Taking the hubcap for a new spin

This hubcap has been awaiting treatment for over a month. I was intrigued by its surface quality and thus, it was hard to part with that. By layering it with tissues some of the surface quality remained. Polymer medium hardened the surface and allowed some of the glow of the chrome to come through. I wanted to keep a metal quality. Oil paint has been added for additional color benefits and movement to keep the spin on. More can be read about this project at landfillart. org.

Stimulus

This painting was begun with fabrics, paper, strips of canvas, and assorted odd bits adhered with beeswax  to a birch board panel.  Textures were my stimulus and the under shapes and varying surfaces crafted this painting.  Living in a minimal economy, I find I am often stimulated by what is at hand....those odd bits of intriguing shape or age, perhaps blemished and worn, torn, or soiled which will inspire transformation. This painting is 24x24 and available for sale if anyone wants to transform a room with a conversation piece or meditation force.  Just make an offer.

Celebration of Lucinda Mason

Time or lack of it has forced me into duties.  Lucinda Mason, who died too early in this life--just 2 years ago, will be having an exhibit at Vermont Supreme Court in March.  I set this up months ago and now it is almost upon us.  I must get the postcard made-- like yesterday...but it was only today that Justice Marilyn Skoglund and I set the date for the opening reception..Thursday, March 26, 5-7 and I made the hanging arrangements with Tracy. So much to do to get a show up and this one has to be really special.  Ticona, mother to Lucinda, is a dear friend of mine, and this exhibit is very important to her.  The paintings are big and exquisite.  They need to be seen again and again and celebrated.  Lucinda's spirit lives on in these paintings and it is our duty to keep that lovely spirit dancing!

I'll be speaking more on this exhibit later.

Found Lucinda typeface to print this in....to keep in the mode...

Troubles abound--Gaza

To not think about my mother, I ventured into news about gaza and blogs.  It is diverting, but oh so distressing that Palestinians are not recognized and valued.  The account of a 14 year old studying until her school was flattened, losing her friend to missels....how can we accept this cruelty?  What can we do?  I have made a small donation for gift baskets to Gaza women and I will paint some pink silk scarves for these gifts baskets, but this is only a small way of soothing the pain.  How can we stop it?

Mama

What a beautiful smile my mother can flash these days.  I don't remember this smile from my growing up.  She seems more delighted and playful than I can remember her being, but I must remember not to ask her to remember anything and I must find patience with her continuous questions ---about the same thing.  It is as if there were holes where so much of what is said and what is happening can just simply fall through.  When I cared for her this past week, it was a role reversal.  I am trying to adjust to this great change.  I am not able to work with focus or on any project too thoroughly----my mind also has gone wandering.

The Art of Gaman

Ha!   Dharma at hand, led on the path once again to discover about a show at Smithsonian American Art Museum in March 2010--The Art of Gaman, Arts and Crafts from the Japanese Interment Camps, 1942-1946.  "The interns tried to gaman which is a Japanese word that means to bear the seemingly unbearable with dignity and patience."  I can feel this need now in my life and my last studies have been an indication that I have gone to someplace past the mind and heart to deal with my conflicting emotions of my mother entering a much more mindless place and finding peace with it as on some levels she has.  I also realize that my art is my emotional survival as it was for the Japanese interns, as it is for Palestine artists, as it is for so many peoples.  How can i equate my heart pain with Japanese interns?  Am i equating it?  I am aware through my path tonight that my art is my emotional survival, a human response to difficulties is to make something.  the interns made furniture using scraps and found materials. They made toys and games, pendants and pins, purses, and ornamental displays.  They used what they had or found to create.  Did they have dignity and patience in order to create or did the creating bring about dignity and patience, or is it all one....gaman?  Anyway, I will be more aware of gaman as I tread my path and I am grateful to have guidance along this path.

The image is called Relics, a mixed media assemblage on plywood palette...bits of my past and gatherings come together to tell a piece of the story.  Possibly some of my work is too personal to want to part with and I only realize that after it has been priced and offered for sale and been returned to me.....more wonderings.

Working through the difficulties

A trying week of computer problems on top of Mother's rapid plunge into the realm of Alzheimer's.  I wanted to send some images to my mother by post, but the printer failed to be recognized by my computer.  And new images couldn't be added.  Oh why didn't I back up all that could be backed up when I saw these problems coming up?  My mother was on my mind and my mind was not functioning at its highest.  So the computer is reconfigured and the folder holding all my info appears to be empty....like my mother's mind appears sometimes. We must adjust to change and accept what is.  At least I could find myself painting and the mind could let go of responsibility and let the paint happen and I found myself laughing with delight...such a relief to be laughing with delight.  Here are 2 of the small studies--fire and air.  A Japanese painter I have been following the work of and learning from does a small painting each day.  He is a guide for me in these days of trial.  Thanks you, Hiroshi.

Puzzled Out

The puzzle piece is part of the Vermont art project (VAC).  A blank wooden puzzle piece, 15x15, needing sanding and in individual story, was presented to many artists and groups around the state.  I studied it for days before the design moved into vision.  first I painted it in reds for the underpainting.  After drying, I layered on the golds and neutrals allowing the red to peek through.  Because of the oil paint and wax, it still needs some more drying time and then a buffing.  When I showed it resting on a chair to a group of artists, we all felt it had found a home as a chair back.  Hurrah!

Zapotec Appeal

Done in Mexico after sketching in the museum of antiquities...2004 only 9x11 but feels bigger.

My sister calls this my alter ego.  I am working from a new computer all it is a learning curve for me once again.  I emailed an image which didn't come through and now how do I get rid of the blank?  I think I did it!

 

Impasse or Collision

Though I finished this painting a few days ago, I have been struggling with the title...Collision is not what it is, but the word is not coming to me and when I see this painting small on this screen it looks so different than the painting I thought I had created that it confuses me. Each digital image is only a moment of a painting...a tease of what that painting really is. And now that I have seen a horse's head....well, it disturbs my balance.
What is also disturbing my balance is not to be able to load my new images on the computer....as my computer is failing to recognize the USB and my printer is also lost to the computer...my systems are failing. I am baffled and my mother's mind is failing...she thinks my brother is her dear and long dead husband and I am "honey". What has been going on in just this past weeks is rapid progression into dementia and we 3 children don't have all the pieces together for the next step. Next week I make the pilgrimage to my mother's home and take my turn making the next phase of her life more comfortable than the present...may we all find grace in this journey.

Frost Drawing

How to enjoy the cold...I keep having to remind myself that it has its own beauty. And today the sun glowing is spectacular...but so cold! No outside walk for me yet! Instead I will keep puzzling out the puzzle piece (almost ready to post) and get going on the hubcap. I need my art requests finished so I can travel out to visit my mother next week with a freed mind!

Myrddin - flamenco

facebook Maggie Neale 5:59am Feb 4th Myrddin - flamenco To colormuse.madness@blogger.com I met Sylvie on Flickr, joined her on blogspot, was invited to her birthday party through pictures on facebook and viewed this great video. Friends through work and now even becoming social all through the virtual world. I am truly amazed. Can I really send this to my blog? Let's see. Maggie has shared a video with you. To view the video or to reply to the message, follow this link: http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=1287458539&k=6WB555QRQ46M511IW1V6RW

Snow Frog prized

Just found out that we have won third prize! Yeah us!

Snow Frog

Sometimes I wonder how I get into things....I wondered yesterday when I gathered with Georgia in front of a huge block of snow which had our names on it. This was part of Barre's Winter carnival and we had decided we ought to round up the SPA founders team to work together again. When we agreed, we did not realize the size of our block or that it would be 10 degrees when I left home. But the sun shone, Georgia had made a model of a frog in clay and wonderful ice eyes, we had some tools including the 2 handled crosscut saw, a relic, and a challenge is something we had taken on before.....we started roughing out our shape and once we got started, we were engaged. Janet showed up when a roughed out frog was before us, Eva came to cheer us on and take our photo but she had a cold and Nancy was so sick with her cold that we didn't even see her....Elizabeth brought us tasty snacks and a spray bottle. Janet did the front leg, I took on a back leg and the back smoothing, Georgia was colder in the shadow with the other leg. The eyes slid in nicely, spots worked with an ice cream scoop and he began to talk to us as he sat upon his rock in Currier park and we called it quits when we heard that pizza had arrived at the Library! 4 hours! and I wasn't even cold!