Fafner

When I was an undergraduate at Colorado Womens College I worked as a nude model at my school and for adult ed programs around east Denver. Once I went to pose for an adult ed class and, for some reason (which I have since thought about and decided to ignore all ugly possibilities) the teacher wanted to take slides to use in other classes. I gave him permission.

The year before my friend Susie had gone shopping with me and together we bought a formal for the Christmas dance, the Hanging of the Greens. She saw me in a way I had never seen myself (and never saw myself) and she picked out a purple jersey dress with a low cut neckline. It was gorgeous and gorgeous on me. We also picked out a purple pendant of a dragon in relief, with gold chains for me to wear with the dress. It was an medieval looking outfit (not surprising since Camelot style clothing was still a fad at the time) and I liked it very much.

For some reason, the evening I was photographed by that art teacher, I was wearing the pendant.

In this series of self-portraits (self being not so much  myself as an image, but portraits of strange or defining moments) I've decided I want to include that moment. It was strange to be photographed this way. I remember feeling a sense of defiance, rebelliousness, against my mother's insane, aggressive, accusatory prudishness and her certainty that I was sexually active -- long before I actually was. There was a tug-of-war, a tension, I believe within her, but certainly between she and my father. My father believed people were sexual beings, that sex was natural between men and women and should be fun. My mother -- I do not know what she thought beyond her notion (accurate, I believe) that sex for women is not the same as sex for men. Other than that, I only know what she did.

This is a drawing of a painting to be.

"The World Is Out There"

I just entered this painting in a contest, "Contemporary Expressionism -- The Creative Spirit" in the San Diego Museum of Art Artists Guild contest. The contest is described as:

In conjunction with the play A Weekend with Pablo Picasso, the San Diego Museum of Art Artists Guild presents the juried exhibition Contemporary Expressionism: The Creative Spirit at Lyceum Gallery, San Diego, California.

The World Is Out There

I had to write a description of this painting.

This painting is 18 x 24, oil on Ampersand Gessobord. I chose "old fashioned" pigments such as ultramarine blue, Venetian red, ivory black, terre vert, burnt Sienna and alizarin crimson along with Gamblin's Bright Gold (made with bronze flakes) for this painting because it is a painting of painting. I wanted the colors to be as close as possible to colors used to dye yarn used in medieval tapestries and for coloring illuminated manuscripts. 

This painting turned out to be a journey into self and into painting. I had begun a painting for a friend on this board, but didn't like it, put the board away and did that painting as a water color. The black underpainting here, that looks like a chalkboard or an asphalt street (which is what it was originally meant to represent) is what remains of that picture. Then I saw a James Bond movie (!) in which Sean Connery walked very powerfully out of a door. That image rested in my mind for weeks, and I realized I wanted to paint it. Later, I saw a photo of this velvet sofa, and I wanted to paint it. I painted the sofa first. Through its many mutations, this painting seemed to be taking me somewhere to show me something. When I realized I was painting myself, I dressed "me" in my favorite dress EVER (owned in the seventies) and red "disco" heels. Then I knew I was painting the tension between the faded word "Stop" and this woman's determined exit. That is the creative spirit; movement, specifically this movement. A painting, before it is begun, still in the mind of the artist, is really unknown; it has not yet happened. It's that doorway leading to life’s tapestry of mystery, color, image and mind, waiting for the artist to have the courage to walk resolutely out the door.

Ancestors

"How all in a single whole doth weave, one in the other works and lives." Goethe, Faust

This painting came about when I learned that my ancestors came from Switzerland and that the people I'd written about in the book  now known as "Rudolf" were essentially the same people with almost the same names.

Descanso Valley -- Painting for Descanso Days

Descanso Valley in Winter, oil on gesso board, 5 x 7

This painting will be raffled at Descanso Days, July 13, at the Descanso Townhall. The proceeds will go for Townhall restoration.

The Cows of Summer

This will possibly be my "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" painting

Second pass at the 25 Cows

8 x 10 oil for the raffle at Descanso Days -- in progress

Garnet Peak Trail After the Fire

Garnet Peak Trail Looking West toward Garnet Peak, Winter, 2004 after the Cedar Fire

San Diego County Fair!

Cornflowers, Oil on Ampersand Deep Cradled Gessobord

I feel like a "real" artist right now. Last week I helped hang the Spring Show for the Julian Arts Guild. A couple of days later, I learned that I had one painting out of four submissions accepted to hang at the San Diego County Fair. Today I drove all the way up to Del Mar to take my little painting of cornflowers.

As much as I didn't want to go up there, I kept thinking that I paid for the opportunity to be judged and no doubt THOUSANDS of little ladies such as myself have painted flowers this year and MINE was picked to hang.  I was suddenly overwhelmed by the sheer number of entries they must have gone through to pick this small painting (8 x 10). I felt like I owed this painting the $12 in gas it took to haul it up there (and the same amount to haul it back).

When I got there I was very impressed by the way everything works! What a great system they've developed over all these years. I was in there, treated very well, they had everything ready for all of us to just go in, drop off our work and leave. We were all invited to a reception for the arts show before the fair itself opens and we get two special parking passes. I'm really happy I didn't chicken out!