Nature Morph

SoWa Art Walk and Lisa Costanzo

I completely forgot to write an advance post about the SoWa Art Walk going on in Boston's South End this weekend, which is where I happen to have my studio.

I have a bit of a hard time opening up my work space to the public, so instead of working the floor and schmoozing, I usually stay at my work table and try to get some painting done.  I've been slowly working on this same duck magnolia watercolor for weeks and weeks.

Of course, for all my complaining, a friend of mine reminded me that clearly I must be at least a slight exhibitionist (if that is indeed what an artist is when she lets complete strangers walk around her studio) if I have my profile up on various online networking sites that shall remain nameless, and perhaps I do protest too much, but I am always relieved when these open studios weekends come to a close.  Here are some studio shots, including an easel full of work from the youngest artist in this household, and work on the walls that has come back from various galleries in recent weeks.

Down the hall from me is the studio of my friend Lisa Costanzo, who was the T.A. in a painting class I took back in art school in the late 90's.  She makes large-scale oil paintings that examine such heavy-hitting topics as portraiture, fairy tales, identity issues, fashion, gender roles, costume and ornament -- all sorts of things that I love thinking about.  Her newest paintings have to do with Alice in Wonderland and the fashion images found in the pages of W magazine.  (Lisa, I hope I didn't completely butcher your artist's statement!)  Here are some shots of Lisa and her work (and check out the cool balcony she has in her studio!).

 

If you are local and want to see some art on this stunningly beautiful Spring day, please come on down to 450 Harrison Avenue in the South End and say hi!

some new work

I've been completely obsessed by the goldfinches in my garden.

Goldfinch Magnolia, 11x16 inches, watercolor on paper.

I've been making drawings and collages on all the little scraps of Arches paper piling up in my studio.  Working small like that is fun and not at all daunting, and it creates that fabulous feeling known as immediate gratification.  Here is a very tiny watercolor collage:

Birch with Woodpeckershroom, 8.5x4 inches, watercolor and collage on paper.

And I added some collaged eyes to a mushroom drawing I made a few months back.

Eyed Shroom, 5x4 inches, watercolor and collage on paper.

All of these will be headed to San Francisco for my Rare Device show, which is right around the corner.  Yikes!

mother's day

Happy day to all you moms out there!  We went into Harvard Square for a street fair today, and my daughter did that magical thing known as face painting.  I finally got some gardening done (has every weekend been rainy here, or is it my imagination?), the goldfinch couple is back at the feeder, and the rabbits have resurfaced with a vengeance, eating the clover in the lawn.  I love it all.

   

samsara

Or should I say pig samsara...

I was at the farm again yesterday with my daughter, who had early dismissal from school, and we saw these big piglets sleeping in circular formation.  It reminded me of the concept of samsara and also the image of the ouroboros -- bringing to mind the cyclical nature of things, the constant cycle of renewal and rebirth, etc.  (Side note: I think I am missing my old days in divinity school right about now.)

Image from this link.

Not to cheapen these lofty concepts by applying them to the drama of my day-to-day life, but I was thinking how my art life is this constantly repeating cycle of working like crazy, installing a show, having the post-show slump, and then kicking it back into high gear again to prepare for yet another rapidly-approaching show deadline.  And then that show gets installed, and the cycle begins again.  As I have mentioned in the past, ad nauseum perhaps, I have still not mastered the art of working steadily, day in and day out.  I'm much more about the valleys and peaks.  And I sort of get off on the rush of it, but it is also exhausting and emotionally and physically draining, and it makes me slightly crazed all the time. 

Speaking of rapidly approaching shows, over the weekend I designed the postcard for my upcoming show at Rare Device. 

 

I've been wanting to title a show "Shapeshifter" for a while now.  It's a more elegant word than "morphing" (which I have probably way overused at this point), and I like its mythological/folkloric connotations. I think it applies mostly to my she-wolf and she-falcon drawings, but it still works for my animals who change forms, too.  I will be out in San Francisco the first weekend in June for the show opening, and I'm looking forward to meeting the two Lisas out there.

So I am continuing to plug away at my work table in the studio, where I've been working under the stern gaze of an old painting I did of myself (was my hair really ever that short??), and now that I look at it, I think I am done being stared at by a younger, painted version of me!  That thing is coming down today, pronto.

Happy Thursday to you all!

scrapbooks

I'm still catching up on things after being in DC for a number of days.  Since the studio is slow going right now, I thought I'd post some images of a fledgling collection of mine -- old scrapbooks and sketchbooks I've been finding in antique stores.  This first one is one of those questionnaire books I remember making and swapping with my girlfriends in elementary school, where each person fills out their name and answer the same bunch of questions, some benign (name/age/hero/favorite color, sport, food, etc.) and some slightly more probing (latest crush, best looking boy, etc.).

 

I love the old magazine cut-outs, but I also think the sociology of this little piece of American history is fascinating.  Take the girls' names, for instance: Marion, Helen, Grace, Louise, Charlotte, Ruth, Sadie, Margaret, Olive, Gladys, Bessie, Ethel, Bertha, Lillian, Esther...  Amazing how some of these are very much back in fashion in terms of baby names.  And then there are their "ambitions," which largely favored being mothers or teachers, though there was also someone who wanted to be an artist (yay!), graduate with honors, and my favorite, "to be real, raving happy."

My favorite part of the book is this little scrap of paper that was tucked in between two pages.  It reads: "You'll wed before your twenty-eight. If not then, 'twill be too late!!!"  I love how it's on inky black paper, perhaps suggesting the doom of the statement on it.  Ha!

The second book I have is much more of a scrapbook.  There are quotes on every page, handwritten and burnt on the edges for effect.  I love all the collaged bits of ephemera.

This detail is my favorite.  I love the color palette.

Now if only I could spend some time working on my own sketchbook, that would really be something! 

on vacation

I am here:

At the Museum of Natural History, I discovered this guy:

None other than a pink fairy armadillo, of course.  (Who knew??)

And, Mr. Einstein, I apologize for smirking in your presence.

I'll be back in the studio on Wednesday; see you then!   

slow progress

I've been working on this duck magnolia drawing for the past few days.  It's slooooow going.  I hope I finish it today.

It's based on this duck:

 

And this yellow magnolia:

I love yellow magnolias!  Last year, I made a few watercolors based on them.  This cardinal magnolia was shown at the Scope Hamptons art fair last summer.

And ths goldfinch magnolia was in my Anima Mundi show at Jen Bekman last spring.

I'm taking a mini-vacation this weekend; see you next week!

chasing magnolias

My life is a perpetual mad scramble.  Help, anyone?  And: the magnolias are blooming like crazy right now, and I have a small window of time to shoot pictures of them to use as source material for my watercolors, so I've been out with the camera most days, stocking up on pictures and striking while the iron is hot.  The magnolia buds are so creaturely that I can barely stand it. 

 

They remind me of some old wall drawings of mine:

So I'm sort of going overboard with the gathering of source material, but with the sudden warm and sunny weather still a novelty, I have an easy excuse to be outside.

I am finishing up a watercolor which I hope to post by the end of the week.

And, finally, thank you so much for all the positive feedback about my bird heart print, and my show in Seattle, and so forth.  It certainly makes my life as an artist a lot more rewarding.

available for purchase

My Bird Heart print is officially up on the Keep Calm website!  You can buy it here.  You can also read the short bio I wrote about myself here.  (Side note: does any artist actually enjoy writing these things and then having to go read them once they are out there for the public to see???  *gulp!*)

Excitement was high at my house this morning, owing largely to the fact that my daughter got some indirect credit for the very existence of this print (see links above).  So the breakfast table quickly morphed into a makeshift art studio, and together we began working on a parrot heart collage.

I don't know if there is a better way to start the day than to find my print online and on sale, collaborate on an art project with my daughter, and read that it is going to be 77 degrees and sunny today in Boston.  Sort of softens the blow of the not-so-glowing review of my Punch Gallery show that ran in today's Seattle Times.  I should not complain; yesterday, I got another nice mention in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Have a great weekend, everyone! 

you've got mail!

Just a quick post to say that my bird heart prints arrived in the mail today from the printer in Paris!

(That's a shadow on the upper left corner of the paper; the print is pristine white.)  Now I need to sign and number all 80 of them and ship them off to London, and then they will be available for purchase at www.keep-calm.com.  Can't wait!

I'm hoping these prints will inspire me to get back in gear in the studio.  I am definitely wrestling with that dreaded post-show slump.  I've been out walking with my dog and my camera quite a bit, hoping that something will click.

 

Hope to be back soon with some new art!