The Spider, The Mistress and The Tangerine

I finally watched the most recent documentary on Louise Bourgeois last evening. While I determined to turn it off twenty minutes in (feeling too tired at first to endure 99 minutes of Bourgeois's typically opaque intensity) I somehow could not pull myself away in the end, and I watched to the very last credit.

I wonder how woman marry, have children and make art of the highest quality. (I wonder this a lot actually, and so few women who've managed to juggle all three are interested in talking it seems.) Bourgeois of course never touches upon the how, as those questions/wonderings are no doubt so very far from her thinking these days, but I wanted to watch until the end nonetheless to see IF she'd shed some light. Perhaps her intensity is a clue. And her willful, defiant, almost hermetic vision? Cantankerousness might be a requisite? A predilection for hot pink fur coats and spangly hats, singular red rose always in hand?

In the end, I watched because she is a captivating anomaly. She is obviously of the art world, while being so, so out of it. She resides quite fixedly in the history of 20th century art; but she's also adamantly in the present dialogue. She taps into her past and her memories to an almost embarrassing degree, and yet the work is oddly accessible, even frank.

The bigger, more important question/lesson/inquiry to pull from the film might be more readily, "How does one tunnel so deeply into one's own pursuits and still emerge with whole, accessible, enigmatic, fully unique and alive work?"

Shape and Color (2)

My husband left yesterday for a beautiful and wonderful residency in North Georgia. While he's spending his time working in the studio, hiking the many trails on the surrounding land, meeting new artists and writers, AND enjoying an amazing vegetarian feast each evening (I'm off to Hambidge myself in late October so no that isn't envy you are hearing in my words but a plug for Hambidge, urging YOU to go too...) Alexander and I are holding down the fort at home.

Of top priority is the vegetable garden which is putting forth yellow squash after yellow squash, soon zucchini and tomorrow (I think) the heavenly sun-gold tomato. Today, while watering (and subsequently musing) I marveled at the size of our zucchini plant leaves--and their color. I think the possibility of being swallowed up by zucchini leaves is not as improbable as one might imagine; these gain new girth each day!

We've spent today constructing "a world of pillows", making up new versions of mankala, eating our fair share of popsicles, and counting down the days until we head to the sea with Nana and Grandad.

Now I'm exhausted and off to an evening of reading and drawing and perhaps watching a movie.

Today

My son asked me if I thought I could pick up the sky.

Surrounding my new studio...

Home, our garden, my family....moments like the one above.

Climax Studio

This is the project occupying me of late--painting and cleaning the space just next to our house that will be my studio come fall--or perhaps sooner.

The space served as someone's workshop in the past. I am drawn by the wood walls--original to our home's construction I believe--as well as the work table which acommodates me at standing height. I've actually long wanted a studio table tall enough to meet my preference for working and standing, so there are ways in which the space already is custom-made.

I think this space will be that last "new" studio I have for a good while--a nice feeling after going through nearly 10 studios in the 9 years since graduate school.

That blue/this green

Now that the EUC project is finished, I am at home, beginning the renovation of my studio here.

I am pleased as I've been fortunate to have a studio at home for four of the last five years--I work a lot better when the route out to my studio is dappled with bits of color and consideration such as these--the bluest, most lovely old-fashioned hydrangea blooms set off by my grandmother's ironstone pitcher.

Taking a painting apart (2)/EUC Installation

A couple possibilities:
1. a painting disassembled and strewn apart
2. a painting sinking into the wall, wall swallowing parts of it and allowing other parts to appear, surface, rest on top
3. painting turning into drawing turning into collage
4. line in painting in drawing in collage
5. line on the wall, pinned to the all, resting on the wall--actual and/or illusion
6. a painting--part here, and then part over there

Taking a painting apart (1)/EUC Installation

(The very first image shows a view of almost the entire show.)

Beginning with the second image--my portion.

Bryan Ellis 2/Shelf

In the final days of our work together, Bryan and I assessed an expanse of the gallery too big to leave empty and too small to overwhelm with large images/pieces. Running to the left of my large wall painting/drawing, the breadth of wall and proximity to my work seemed to call from something from Bryan. He mentioned some little sculptures in his studio and the next day brought this little shelf and the blue one below in...I love them--their oddness and awkwardness draw me in.

Bryan doesn't typically show these--hopefully seeing them up will change that tendency.

Bryan Ellis

The installation in the EUC Gallery is finished--I'll post more images soon, but for today...a sculpture of Bryan's I adore.