mixed media, 2008
These four pieces were done in 2007-8 after my first breast cancer diagnosis. In honor of Mattel’s recent conversation about the possibility of releasing a bald Barbie, I thought I’d put them out there again. I’m currently working on WholeBrainRadiation Barbie, Fasolodex Barbie, Metastatic Barbie, and Brain Met Barbie. The info about Ruth Handler still amazes me.
Things Happen (Espresso pot, spoon, one fallen and one upright cup)oil on birchwood board, 16″ x 24″, 2012. Painting #3 in the Live Your Life Series.
Live Your Life, #1 and #2, both 16″ x 24″, oil on birchwood board, 2011.
Wanting to badly to feel like me again, wanting to paint, and still very sick constantly, very tired and weak, but finally Live Your LIfe #1 with the mixer came easy and I worked for a few days on it, then #2 was a struggle….and then as I got sicker I couldn’t paint again in oil–I just didn’t have the juice. I love the first of these two paintings as much as anything I’ve ever painted, and I think they both speak to the experience of trying to regain one’s normal life with metastatic cancer, especially with brain mets. I am reminded of the Sesame Street song, One of these things is not like the other, one of these things is kinda the same.
Almost every day for the three weeks of full-brain radiation, afterward I would sketch in gouache and colored pencil on little boards of various sizes, I think one may have some acrylic as well. I gave some away before photographing them….where was my head?….but here are a few examples I still have. With each I would try to examine what my experience that day in the mask and machine had been, what the colors I saw (eyes closed) during those minutes.
Took a Batik workshop this weekend at Taraden…..I thought we were making t-shirts, but it turns out the t-shirts were for sopping up the wet inks and cleaning the brushes at the end of the day. (Mine will be for sleeping). The process was very informative…in some ways like the printmaking in terms of requiring thinking ahead more than working intuitively,,,at least at my stage of it. It was really fun, and fun is good. Jeanne was a wonderful teacher and the other participants taught me equally as much!
I am trying something new: Drawing with a pencil. It’s very challenging.
“Charlie” is the beginning of learning how to approach a portrait in pencil under the direction of instructor, Jaye Fox (11″ x 17, Canson classic cream drawing paper). The nudes are 6-12 minutes sketches (from my life drawing group on Wed nights) using graphite dust and pencil (9″ x 12″ sketchbook). The landscape sketches are the beginnings of a year long study at a friend’s home–a mill house. This view is from the back porch in the drizzle yesterday….
(First, thank you, Denise, for the glass! This is what I needed it for!)
I finished up the prints from yesterday, cut a new block, working the drawing and cutting process a little more methodically. The products of both days follow—mixed results, but there are a few keepers in the bunch. The book of Picasso’s prints, which he started making at age 77 in 1958, the year I was born, is included in the photos.
After they dry, I will choose the best of each cut and frame two groups, one set per frame of each cut.
I haven’t done a self portrait since I was receiving chemotherapy treatments in 2007…so I made up for it today when I began an experiment: 34 (well, thirty, I’ve already lost four in the process) reduction print experiments. I’ve never done this before, but have been looking at reduction prints by Picasso where he uses one block, reducing it after each print of between 3-6 colors, finishing with some pretty damn exquisite work. So, I spent the whole day and after the third and fourth colors my lino block broke in half, but I continued on. I have the remnants —determined to use only ONE block– and tomorrow I intend to finish. The papers are things I had around, everything from gently colored pastel papers to hot and cold press watercolor paper, sketchbook paper and vellum. THe inks were a gift from my printmaking friend Sarah, and I don’t know enough about them yet to say much other than this: I love how they feel under the brayer and working with adding the caramel colored one to the colored ones…so much different than the little tubes of toothpasty consistency I had once purchased and never used. This is fun, and intense. At this point I can work on each one, experimenting on what can work,,,As a painter, I never have more than the one piece I’m working on, so this is really interesting. If I get one or two I like by the time I’m finished, I’ll be more than satisfied.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
printmaking inks on cardstock, 2011
In case you didn’t get to see the Making Our Bones Exhibit at the Bennington Arts Guild—a collaborative exhibit between Arla Foster, Ricardo Olvera and I, here is a recap of the show’s offerings. Please also check out Arla and Ricardo’s blogs/websites. It was a pleasure to work with both of these talented artists.
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