As a proud member of Rt. 15 ByWay of the Arts, I am heading to Art Walk in Downtown Carlisle, where I will be at Pealer’s Flower Shop.
Come visit us at 56 W. High St.
One of the new “Twisted Tulips Collection” is making its first outing.
I’ve been having a lot of fun in the studio and I thought I’d share some of what I am doing and finishing … or re-starting.
Two new paintings are almost ready for gallery and sale and a batch of others are in process. Here’s a diptych that I just need to edge and sign.
Untitled or Misty Moments
The colors of the confluence of Swatara Creek and the Susquehanna River as day turned to dusk one night last week inspired this painting.
The pups and I stood watching the magic happen as the moments moved. Well, I think the pups were watching the ducks while I was taking in the color show. I don’t know whether its present title, “Misty Moments” will remain. For now, it works.
Here’s a collage that made it to the gallery today.
Coneflowers - a paper collage
It’s all paper, including my homemade paper, and a product of studying with Elaine Brady Smith at the Art Association of Harrisburg.
Since I like to show my collectors and friends how my work comes into final form, I will share a few photographs of paintings in process.
Because I am a layer and texture painter, my oils can take months to cure and my acrylics take longer to dry than most acrylic paintings because I layer and layer and layer until the painting tells me to “stop.”
Here’s a partial view of what is drying on the oil paintings wall.
Studio wall with drying oil paintings
Keep in mind that any or all of this is subject to change on a whim or in a fit of artist frenzy if I glance up and see something I don’t like. I’ve been known to cover paintings that don’t work out with entirely new paintings. It beats putting scissors through the canvas, which I used to do a lot.
de Kooning, you know, destroyed a lot of his work. I understand why he did. I find it cleansing to clear, cover or cut up a painting that just won’t work out.
The two paintings of flowers on the wall in the photo below have abstract paintings beneath them. I just could not like what I had done; so I started over. The painting to the left of the flowers was a blue water scene with high green growth in the foreground. It exhibited twice, but there was something about it that irked me no end. So, I removed it from circulation and started over.
Acrylic & mixed media paintings in progress
I know you hear that artists live with their heads in the clouds. Certainly, I have been known to dream, to soar, to escape in my own head. Moving beyond the stereotypes, REALLY, art is an exercise in problem solving. It’s a marriage between innovation and the critical processing of information displayed in a visual format. Or so I believe, based on what I experience when I paint.
Things have changed. This was last week.
And, today … Well, today brought about quite a difference in four of the paintings. As I am still learning to use this medium, I view these boards and canvases as experiments. If they turn out to BE something, awesome; if they turn out to be crap, so be it.
Let’s take a look at the changes, with which I am happy. For now. You are welcome to add your voice.
Last Week
It’s not that I disliked the abstraction of last week’s landscape. Rather, I just wanted more in it, more of me.
So, I drew into the piece with a skewer and added oil color in green and purple, to better define the window.
Then, I put in a note. The note probably came from a creative exercise I played with this morning – digital speed collage.
Okay, so here’s what the board looks like now.
Garden Notes
Garden Notes was the off-color sister piece to a triptych.
With its sister pieces, what I did today was envision looking into a window from the outside,
The View From Outside I
as the sun is going down and reflecting, projecting nature’s own image on the windows. What do you think?
Here is a close-up of this board as it was last Sunday, about this time, come to think of it.
Last Week's Board
As for this …
Last Week's canvas
Well, it’s the one that has changed the most insofar as concept. I had envisioned a gardenscape. It’s become way more fun!
"Recess" I think ...
I am calling it “Recess.” Daughter Becca wants to call it “Playground.” That might fit, because, believe me, this canvas has been a “playground” for me.
Let’s not decide anything right now. Let’s give it all another week, eh?
I spent this weekend learning a new medium: cold wax and oil. Presently all of these are incomplete. They need time to cure and they need me to step away and return with a fresh eye to analyze where the problems are. For right now, though, I am pleased with what I learned and with having spent the weekend with fellow artists and friends.
Meet Max Einhorn, a filmmaker in Central PA. That’s right in Central PA, Middletown, as a matter of fact.
The Press & Journal, one of our last remaining independent print voices, featured Max and company in a news story that increased my end-of-day energy level in ways a double espresso just can’t.
Max stands for everything that is right about young people and about an individual’s desire to do good work at home. Let’s face it, Max could film in Philly, where he goes to school. But, he chooses to work here – making scenes in the downtown and places like Kuppy’s Diner (YUM!) This is not the first independent film he has made in Middletown, by the way.
It’s guys like Max that give me the energy to continue my creative industry/economy efforts in this town and this region. Please do support his efforts and encourage him to continue to work at home, doing great things for a great post-industrial town that I also choose to call home.
Made in Middletown. I sense a logo in the works!
Bringing out a new body of work is like jumping one’s motorcycle in air, from one side of a canyon to another.
Not bringing out a new body of work is like placing a pillow firmly over one’s head while holding one’s breath.
Both actions cause fear. The difference between the cycle ride and the act of self-mutilation (which non-cycle riders might consider one and the same) is that the ride requires faith. You have to believe in your abilities to ship it.
Twisted Tulips
You have to believe in what you’re shipping (your product – in this case my art). I am shipping “Twisted Tulips,” a limited edition photographic collection printed on canvas, the first of which today went to Rick Snizik, my large format printer.
My clients and customers know that while I often do “normal” photographs with my cameras, I much prefer to take the leap. I like to combine technical know-how with imagination/vision to make something with a new… well… twist, a new way to SEE a fairly ordinary something.
I’ve been developing this collection for about two months, although the idea of it came to me last year. Sure, I put it off. I made paintings, new collages, new photographs, finished commissions, blah… blah… blah.
As I came closer to going to print, I felt that old monster – FEAR – trying to overtake me, trying to make me stop. Some days, I let it. You know… I’ll just stew on this idea a bit longer. I’ll mop the studio floor. Heck, maybe I’ll COOK (which strikes fear in the hearts of those who live with me).
Twisted Tulips 4
A few hours ago, I decided it was SHIP IT or ZIP IT day.
I feel good about the work. If I still had my motorcycle, I’d go jump a canyon.
Fear? Sure. It’s not like the economy is good. It’s not like the price of fuel is affordable. Know what, though? I would have had more fear and been angry with myself for not shipping, for not dreaming, planning and for not bringing those plans to blossom.
I’ll be taking custom orders for prints. Feel free to email me to discuss size options and pricing. I am only doing 15 prints of each and then destroying the negatives and associated files.
Here are the others currently in the collection.
Twisted Tulips I
Twisted Tulip III
Twisted Tulips V
Remember Girls Who Wear Glasses from a few weeks ago?
Rose-Colored Re-Do
Today, I uncovered it from below a pile of art books (it was flattening) and decided to give it a bit of a makeover. As I was finalizing the most recent version, I realized I had changed the entire story of it and, although this version is not as bright, I think I like it much better.
Gone are store-bought papers and added are my homemade green and red papers that I made in recent weeks while studying with Elaine Brady Smith in a class at Art Association of Harrisburg.
Here are some other incomplete works.
Springtime
I am sharing these because I enjoy when folks ask about how I do what I do. Be advised that any or all of the work can –and likely will — undergo modification.
So, if there is something you see that you love as is, please tell me and let me know why I should not change it.
These were made over the course of Thursday through Saturday afternoon. Now, they need to incubate, percolate …
All About PINK
The work titled “Jane” is complete. I refuse to do another thing to it, besides, of course, ask Jay to mat and frame it.
"Jane"
“Jane” is made on un-stretched canvas. I like the malleability of mounting papers on canvas. Thus, I think it might become my substrate of choice when I collage.
Is especially nice.
I woke up to find that my IPAD2 design was accepted for best designs. The case features a shot from my white daisies series of photographs.
Daisies
Happy Friday!
Through the Snowy Woods
We are finally having a touch of winter in Pennsylvania. There is not much snow to speak of, but the temperature and wind chill are certainly winterlike.
So, after 90 minutes of kick-butt cardio and some heavy lifting at the gym, some house cleaning and a little walk with the dogs, I hunkered down to go through old photographs. I do a sorting, of sorts, every so often, to determine what will stay in my hard drives and what gets moved to the never to be seen again files.
I found some old shots that I really love and have done nothing with, so far. I thought I would share some wintery scenes with you. The black and white photographs were made six years ago in the Shenandoah Heights area of the hard coal region, where I was born and raised.
Woodland Winter Walk
When I found them, I decided my Holga and I were going to be re-acquainted for some photo fun. The Holga is a cheap, plastic camera with an equally cheap plastic lens. Cheap, plastic, hmm… So, how can you make art with something like THAT? Oh, with your eyes, of course. It’s about “seeing.”
Beyond this, though, one who works with a Holga control has little control over the final outcome. The camera leaks light, vignettes, falls open. Whatever! I’ve made some of my most salable and award-winning prints with this a Holga. And, digital geek that I am, I still love using it.
Bedazzle
I invested in a Diana (a Holga by another name, really) lens for my digital camera. It works okay, but a Holga it is not. I’d rather spend the pennies for some black-and-white 120 film and borrow Jay’s electrical tape (to hold my Holga closed and prevent some light leaks) than put the newfangled Diana lens on my digital Canon.
Bedazzle is a photograph also made in my film days. I remember the day I made it. I was in Shenandoah Heights, slipping, siding and laughing my way through a morning of fun with the pups and my cameras.
This final scene was made two years ago this weekend. You remember THAT winter, right? We had two blizzards in two weeks. Besides having great times outdoors with Mother Nature and my cameras, what I remember most about that winter is that I ate a lot of whole wheat pancakes with zero guilt. I figured all the snow-shoeing and shoveling would allow me to splurge on those additional calories. Because, come on, a cold morning, you just don’t eat one pancake. You eat a plateful with a quarter pound of butter and half a gallon of real Pennsylvania maple syrup or Pennsylvania honey – or both.
Stay warm. Me? I think I’m praying for another blizzard.
It's Snowing by Christine Goldbeck
In winter, I need to push myself out of hibernation mode and into the usual-Christine-way-of-being. Short, sometimes sunless, days make me want to get in my PJs and snuggle down with books. Not that there is anything wrong with this, of course, but when it’s cold and gray, I could do that 24/7. So, this winter, I am taking – AGAIN because I learn so much from Elaine Brady Smith – “Mixed Media Collage” at the Art Association of Harrisburg.
Forcing myself to get out usually boosts my creative energyand forcing myself to learn new things often leads me to new ways of thinking and doing my art. So, it is with my “Girls Who Wear Glasses” Series, the first of which is “Rose-Colored Glasses.”
I was driving home after this week’s class when the idea hit me. The second collage I made, which is not quite ready for prime time, features a deer wearing a mask, which was a finishing touch on the piece inspired by a need for a certain color and a little red-wine. (Hey, it was 10:30 or so last Saturday night, so a glass of vino was appropriate).
I think the title for the collection comes from the early 20th Century American Writer Dorothy Parker, who said “Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.” Parker is among my favorite authors and I wish I would have known her. She is also responsible for witticisms such as “Time doth flit; oh shit” and “You can lead a whore to culture, but you can’t make her think.”
I could easily get myself sidetracked on a monologue about Dotty; however, I shall get back to the points I intended. (1) I am glad I force myself out of my comfort zone and (2) New ways of thinking and doing are good for us, all of us, not just so-called creative types, like me.
Keep your mind open to new ways of seeing, eh? It’s healthy. And, please, keep your eyes open for more “Girls Who Wear Glasses.”
