Behind the Painting: I don’t deserve it.

This week's painting, I don't deserve it., is an edited painting and I am really excited because I have pictures of its stages! The piece began as two chairs holding hands, the bottom-most image in this post. I wasn't happy, so I tried changing the background color and that still didn't work for me. And when I dislike a painting I gesso over it, so I did! I may have known I liked the right-hand chair or I just started gessoing and realized that that chair looked good and I wanted to keep it. Either way, I kept the right chair amid a mess of gesso (the second image below).

Basically, I left this chair alone. I took its friend/partner away. And this person, aka chair, at some point says to itself, "I don't deserve it." Either they're too good or not good enough, which you can decide for yourself, is that glass half-empty or half-full? Usually when I am talking to myself like this, the glass is half-empty. Oh, how that self-doubt sneaks in!

This half-empty and loneliness of his friend being away, is emphasized by the wonky horizon. The angled horizon line indicates a floor sliding down towards the chair as if the world is off, topsy turvy. This repeating motif of wonky horizons in my work is inspired by Cezanne’s still lives that had uneven horizon lines that he explained were how he perceived the things in front of him. While working on still lives, even while measuring carefully, I find objects and lines sometimes just don’t line up quite right, especially since your head, eyes, and body may have moved. So each drawing, the world really, is a piecing together of different view points coming together.

To sum up this piece, someone once asked me what this piece was all about and I tried to explain it, babbling about Cezanne, and in the end exclaimed, "Sometimes I am just angsty!"

 

I don't deserve it.

12 x 9 x 1.5 inches

Acrylic paint on wood panel with paper tag

2015

The gesso round

12 x 9 x 1.5 inches

Acrylic paint on wood panel

2015

The first round

12 x 9 x 1.5 inches

Acrylic paint on wood panel

2015

 

Behind the Painting: The right conjugation.

In honor of my grandpa's birthday this week, I thought I would cover some of the pieces based around his death. It was my first experience with losing someone really important to me, and while his death was about the most beautiful and positive way to go he could have had, dealing with that empty hole in your life was something new to me. The teal and brownish red pieces pictured below were about him. The left-hand piece had a half-covered chair with his first birthday date like a photograph made after I found an old family picture with a family birthday on it. And the other with carved text that reads, "I'm sorry i never painted you while you were here." Perhaps this sentiment is why I made so many pieces about him. I used to paint and draw portraits of people and it was saddening to realize I never would have the chance to photograph or draw him myself any longer, my artistic version of comprehending loss I guess.

The right conjugation. and Waiting for your moment. were supposed to be a pair of paintings, but once completed they didn't need to be together. Waiting for your moment. is a game of musical chairs (as well as many other games.) I included some studio shots from my senior year of college to show both pairs of paintings. (Plus it is further behind the scenes views!)

The right conjugation., this week's actual pick, technically represents the missing chair in the game of musical chairs. It also represents my grandpa separated from this game of musical chairs because he no longer physically participates in the game called life. There are two chairs: one is a ghost image of my gone grandfather and the other is a vibrant, clear, still there chair, representing me. These two chairs fill the same space because they are related and there is only one hole to fill in the game of musical chairs. I am made from parts of who my grandpa was and is and I stand where he once was. The title alludes to past and present tenses and beyond with the word conjugation. It refers to how you structure verbs in languages to tell when an action is occurring. This is the right conjugation because he was here and I am now there, trying every day to fill in the gaping hole of generosity, silliness, dedication and caring he left behind.

The right conjugation.

6 x 4 x 1 inches

Acrylic paint on wood panel with paper tag

2014

Waiting for your moment.

12 x 16 x 1 inches

Acrylic paint on wood panel with paper tag

2014 

While you were here.
12 x 16 x 1 and 14 x 11 x 1.5 inches

Acrylic paint on wood panel

2013/4

Senior Studio Snapshot

2014

Senior Studio Snapshot

2014

Behind the Painting: A contemporary context editorial.

A contemporary context editorial., this week's pick, recently debuted in an exhibition entitled Chairs at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts. I felt honored to be part of such a mix of wonderful work. While talking to people at that show, some commented they believed the chairs were just in a meeting or were dancing. I love the different stories people tell. It's difficult to tell my stories because the pieces aren't meant to tell one story, they are made to be interpreted and identified with. That said, this blog has been a really wonderful space for me to actually open up about my paintings because I find it challenging on the whole.

For me, A contemporary context editorial. is as an opinion piece about how people are able to come together and stand up for something. How so many of us hold someone's hand during the hard times and how humans can bond together to work through issues. I have a very positive assumption about people in the world; I believe in the good. And though I am scared and worried about all the crazy and detrimental things that happen, I continue to watch amazing people stand up and stand together. People amaze me and inspire me, so in the cold of my studio huddled by me heater about a year ago, I first did the water-y acrylic piece on paper of people, excuse me chairs, slightly off-kilter being held up by others, leaning on each other for support and strength. I turned this watercolor into a longer, bigger version on a wood panel. It was done chair-by-chair as I thought about how when you hold one person's hand literally or abstractly and they hold another person's hand and so-on-and-so-forth all added together that makes an odd, messy, wonderful line of support. There is strength in numbers, there are people you don't even know wishing well for you, together we can stand up. As a woman in my mid-twenties, I am slowly navigating what matters to me and how I can make a difference, how I WANT to make a difference. We all have the power to do something and it's really scary and really amazing.

A contemporary context editorial.

12 x 24 x 1.5 inches

Acrylic paint on wood panel with paper tag

2015

Installation at Sebastopol Center for the Arts

2015

Paper Study

9.5 x 15 inches

Acrylic paint on watercolor paper

2014

Paper Study

9.5 x 15 inches

Acrylic paint on watercolor paper

2014

Behind the Painting: Half of two. & A contemporary incident.

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Both paintings this week are based on the Robert Rauschenberg piece pictured at the end of this post. While doing a report on Rauschenberg in college, I stumbled upon this piece comprised of two wooden chairs nose-to-nose atop their own staircases. I was taken by the piece, which is noteworthy because I am not always enamored by sculpture, especially readymades (I placed that link to a definition for those unfamiliar with that term.) PLUS, as I had been painting chairs for a while, seeing chair artwork, hearing chair references and fielding chair jokes left me a bit numb in the chair department. This piece cut through that with its story of meeting someone special, that intimacy (the nose-to-nose postition), that royal, up-in-the-cloud feeling (being at the top of the stairs) you get when you find someone special. As a lover of words and titles, his title, The Ancient Incident, lead me on a journey believing that he was telling the story of how humans have been meeting and courting and sharing our little secret moments for all of history.

Half of two. was the first of the two paintings, a few months prior to the second, hence the slightly different style of painting. I originally titled it, A contemporary Incident., but I changed the title after doing the second painting. Physically, it is the same story as Rauschenberg and the second painting, but its new title is a reference to the line in a fraction between the numbers. Half of two. Is it an answer? Is it a question? Should it be answered? Half of two is one, isn't it? But really, I think I was interested in drawing attention to the division, that slight, slight line running between them, that pent up energy between them, the strength in that simple line.

A contemporary Incident. is a smaller and more graphic version of this composition. It's title is a play on Rauschenberg’s title, turning his old wooden chairs into my neutral, metal folding chairs existing in the present. Instead of referencing a general event that is ancient and traditional, I turned the "the" into an "a" to imply a more specific meeting among the many that have happened in history.

Half of two.

12 x 16 x 1 inches

Acrylic paint on wood panel

2014

A contemporary incident.

4 x 6 x 1 inches

Acrylic paint on wood panel

2014

The ancient incident.

Robert Rauschenberg