These paintings all have a poet’s title. I think they may be new to many. Enjoy!
Illustrated Journaling Doodle
Illustrated journaling lets you make connections… salt, the etchings on the cafe wall, appetite. Somehow these disparate things come together in a good way, sort of like doing collage with pieces of your consciousness.
Camino art supplies: sketchbook, paints, IPhone, no camera!
Well, I joined the 21st century this month and got an Iphone. I decided to leave the camera behind for several reasons. It’s not really a photo-documentary trip, as I want to sketch far more than photograph. I don’t want to be tied to a camera, and a camera is heavy and bulky for Continue reading
Where a pilgrim begins
Over Underworld, acrylic on canvas, 36″ x 48″
I started this pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela last year in September– in my mind. They say that the pilgrim way begins right from your front door. The post below was written in September 2013 when I first decided to start. In the meantime, I have bread dipped in Spanish olive oil, and walk among the twisted oaks of Spring Lake. Join me as I walk, write, sketch, and wander in the land of bull, oak, red wine, relics, grails, and pilgrims. Suzanne
Art According to Starbucks
I’m in an anonymous Starbuck’s in a LA suburb town. It’s next to my mom’s old folks home and I use it for handy breaks and internet. I look up and suddenly I notice that I’ve somehow I’ve fallen into a mixed media collage.
Okay, I decide to analyze the art. Above we see a very popular style. Its components: handwriting, chalk effect, white lines over a surface. So ironic. Handwriting is arguably dying and it is probable the artist who designed this never saw a real chalkboard. “Courier New” typeface is also popular with the crowd who’ve never used an actual typewriter.
Irregular transparent torn pieces, stencil underneath, and a painterly wash of white obscures the “canvas”.
It struck me that mixed media has entered mainstream art. Notice use of maps, “encaustic”– the waxy seal– and graphite-looking line work.
The animal looks like it was assembled from transparent transfers of non-copyright material, similar to transfers from Dover beloved of Trader Joe’s brown paper bags.
The original of this whole wall might have been under a yard wide. It does look as if it was done as a physical rather than digital artwork, but I might be wrong. A small piece photographed at high resolution can become huge.
Transparency, graphite lines, white lines, torn pieces, transfers, encaustic, canvas, washes, chalky lines: mixed media today, and all can be imbibed visually along with that decaf soy latte.
Torn collage pieces
The drawn teapot is “finished” to the right in the negative space of sign and window.
Fantasy animal
Starbuck’s mixed media
Wall-sized mural detail
Painting Journal 2: Over Underworld
The Over Underworld series features high horizons and chaotic, rich undergrowth. You can climb up and down the layers of it, and the black ink spatters underneath sometimes look like animal forms. The top has modern, intereference paint; the top invokes architecture, the conscious mind, technology and civilization. It’s shiny and bright, while the underpart is rough.
The concept behind each art piece is as vital to me as the finished work… often more vital. Abstract work has its own demands because it is unmoored from the anchor of representation and floating out at sea.
Students ask me, “How do I know it’s finished?” I think my true answer is that it’s finished when your dialogue or conversation with the painting is somehow complete. This is true whether or not the painting is a “success” at the moment. Ask your questions not ABOUT the painting, but TO it. If you can know it as complete, whole, and satisfying, your viewer will as well. Knowing an abstract painting is finished is also an abstract idea!
I believe we shouldn’t dwell too much on the underworld, the unconscious, the uncivilized. We don’t need to invite it. It will always come to us unbidden, as these paintings did to me.
Art Hearts
This is “A White Ago.” The title was taken from an e e cummings poem. He was one of the most romantic poets of our time, and a painter.
Painting with hearts is tricky. You always are in danger of falling over the boundary into treacly greeting card territory. I liked this notion of a heart in a field of white, time sweeping away old loves and perhaps bringing in the new.
I titled this one Salamander Winter. Again a heart, but there are little salamanders hidden in the base… small fire dragons. My husband, Scott, places boards in wet places to provide little houses for real Arboreal Salamanders in our yard. In alchemy, the salamander represents fidelity and the animal that can survive the flames of adversity. Here’s wishing you luck in love.
A Heavenly Lake of Beer: St. Brigid’s Day Blessing
A wish for the blessing of rain this spring.
I publish this each year at this time to remind us of great lakes of beer, lambs, groundhogs, milkmaids, and miracles. This includes St. Brigid’s Blessing, well worth reading. Tired of groundhog day? Celebrate St. Brigid instead.
Saint Patrick, meet your better half!
Brigid is a jolly saint of babies, poets, cows, scholars, travelers, and beer (the last attribution mine). She’s a vernal saint associated with the green fire of rising spring energy. Her Day is February 2, Imbolc. In Celtic mythology this the beginning of pre-spring, lambing, and lactation… birth and milk in the animal folk. She is a patron Saint of milk and milk givers, beast and human.
Groundhog Day was formerly Bear Day. It’s time for us all to come out of the winter hibernation now. Artists, this means you. And in this year of drought, a bit of St. Brigid’s spring rain would be very…
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“Art is Disorganized Religion”
I owe this delightful quote to Chester Arnold, a Bay Area narrative painter. What a great metaphor! He extended it a bit: there are cults and fanatics, for example. And, paraphrasing, he noted that “Art is essentially an irrational activity, like religion.” Laughter erupted in the audience.
This was in a panel discussion from the STUDIO: 50 Sonoma County Artists photo project by Bob Cornelis at the Sonoma County Museum. I was lucky enough to be included in this book. It resulted in 15 minutes of fame for me, as my studio portrait was chosen by the Sunday Press Democrat to publicize the show.
The panel discussion touched often on the idea of the Studio as a sacred site. Hmmmmm. If “art is disorganized religion”, then the temple must be the studio. The paint or materia prima (stone, ink, etc.) would be the sacrament and the artist the priest. Patrons, then, are the churchgoers. Chester Arnold also called the Internet “God’s Brain.” I added for myself that it’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. Chester stole the show, at least for me. His own paintings show a textural wit and intelligence: story deeply grained like rings in wood.
Oh studio, studio… what and where and when is your studio? Do you like visitors or not? How public or private, neat or sloppy, sacred or profane is it? I no longer have the studio in the portrait. Several artists I know have recently changed studios. We might romanticize the studio, but they’re a wink in God’s eye. There I go, getting serious again.
Saltworkstudio | Suzanne Edminster 