new year

I’M ALL MIXED UP

General Info, New Art

Not long ago I picked up some soft pastels for no other reason than I wanted to paint a ballerina in the style of Degas. I haven’t touched pastels for more than 5 years as far as I can remember. If not for this project series I am working on, it could very well have been another few years before I used my pastels.

A quick look around my studio I can easily spot a variety of art media/materials so that at any given time I can put my hands on oil paints, oil pastels, acrylic paints, inks, gouache, or watercolor paints; colored pencils, charcoal, pastels, graphite, and crayons – all at the ready, each in their own space. There is even clay waiting for me to try my hand at sculpture.

Of course, I have my standard go-tos (charcoal, oil and acrylic paints) and other media I play with, and often they will get mixed together in one piece, maybe with some collage. I would say I am a Jack of all trades, master of some. 😊

The best thing about having all these tools at my disposal is that I get to problem solve, experiment, learn and evolve and I seldom get bored. And not for nothing, I create work in a myriad of genre as well: portraits, landscapes, figures, abstracts, still life, et al. I can create a body of work in any or all of this media/genre, but I prefer to float along on whatever whim begets me. I love living in my mixed-up world. I wouldn’t have it any other way.  

2023

Event, General Info, What's going on
Figure with axe ready to tackle huge tree.

Seriously?! We have already passed the last day of the first month of the new year. It all feels so daunting to me right now. I am totally unprepared for this new year – as if one could prepare for such. The thing is, I am in a season of my life that has me baffled, bewildered, befuddled, behind the 8-ball and completely beside myself. I honestly don’t know my left from right, but I’m on this stage and the curtain is up and I’m wearing my brave face and holding my head high and reciting my lines while crying between scenes.

And I have no understudy. Chop chop.

Another EOY Recap

Event, General Info, New Art

    Well, we made it! Happy? New year!!

    Like so many others around the world, I lost family members and friends due to the pandemic and I too am weary of wearing masks and social distancing from the rest of my family and friends. And in the midst of all this, my husband and I took on the job of caring for my brother. The role of caregiver is sometimes funny, oftentimes tedious, but mostly sad to see someone you love so much decline so rapidly. So, even though the new year has begun nothing yet has changed.  But we press on.

    2020 was not a total bust however, as I managed to complete 18 paintings and numerous drawings last year. That may not seem like a lot but it is a new record for me. I am pretty proud of many of the year’s art projects and hopefully this year, in 2021, they will see the light of day at some exhibit venue somewhere, anywhere, outside of the studio.

    I really enjoyed working on my series “Ode to the Old Masters” having completed 7 of my planned 12 renditions of some famous paintings. I also completed 6 commissioned paintings and a few artworks that were born of the re-birth of social unrest in America. Some of these brought me great pleasure while some hurt me to my core. But what they all have in common is the passion and fire and freedom I felt as I painted, with the need to express myself as a person of color, which is something I didn’t do often because on the most basic level as an artist I wanted to appeal to “everyone”, create art for sale and profit. 2020 made me realize that I no longer care to appeal to the masses. Discounting the few commissions, the rest of the paintings I did for myself, including my series, so that I could see myself in my work. It’s not really that I don’t care any more what others think about my art but, then again, it kinda is. I’m so much happier when I create just for me. And so much better.

    Also, in 2020 I had an unsolicited interview published by PoseSpace that I thought was pretty neat. You can read it here. Careful, site contains nudity. Finally, I received the first inventory shipment of my newly branded artist supplies, by MOJOVE. I started with a set of brushes and have plans to add other items later this year. First, I need some of you, well a lot of you, to buy up some of this inventory that can be purchased here 😉.

    My New Year’s resolution? My only goal in 2021 is to harvest every heartache, squeeze every pain, stir up all the misery that presented itself as lemons in 2020 and make a helluva sweet, refreshing lemonade to sustain me for a very long time.

    Wishing you all peace, love, prosperity, and plenty of lemonade.

    2018 – A Recap

    Event, General Info, New Art, New Release

    As is habit I, like many, generally reflect on the year past as I travel into the freshness of the new year. So looking back at my artistic accomplishments of 2018 I’m reminded that I’ve completed 9 paintings and a series of sketches throughout the year – a bit short of my usual goal of 12-15 paintings per annum. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing as I declared last year this time to slow down and put a little more concentration into my work. Also, my participation in Inktober2018 was a new and challenging effort that took me from my comfort zone and helped me think outside the box.

    I tried some new techniques and new materials that I will continue to experiment with in the coming year. I also bought some clay, a medium that I’ve never worked in but am stoked to try. The clay is as yet still unopened but you should look for something very new from me in 2019.

    So, without further ado, these few are my top picks from 2018, not so much because I think they were executed well but because I thoroughly enjoyed painting/sketching them and I learned something of myself in the process. Of course you can review these and more on my Gallery page or purchase a print or the original if still available. Did you have any favorites? Let me know below.

    I look forward to continued creative escapades in 2019 and hope you enjoy the journey as much as I. Here’s to wishing all of you a healthy, happy, and artful New Year.

    Wishing you Joy in the New Year

    General Info, New Art

    At the end of every year  I try to purge old files and do a general cleaning of my office and inevitably I come across something that I had tucked away in a book, a corner, or a drawer that I was going to get to “later”. This year I uncovered a few poems from an old friend that I have not seen nor heard from in many years. 

    We both belonged to a writer’s group that met up every couple of months or so and as writers do, we exchanged thoughts, fleshed out ideas, shared our writings, encouraged each other, and practiced our craft. It was great fellowship and highly inspirational. I don’t know where she is these days but this poem is the PERFECT opening act for this New Year. And I’d like to use her words to express my sentiment for you in 2014.

    BTW, if anyone out there knows Lori C. Fraind, tell her I’m looking for her and would love to read her new works.

    ********************

    Insist

    On joy, Consist

    Of joy. Persist

    With joy. Be kissed

    By joy. Exist

    In joy.

    Smudge your forehead

    With joy. Beat your breasts

    With joy. Splash your pulse points

    With joy. Get joy

    Under your fingernails.

    Make joy

    Your fragrance. Your best protection

    Is joy. Your most powerful suit

    Is joy.

    Let the dawn

    Bring joy. Make the day

    Bright joy. See the sunset

    With joy.

    Your best revenge

    Is joy. Bridge your differences

    With joy. Hurdle your obstacles

    With joy. Meet your challenges

    With joy. Leap headlong to your goals

    With joy.

    Exist

    In joy. Be kissed

    By joy. Persist

    With joy. Consist

    Of joy. Insist

    On joy.

    –Joy, 1996

    Close, but no cigar.

    General Info, New Art

    My First Oil Painting

    My First Oil Painting

    It’s said that an artist is his/her own worst critic. Well, that’s certainly true of me. Even though I can see that I’ve gotten better over the years, I’m not yet where I think I want to be. Don’t get me wrong – I believe that I have talent; I believe in my abilities to create fine art – but I haven’t reached that stage in my artistry where I’m completely comfortable.  I generally begin a painting chanting “I THINK I can, I think I can,” and then of course I do it.  But I rarely start with the thought,  “This is cake, I can do this, hands down.”   There’s always a little hesitation, some trepidation.

    As we close on 2012 and begin 2013 I, like most, engage in a little retrospective on life, love, dreams, career, and of course my art.Hold Me

    When I look back at some of my earlier paintings and compare them to recent works, I feel a real sense of accomplishment.  I can definitely see the progress that I’ve made over the years, which is as it should be.  Many of my first works look so amateurish to me now, yet with every new painting I complete I look and look and pick it apart and look some more, never fully satisfied. Oftentimes I am pretty reluctant to even sign my nKOROame, because signing it would mean that it’s finished.

    I think that un-satiated feeling derives from not yet having developed a style I call me own. (Interestingly I’ve been told by others that I do indeed have a style, only I myself can’t see it.)  Because I enjoy such an assortment of media and subject matter and technique I find it hard to lock myself into what I think is a specific style.  I can’t even attempt to clump my paintings into “periods” such as Picasso’s Blue and Rose periods.  Each time I pick up a brush to start a new painting the outcome is decidedly different from the last one I completed.Mike

    Then again, if I ever find myself pigeon holed into a specific style – in my art or in my life – it would mean that I’ve stopped growing, stopped evolving, and that simply will not do. Notably, all of the Greats have danced between painting and sculpture and architecture and science and invention, dallying in different genres and media  – it’s part of what made them great. And because there’s still so much more that I want to try, because I haven’t learned it all, because I relish a good challenge, because I’m still not satisfied, I so look forward to 2013.

    orchid My wish for you: Continue to grow, continue to evolve into that being you are meant to be – at least for this year.  Get as close as you can without lighting that cigar. 

     Now, throughout this article I’ve given you a little peek at my evolution thus far. embracedBesides the obvious, can you tell what’s old and what’s new? Friends