Too long

Wow, it's been a year since I updated this blog!! Yikes. I've been working hard on the Art 365 project, but have still made a few other bodies of work for shows around the country (and one in Vancouver this March!) Here are a few pictures to keep you happy for a week or so...

The wobbly edge

Just before it's too much
45 x 36"

Sometimes being married feels awesome. Sometimes it feels like complete shit. And usually just before you feel like you're going to snap, things work out and it goes back to normal again. It's hard to balance life and love and what you want to do in the future and what's happening right in front of you. I hate how our personalities clash and I love how he makes me feel like the only person in the world. It's on the edge of things that we usually live.

New Book

Ooooohhh it's been too long! Sorry for not updating this blog for a while, but I graduated, moved and got a new awesome job that's totally consuming. But I love it! I have a cute house and a dog and I work at this amazing gallery in Oklahoma City.
So anyway, my newest project is this book that's kind of a combination journal and artist book. I think of it as a record of my life for the past five months. I've been working on it since I moved to OKC, doing about five or six pages at a time. The writing and images reflect my feelings and happenings in my life that day or that week. It's been a really refreshing project for me since getting out of the school mode. I can work on the pages whenever I have a free moment or day. And since the pages are a smaller "canvas" I finish the one-page-spread paintings faster and can move on to the next one. Having them all contained in a book lets me see the progression of thoughts and feelings, and I have it all contained in one capsule. I love how the pages can be either simple or complex, and they develop a repetition of color and symbols which follow my mood from week to week. It's almost done, and you can see more pages of it on my main website Reverie Studio.

I've done it

I've done it! I graduated from SFAI with my MFA. Hooray! Now I can do whatever I want. I'm in sort of this dream-state right now where I'm all caught up in the excitement of my road trip and of moving to another place. A place where things will be less expensive. It's not my first choice of places to live, but as I'm always up for an adventure and refuse to see any landscape as inferior to others, I believe it will be just as interesting and exciting as living in SF or Indiana, or Germany. I can't wait to start carving out my little niche in OKC. I'll miss my sister though, that's why I wanted to post this image.
This etching is part of a series I sort of consider my crowning glory from my time at SFAI. It's a series of five etchings I made about my twin sister and I concerning our relationship and memories. Each image was made on top of the one before it (This is the second in the series). On the metal etching plate, I drew the image, etched it, printed it, then scraped it off and drew another one. It's kind of a long tedious process that entails lots of elbow grease but I love the way the process feeds into the images, the layers that are left underneath and how it kind of mimics the way memories build and layer up in your mind. There are also similarities to the multiplicity of twins; the reprinting of the image, the two colors, the overlap and turning of the images, not to mention what's contained in the images themselves. I'll post more from this series in the future...

Spring is time to write

What if there was a way? 48 x 48"

I did this painting a few months ago. It's one of my favorite paintings I've ever done. It used to look a lot different, like most of my other paintings. I got really sick of it, nothing was looking right or going well- the colors were off, and the composition was way too simple. It used to have a white bird in the center and there was another figure on the bottom left. Also the typewrite wasn't there and the arms of the figure were different. So I completely overhauled the whole right side. I'm so much happier with it now. It has its memory of the past composition, and because I added more layers, it all fits together like it never could if I hadn't added all the other parts. It always amazes me how that kind of thing works out. But it turned out to be one of my favorites, and at my last big show a married artist couple bought it! You can't ask for anything better than other artists appreciating your work. I look forward to the days when I can buy the artists' work that I admire.
Well, on another note, I just graduated from the Art Institute with my MFA! hooray! Two long years of hard work and it's finished. I'm happy to be moving onward and upward. Here's a little tidbit for you- ArtInfo featured my work in their "new talent" section. Check it out!

Vernissage opening

I just want to let you know I'll be participating in the Master of Fine arts graduate exhibition of the San Francisco Art Institute on May 19th, from 6-9 pm. It takes place at the Herbst Pavilion of Fort Mason Center in the Fisherman's Wharf area of San Francisco. I'd love it if anyone in the area could come and see some great art! It's been a long road to get here, and I'd love it if you would come and share this accomplishment with me!

up and out

Be that as it may (48 x 36")

This was a recent painting I made quickly, but also struggled with a bit. I use a lot of layers when I paint, layers of painting over and over in places. Most of the time, though, I don't plan out the various layers. I'll be working on the painting in a way I think will be good for it, then I step back and it isn't hitting me right, so I start to rework it with more line and another layer right on top of the previous painting. The best paintings are usually the ones where I've disliked, and painted over about five or six times. Only then does it have the depth and history of my struggle with it to make it really rich. It works the same with the etchings. Anyway, such is the case with this painting. I like how there became kind of a pinwheel composition with the figures, and the change in scale of the figures (the top one is bigger than the other two) is something else I use a lot to give an unsettling play in the interaction of the figures. Well, this week I'll be getting ready for my final MFA show as graduation is only two weeks away!