What Lies Beneath on many levels

 Can hardly believe a week has passed since my last post and then I can hardly believe it has only been a week...so much is going on.  Artisans Hand has just had its celebration for 33 years.  I worked a long shift on Friday after getting signs made and postcards posted.  Friday was down in sales, but I heard yesterday felt like Christmas; we do have many customers who count on us for gifts and really enjoy our 20% discount for our anniversary.  We rely on these faithful customers too.

But let's get to paintings.  I went to my studio many days this past week because I had scheduled an interview with Marc Awodey for Saturday.  He writes for Seven Days and also Art New England and the interview was for the regional Art New England who wants their reviews ahead of time so it comes out when the show is up not after the fact.  I will be hanging my solos show at SPA in the 3rd floor space in late January through February.  It's called "What Lies Beneath".  I have been building a collection of paintings which have fabric and other materials embedded in wax.  The painting above has strips of raw silk as remnants from a jacket embedded in Dorlands Wax Medium because I had run out of my beeswax/copal mix while in Maine.  I find painting over the raw silk quite delicious...sometimes the dyed portions become the coloration or mix with it.  This painting is firming up in these last painting sessions.

 This small textile collage painting joined the paintings in the studio for the interview and of course I just had to add some paint and shine to this piece as it passed through my hands.  Layers!  What Lies Beneath this piece is stryrofoam covered in linen, then layered with a pieced piece of a quilt back side exposed so the seams add to the texture of the whole.  I call this piece "Patching It Together in a Shifting Economy"; begun in 2009 and named then, it still is quite the ticket for the time.  I've layered a puzzle piece, a stone, tulle, cheese cloth, and a crushed bottle cap.  I'm certain there is even more lying beneath and even emotions lying beneath.....the interview went well and my studio got cleaned up.

A peek into the studio for you all....

Yesterday Bruce and I traveled east for a gathering for Guy Fawkes Day complete with a well made bonfire, hot spiced cider and pumpkin soup served in the pumpkin.  It was a glorious evening, the cold clear sky full of stars.  Today, though the frost lay heavy we ventured out again to climb up Hunger Mountain.  We didn't fool ourselves by thinking we really could get to the top of this mountain, but took the path which kept us more in the open so we could bask in the sunshine and walk with greater ease.

Bruce took some tracking side trips while I studied the flora.

 The sky was a remarkable blue, the birches so white, and the air so clear.  We breathed deep.

Mountain streams babbled and charmed us...We were intoxicated by the beauty and felt so glad we had left the work and gone out into the mountains to enjoy them.  Vermont is a great place to live and work...and yes, the winters are hard and long, which is all the more reason to get out while we can.

So, what lies beneath our hard work ethic is also a great wonderment of the beauty of our surroundings and an appreciation of it which we then bring into our work.  A circle.

"Magic Act" named in 2006, oil on linen, has a painting of figure almost like a mountain lying in green grass with a purple sky.  This is my memory, but it lies beneath and "Magic Act" has grown over the whole.  When I unearthed this canvas I thought I would paint over it again, but "magic act" did some magic on me and I could only paint to intensify not to disassemble.  Some paintings do not want to lie beneath.

As always blessings to readers, writers, painters, and family who travel here with me.  Be well.