First Storm of Winter 2020

The Weathermen say we could have anywhere between 6” to 12” of snow in the next couple of days, along with intense cold reaching into the 10s. I’m all for it! Even more of an excuse to hunker in and work on my project, which is coming along nicely. In fact visions of the next one have been haunting me day and night. It will have something to do with cactus. 

Friday, before the weather turned, Sandy and I hiked the La Cieneguilla Petroglyph site for decimated chola branches which will be part of the new project. What amazing forms these branches create as they molded in to oblivion.

The pieces might have moveable parts so as to engage one to participate in each sculpture. The main parts...ie snake, animal, rock, gravel...will stay stationary, and the branches and additional animals and insects will be able to change positions as per the viewer. Think it’s a cool idea, thanks to Bob, our longtime friend. I’m also thinking of putting a glass cloche over each one to protect from dust and missing pieces. It’ll hold each sculpture together yet enable it for viewing.

Return

Around 8 years ago I won a prize as Best Emerging Artist 2012 via the Delaware Division of Art, and a certain amount of money accompanied this prize, some of which was spent on paper clay. I had an idea. I wanted to create tabletop 3D landscapes and thought maybe paper clay could work for this idea. It didn’t require glazes or kilns, just a pair of hands and some paint. 

Jump start to 2016 and a new life in Santa Fe, and the table top landscape idea still roaming around in my brain, and a chance encounter with James Morrison, a Papier Mache artist creating small landscapes, while googling Papier Mache landscapes. And perfect timing, since I needed an escape from painting after completing a new series. This would be it! The Escape! Thus, out came the paper clay, the wire and masking tape, the aluminum foil, and gesso. 

So for a few weeks I’ve been lost in this new work of fantasy animals and rocks and branches and leaves, and playing around with my new micro engraver, an incredible tool. And I now have the pieces needed to start arranging on one of my wooden cigar box tops. The perfect base.

So all pieces are formed and gessoed and sanded and ready to start the drawings on the objects. My thought is painting these objects with black acrylic paint and carving out a design with the new micro engraver. We shall see. Once this is figured out and completed I’ll have to figure out how to attach each piece to the base. One step at a time. It’s nice learning as I go. It has been a long time since I’ve been so engrossed in something new and challenging. Plus the 3D element after so many years of 2D has been a joy to explore.

October 9, 2020

Has it truly been five years since I last wrote here? And oh my, what a difference five years can make in ones life. 2016 brought in the biggest test to this country we have ever witnessed and which still reverberates...hopefully not for much longer. 2016 also moved us from Wilmington DE to Santa Fe NM which was a move to Paradise and endless land and space and art and, well, escape. Even though the world seems to be crumbling around us Santa Fe has been a perfect safe haven to ride out anything that can be thrown our way. This may not be true, but it seems like it is.

Why Santa Fe? Art. Culture. Landscape. It’s a place I’ve always been trying to get to, and finally succeeded. And the town embraced me with entrances into several galleries (two of which have closed) and another one out on the Turquoise Trail. Turquoise Trail? Isn’t that exquisite? Who has a Turquoise Trail in their neighborhood? The gallery on the Turquoise Trail is Hat Ranch Gallery. I still have a presence there.

So here I am. Have just completed a series of oil paintings using vignettes from the Alexander Girard Dioramas up at the International Folk Musuem, and am cleansing my brain with a Papier mache project I’d visualized 10 years ago. We will see how that goes. I am awaiting a micro engraving pen today so as to explore texture and line on the Papier mache objects. We. Shall. See. In the meantime here is a piece from the Abstract Narrative series of Hispanic figures. Los Ninos de las Bandas.