Vermont Studio Center

I have a week left and I am spending some time reflecting.

I have been thinking about being a communicator as an artist.  How do I feel/think and how do I want to communicate my feelings to the art world, advice I was given in a critique with Ward Shelley.  It didn't occur to me until I spent the whole time during my 5 minute slide presentation being only able to communicate my medium.  After my 5 minutes were up I felt like I didn't mention any of my concepts besides saying " I like to question history and stuff "and by the next slide I would start up with what medium I used which was generally the same as the previous slide.  I think I could have done a lot better and now know I need to sit down and have a chat with myself about how to articulate the meaning.  It was helpful to have written down my thoughts as I was working through some pieces.

1. In the landscape piece I wrote: dirt VSC, coal VSC, hydrangea pigment VSC, sleeplebush pigment, eggshell pigment, invisible habitants, harmony, balance, signs, lace layers, taking it in.  [obviously about my impressions of the landscape of Johnson, VT and using the found materials.]
2. Mud Painting: dirt VSC, dahlia NY, hydrangea VSC, Walking the___ (because I'm pretty sure there are some feces in that mud), getting deeper, endless, more and more, living with impulse, pulse, memoir, pulsing life, my therapy, hidden, hibernation, warmth, there are always words left unsaid in my family, impossible questions to mom, scary.   [Making something meditative as I dive in to difficult family history.]
3. Dark Charcoal Painting: sadness, uncovering, digging, working through issues, impossible to uncover everything, impossible to know future, leaves you here.  [Another meditative piece where I'm acknowledging the unknown and accepting mystery.]
4. Table Painting: lure, understanding myself and what I'm doing, gathering, curiosity, collection, disease, everyone is getting sick, cold, -4 degree F as a high, inside, sticks, anger, selfishness. [ I think in this one I am writing a lot of words that are focusing on the self. ]

Working through some sort of artist statement I came up with....

These ethnobotanical paintings are about experiencing a place, a moment, and a mark.  Made by using found materials and handmade pigments found in my immediate surroundings, often from plants, charcoal, cloth, and mud.  My work collages sweeping lines, occasional text, surface textures, interweaving and overlapping detail to broad mark, and breaking up a mark and also restoring the original gesture with repeating the same gesture repeatedly.  With a limited palette I have been relating to ancient cave paintings in southern France.  And as I'm directed to southern France the web of discovery reveals my ancestral roots, and interests me to begin with immediate family history to relate to the notion of understanding what immediately surrounds me.  I hope to encourage asking questions about our human expression and encourage curiosity about natural history.  My goal is to acknowledge the past, engage in the present, and create a new visual story for the future. 

^ This needs work but I need sleep now.