ARCHIVES: March-April 2010

uh oh
Wait, what?

Oops. It's April and I'm still on this page. You're cool with that, though. Things just get busy. Creative independent sorts of folks just have too much going on. I'm writing more than usual, but that writing is getting posted elsewhere, since it's about other things. The writing itself is the art.

I'm still crocheting rectangles, but they are becoming complex rectangles, and are not what I would call art just yet, except for maybe the expression of wanting to wear something one-of-a-kind. I stitched together a cool little pocket fish the other week for painting, but where is my camera? I can't show you just yet.

Oh, speaking of those, I've decided to refrain from painting the new stuffed animals on panel for awhile. Painting on gessoed hot press watercolor paper is so much more liberating, and that is what I need right now. The new creature paintings need to be not so tight. Therefore, I need to be able to mess around, and I can do that on paper.

I'm writing essays and poetry on a more regular basis. And pushing the boundaries of what I know in web design. And I need to do a photo session soon, but that's just for research. I want to photograph this one place before spring gets too far sprung, so I have something new to paint in terms of landscape.

I'm not feeling like critiquing the art world right now. I feel pretty distant from it at this time, and more and more in tune with actual artmaking. Maybe it's this season, dragging the remnants of a too long winter behind it. The usual restlessness takes hold and I can't be bothered with the old things anymore. I just want to move forward.

posted April 15, 2011

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some of what makes me tick
A question of influence

I was recently asked by a current art student to list my three main influences in being an artist. Just three. That's like asking me what my favorite color is. Well, I haven't got one. How is that even possible, when there are so many wonderful colors to choose from?

So, here are the notes for my influences, just in case you need some kind of a clue for what makes me tick:

1. Artists - I first think of Georgia O’Keefe, Diego Rivera, Jean-Dominique Auguste Ingres. What all three have in common — Clarity. I go for clarity, depth, tension and paint. The older, historical artists did not have access to paint the way we do, so for contemporary art, I need to see paint. That doesn’t mean thick and gloppy, but it does mean brushwork — I need to see the artist’s hand in the work. I have to see a story of some kind, or if abstract, it has to affect me in some way.

2. Musicians - Joni Mitchell, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure, Pink Floyd, Throwing Muses, Tori Amos, Tool — That is; dark Joni, dark Cure, dark Tori. Any music that is dark, complex, intelligent and unusual gets to me, preferably in minor keys.

3. Nature - Most of it. I am especially drawn to forms in plant life and shells. And landscape too, especially when you can tell we are actually on a planet, like the New Mexico desert where you can see the forms of the surface of the earth.

4. Life Events - Much of it.

5. History - Enough of it.

6. Muse (which is something else altogether) - This is the relatively unexplainable process of inspiration and flow. I’m not interested in pinning it down. I just acknowledge that it’s there. I would also add to this; my very strange and subtle sense of humor. Which is why I am so very picky about which stuffed animals I paint.

posted March 25, 2011

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creative fun from almost nothing
States of being - Exhaustion and fatigue

Exhaustion and fatigue are states of extreme physical and/or mental weariness due to overexertion, illness or lack of sufficient sleep. You feel completely drained, like you have nothing left to give to yourself or anyone else.

There will be times when you will be too tired to go into the studio. Sometimes you just have to push yourself, so that you will get past the point of exhaustion and hopefully catch a second wind. Sometimes you just have to go and take a nap.

To depict exhaustion and fatigue, portray someone or something as literally being drained and emptying out. Show something as drooping or melting, not from heat, but from a complete lack of inertia. Fatigue is not blank, but emits a heavy feeling, an opaque heaviness in color and feel that is heading towards the bottom. Exhaustion is a sense of being depleted, with energy leaving or already gone.

Depict a landscape with everything almost horizontal, not dead, but lying down. Have a reclining figure so tired that they are sinking into and below the settee. Paint a flat navel orange, so overwhelmed with fatigue that it cannot possibly be round anymore.

Exhaustion and fatigue guidelines:

• Regular portrait:
Place the person’s face below center and/or off to the side, but not off the picture plane. Use at least 50% different shades of gray, both warm and cool.

• Challenge portrait:
Use lots of bright, cheery colors for the person’s clothing, as well as in the background. Locate their face above center.

• Regular abstract:
Have most of the weight of activity sit below center. Use at least a 75% minimum of grays and browns in your piece.

• Challenge abstract:
Create a composition of at least 90% bright primary and secondary colors. Include lots of circular shapes and forms.

• Craftwork:
Create something that is bottom heavy and is desperately fighting to be vertical, but has little choice to be anything but horizontal. Use mostly dull, tired and opaque colors.

Every month a new creativity lesson is posted. See the archives for the full series. See September and October 2009 for further explanation on how to use the exercises.

Creatively Unblocking Creative Blocks
Author: Alexandria Levin
ISBN: 0-9743267-1-2
Published by Painted Jay Publishing
www.paintedjay.com

posted March 14, 2011

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sprouts
Inching towards spring

I've been a busy kitten, and I'm a little behind on posting. One of my upcoming projects is to learn Wordpress 3, so this blog will eventually be moved over to that platform. Comments! Subscriptions! More stuff! Woo hoo!

Meanwhile, here are some Bright Pink Smile entries that are in various stages of being written, and will be coming soon:

• Why looking at art, any art, no matter how awful, is good for you
• Haiku about painting and being a painter
• Thoughts on the rising cost of art supplies
• Thoughts about the rising cost of entry fees
• Paddle painting
• Egalitarian meritocracy
• When alla prima was king
• About control versus letting go

Sprouts. Things evolving and twisting and doing whatever that can to grow, to arise, to break free. Turbulence. Springtime.

The painting to the right is a not-so-good reproduction of a painting of mine called Tulip Bulb Trio, painted in 1998. This was an early-stage painting of my most recent body of work, now in transition. My next challenge; folding the representational work into the abstractions I've been experimenting with for the past year and a half.

posted March 5, 2011

All images and content ©2009-2011 Alexandria Levin