New name for my website.

You may have noticed, I'm changing my company name to Sharp Art, and I've removed my home support page on this wesite. I'm creating a new website for my home support, under a new name. Fall is definitely the time I reassess and make changes! This website will be available to both web addresses until next May, but I've gone ahead and changed the titles to all the pages to Sharp Art, from the Art of Living Artworks.

Finished Piece "Moving into the Bloom"

This is the shadow box unframed, you can see it a bit better here.

This is the finished framed shadow box.

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I took my shadow box to the jury process, in September. It was those last minute things that needed extra attention that I hadn't really considered, that made the final day a bit of a blur - touching up the paint on the frame, fastening a back onto the box, wiring it to hang up........ The jury volunteers decided it is in the 3D category, though I thought because it hangs on the wall it would be "artwork under glass". My lovely sis-in-law picked it up from the jury process, for me. I was notified a couple of weeks ago that it and my painting, "The Watcher", had not been accepted for the show in October. Oh, well - I've had lots of really positive responses to it, so I'll keep creating and find a venue that really works for it! Here's a couple of pictures of it finished and also framed.

The process of creating my shadow box.

 First I gather images that strike my imagination. The girl is from a magazine article and I printed off images that I took when at a local garden. I liked how the girl's orange hair matched some of the flowers.

 I changed the dress the largest girl is wearing, using photos I took of flowers in my garden as her dress. I'm putting the other girls in among the flower garden. I'm thinking of "past, mid-past, and present" in a time frame.

 This is the front of the box.

 I've added the mid ground, as well as another figure on the left hand side.

This is the background on the left hand side added. I have to yet find a background for the right hand side.

Trasformation of my creative Identity!

 

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Miniature Theatre and Shadowboxes.
It's hard to believe how long it's been since I blogged here, but a lot has been happening lately. I took my artwork to the local Art School - The Victoria School of Art - on Quadra St. (http://vancouverislandschoolart.com/about.html) to have a "critique" of my work, to get an idea of what direction I should focus on, with the little time that I have for my artwork. I realized in putting this website together that I have a lot of artwork in groups of themes, but no strong suit consistently showing up other than my interest in allegory and transformation.

I have been accepted for the jury process for the Sidney Art Show and have paid for three pieces to be adjudicated. I wanted some feedback on which pieces I should finish to submit. Instructor Wendy Welch was really great and her perspective really helped me discover what I've been doing and where my strengths lie. Wendy had some great questions and they allowed me to hear myself speak about my art in a way that I made new connections between what I have been doing and what comes naturally for me, what I've been trying to achieve in my painting and what I naturally do in the miniature theatre paper craft. I brought three paintings, one which was finished but felt unfinished somehow, and also three pictures of my miniature theatre and the 3D paper sculptures of the two main characters.

She loved the photos I brought of my miniature theatre and the two paper characters that are part of it.  She gave me names of artists whose work is similar, but she said she has not seen anything like what I am doing with this genre. She felt it was really exciting in how I used my personal archetypes. She also mentioned that the "crafting" of the paper sculptures, and I realized that I have always leaned to "crafting" but have not held it as being valid or legitimate in the art world. I'm mechanically minded and have always loved figuring out how to make something that I have a concept of - I invented crafts for the Sunday School classes I taught and also developed programs and taught after-school and week long summer programs for kids. She reassured me that what I am doing is valid and unique. She asked that I do more and come back and show her what I've done in a couple of months.

I feel for the first time I have found what fits for me, even though paradoxically, it has been what I've been doing all my creative life - it's taken a long struggle to come to this realization! This genre really fits for me, is backed by my history of creating, the way I think in images like still-photos of a movie/story and the archetypes that speak for me.

This project fills me with energy and ideas. I have such a positive reaction to this genre, I feel I have finally allowed myself to recognize that this is my medium and I can stop trying to be what I'm not. This genre of tableau/shadowbox/theatre has always been in my imagination and I have finally heard the words that validate this passion I have for creating a world of my own, and the powerful images that evoke the magic and discovery that motivates my creative drive. I have a million ideas, and that is amazing because I've found the genre that will allow all these pictures in my head come to fruition! (If you haven't seen the movie "Temple Grandin" yet, this is partly why I love this movie so - it shows how she thought in pictures/diagrams too!!!)

I decided with this new clarity, to change my submissions to being more "tableau art" - whether photos of the miniature theatre or shadowbox scenes - for the art show, and I would need to buy deep frames, called shadowbox frames, which I found at Michael's (http://www.michaels.com/) the other day. After looking at them, I wondered if I could make them a little deeper, more like 2" deep - which would require adding more wood to the frame. I also need to add lighting in order to make sure the viewer can see the deeper layer of scenery.

To that end, today I went to a frame shop to see if they could help me make the purchased "shadowbox" frames deeper. The first shop was closed, and I wondered what that was about. Then as I drove back along Oak Bay Avenue I went past another frame shop. I parked in front of a store called Dangerously Crafty, with Florance Simpson creating, and instructing courses in, amazing paper art craft (http://dangerouslycrafty.blogspot.com/) and went in to see what she had for inspiration. What wonderful happenstance!! If the first frame shop had been open, I'd have driven right past this store on my way back to work! Florance was interested in what I've been doing because she is a costume and set designer!!! Talk about synchronicity!!!! I will definintely go back for more! I loved the ArtChix packages of cool projects and supplies!! (http://www.artchixstudio.com/inspiration/index.html) Check it out!!! Just following the "Muse"!

The painting process of "The Watcher"

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I finished another painting!!! Yay!!!! I had a painter's "block" for more than about five years, in which I started a number of paintings but was unable to finish them. I want to submit three paintings to the jury for the Sidney Art Show in the fall, and after the last time I submitted three paintings which were not accepted, I decided to change my tactic and submit art that I make and not art that I think I should make! I finished my first painting in years, last year - The Maiden - based on my research into the "Handless Maiden" folktale ( see "Inspired by...."). That was such a satisfying experience!! This year, I decided to finish two other paintings that I had started a number of years ago, to submit to the art show in the fall. This is the first one and you can see it as the last image under the "Symbolism and Spirituality" set of images in the artworks gallery.

I wanted to start with an image of a woman in an owl mask. I don't know why, just that I am drawn to birds, as you can see from my artwork, and the theatre - so my image was a logical choice! I developed this painting on the canvas, as I have done with many paintings. First came the woman in the mask, then the curtains to the side and the trees on the right. Then the stage floor in its checkerboard pattern. I had a doorway come to mind, as if that is where she is running too, like Cinderella and the stroke of midnight! That appeared on the left of the stage, in a state of materialization - partly there, partly disappearing. I spread the checkerboard pattern toward the horizon, and it dissipated into a field in the distance, with a hill that has trees at its base where the field ends, and a night time ocean with the waves reflecting the moonlight above. I continued to develop these images into more detail.

The space between the costumed woman and the doorway needed something, and I guess I was influenced by the checkerboard - like it was a chess board, and I've always loved the "rook" because it is often represented by a castle tower - a miniature building!! So I began painting the tower, and it continued to develop into a lone tower on the precipice above the wave swept ocean. It is as if it is appearing from another dimension or space/time. Maybe it's a connection to the ocean in the background, like a close-up detail of the background.

For the longest time, the painting remained like this, but of course there was the left hand corner standing empty. I had a sense of a "watcher" looking down upon the masked woman. I painted in the tower topped by a "watcher" but it was the wrong perspective - it was from the side, and it appeared like he was sitting in a box at the theatre. I realized that I had to be looking upward at this character, so I angled the tower and painted if as if from below. The "watcher" appears here as a wolf, in a soldier's uniform - my guess is that he is more than that, maybe another authority figure. So, it is also connected to the tower, as if it is a close up of him standing on top of that particular tower, which is appearing from another dimension or space/time - like he is seeing her and her unauthorized activities, as she runs to return from her journey into our world.

She's looking at us, the audience, with a startled look, as if she wasn't aware we were there until she ran on stage to catch her "exit"! At the bottom of the painting, on which the stage stands, is an image of the swirling galaxies of outer space. It's Shakespeare all over again!

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts..."

Just do it!

Just do it! 

 

Ever since I was a kid I've loved.......toys!! Well, of course, you say "What kid doesn't like toys?" The problem is that even as an adult I'd dream about toys. What well-respected adult admits that? Finally, after so many years of my guilty secret, I broke down and decided that I'd start to collect toys.....for my future grandchildren! I needed some excuse! So, I went to the local second hand shops and see what they had: I then began to think of archetypes - I needed heroes, villains, fairytale and storybook characters, animal friends and props. I also found miniature village scene props at Christmas - bridges, sundials, and gazebos! Hey, then I discovered aquarium scenes - Greek columns, archways, hollow stumps and temples! So began my storytelling - by going through my collection, I'd pick out characters and props that "called to me" at that moment. I set up my table in my studio with a cloth draped over top of small boxes for a landscape. Then I would just begin telling the story - out loud to myself. It is pretty hilarious, but at this point I'd lost all idea of "dignity" because wasn't I an adult playing with toys? I'd start with the main characters, tell their story and how they met the following characters, where they went and what they did.......pretty simple. Loads of fun! Then I'd write the story down while it was fresh in my mind. It always amazed me how my story would start, without any end in mind, and continue on through a challenge to come to a unique and perfect solution with a happy ending! The story would just meander along until the end, coming together like a perfect puzzle without any effort on my part! There's a lesson in there somewhere!

I had explored this urge before. I began collecting archetype images from the internet - isn't is a wonderful tool when you can type in "gate" on Google images and thousands of images come up? Of course, there is copyright, but I used these images for reference photos, so none of my personal images resulted in a direct copy of someone else's photo. I made 5"x 7" cards, and would lay them out the same way as above : which image "called to me"? But I didn't actually get around to the story telling part. I just loved the images!

Before any of this happened, I'd play with my daughter when she was little, and we'd tell stories with her toys. It was natural and effortless. She had a fairytale felt board and also a fairytale stamp collection, which of course were "archetypes" and I would do the same thing : pick a character and tell the story as it went along on its own volition. One night, with my present husband, he said "Tell me a story" and I proceeded to verbally relate a story that was playing out in my mind like a movie. It was an amazing story of transformation, involving a wolf and a maiden. I understood the symbolism of the story, later. It was a lovely idea and I will share it here another day.

So my moral of this story is - don't be embarrassed about unexplainable, innocent urges! These are our creative muse trying to communicate to ourselves and the world about the natural healing character of our deepest self. We can heal ourselves and our communities when we nurture and listen to this limitless well of wisdom and love.