintings that I made in 2010, and that there was a magical moment in each painting when the loops and whirls began to come together inside the image. It has happened again with the Stained Glass Cat.

Throughout this work, I have used a new brush: a #1 Rafael 8408 Martre Kolinsky Sable France which I purchased from Wet Paint in St. Paul, MN. It holds a lot of paint and gives me a lot of control, too. 

Stained Glass Cat is 15x22 and painted on 300# Fabriano Extra White paper. When complete, the Stained Glass Cat will join her family in the small friends website.

Vulcan's Victory: An inspiration from a great collaboration

Clement Haupers (1900-1982)
Vulcan’s Victory, 1960’s,
Collection of Minnesota Museum of American Art
Gift of Mrs. Benjamin Grey, 1976.

By the end of the 2011 Minnesota State Fair, I will have served as a State Fair Foundation Volunteer for 6 of the Fair's 12 days. I was lucky to have been assigned to the J.V. Bailey House and to the tiny exhibit, Fairs, Circuses, and All Things Fun, which is a collaboration between the Foundation and the Minnesota Museum of American Art. As the MMAA is currently looking for a home and its collections are in storage, it is a special treat to be able to see these paintings and sculptures.

My favorite piece, Vulcan’s Victory by Minnesota artist Clement Haupers, is an inspiration on many levels. It celebrates one of my favorite events, the St. Paul Winter Carnival (ice palace, bouncing girls, and fireworks), and it has a secret linked to Minnesota’s great agricultural tradition imbedded in its frame. Really? When Haupers made the frame, he used egg flats to echo the shapes and bursts of the fireworks. 

Egg Flat Frame

Many visitors have been intrigued by this painting, and there was much speculation about how Haupers achieved the look of stucco on this three-dimensional frame. Was it plaster? Plaster-of-Paris? Very thick paint? Stucco?

Having gone directly to a grocery store after seeing this frame, I learned that egg flats are not the egg cartons in grocery stores; they are made to hold 30 eggs. Nonetheless, I am inspired once again to create my own frames, and to look for unusual materials to do that. What inspires you?

Stained Glass Cat: in progress

Stained Glass Cat Day 2

Yes. I love stained glass. Yes. I think that any work with glass is magic. No, I will never work with glass because it requires safety equipment for cutting or being a heat-resistant human who can work with the temperatures required by melting and fusing.

But wait! I can paint. Adding to the nanoscapes' Fractured Glass and The Glazes, this small friend Stained Glass Cat is based on a needlepoint pattern that I have carted around for 30 years. When complete, it will be for sale through the small friends website.

Pencils & Crayons of September: image a day

Pencils & Crayons of September

An image a day. In 2010, as an artist at the Hopkins (MN) Farmers Market, I was inspired by the farmer vendors to paint pumpkin post cards. After posting a pumpkin-a-day on my Facebook page in October, I could not stop.

By February 2011, the Post Card Project had moved from postcards to large sheets of Arches 140# paper. While most are seasonal, I also introduced the LLLama Families and the small friends, a group of whimsical creatures. The geometric abstractions called nanoscapes and the small friends are now in separate websites.  

Month-by-month: January (lost left-handed gloves), February (missing socks), March (basketballs and a Shamrock), April (raindrops), May (introducing the LLLama Families), June (introducing the small friends), July (corn), August (heirloom tomatoes), September (pencils & crayons), October (pumpkins), November (leaves), and December (Hanukah candles & snowflakes.)

Will I continue with an image a day? Yes, but I will begin in an organized way on January 1, 2012. I have lots of projects to complete between now and then: a calendar, the small friends alphabet, the Lives of the LLLamas, and more! I am also committed to the work of the Small Friends Research Institute, which is dedicated to the discovery and documentation of new whimsical creatures. 

A new series: The Glazes

Glaze of Many Colors 12x16
$250

Purple Glaze 123
20x13 limited edition / $75
http://www.etsy.com/listing/78788924/purple-glaze-123-limited-edition

In the spirit of my life-long affection for stained glass, I spent part of the previous two months working on a series of paintings that pay homage to the form. Unlike my Fractured Glass paintings from 2010, which focused on tiny details made by 1/4-inch virtual glass shards, the Glaze Paintings celebrate the colors and mimic larger pieces of glass.

Blue Glaze 7x10 $100

Orange Glaze Post Card NFS

Glaze of Many Colors and Blue Glaze are painted on 140# Arches hot press paper and they are available at the nanoscapes website. Purple Glaze123 is a limited edition of 50 printed on archival paper with museum matting available through the nanoscapes website and at etsy.com. The Orange Glaze post card is not for sale.

Fresh artist's palette: sign of the new school year

My watercolors

Signs of the new school year are everywhere.

Minnesota State Fair opening day --  Hooray!

Relentless tv ads for school supplies – Make them stop!

Artists’ fresh palettes – Huzzah!

The Biggest Crayon Box
from My Childhood

Although I am no longer a student, the school calendar appears to be part of my DNA. Perhaps it harks back to getting the biggest box of Crayola™ crayons that my parents could be persuaded to buy, but re-setting my palette just before school starts seems like the right thing to do.

Artists are lucky because we can mark a new year or a new project by setting up a fresh palette. Washing out the old colors, introducing new colors, and bringing back standards and favorites are a group of unalloyed pleasures. A fresh palette celebrates possibilities and sparks creativity.

NEED FOR COMPACT STORAGE  Because I travel to around the country to present Pass the Baton lectures to law students and lawyers, I need a portable watercolor infrastructure that takes up minimal space and slides through airport security. At home, I have a relatively small worktable, and need to keep my colors within easy reach. Just as I used to organize crayons by color, I set my palettes by color groups: yellow, green, blue, orange, pink, red, purple, brown-black-gray, and metallic.

LOADED WITH COLOR  With seven Dick Blick small folding plastic palettes loaded with 150 small blobs of individual watercolors packed in a plastic makeup bag, I am ready to go. Three Daniel Smith Autograph Kolinsky Travel Brushes, a 6H pencil, an eraser, and a small pencil sharpener fit into the bag. Although one set of screeners looked closely at the travel brushes which unscrew to reveal the brush inside, I have never had a security-screening issue with this kit.

FRESH PAINT and FRESH IDEAS  I paint every day and can’t wait to bring fresh ideas to works in progress and to start on entirely new projects. Reset your palette and go!