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| “I paint flowers so they will not die.” - Frida Kahlo |
| |  | | Spring is here! Her arrival feels like a promise we can rely on. I’m doing my best to focus on and appreciate those things that are (at least for now) reliable in my life, while also trying to plant little seeds of goodness for whatever lies ahead. |
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| I’m remembering back to 2020 when pretty much my entire goal became making life feel as safe, consistent, and beautiful as I possibly could for my kids. I am accustomed to living in unstable and scary environments from years ago, so some days I feel incredibly good at being brave, strong and productive because looming threats feel familiar, but then other days it’s that same familiarity that actually makes me feel triggered, panicked, and hopeless. I’m sure many of you can relate.
I feel myself reaching very deeply inward in search of some reservoir of bravery (is there any left?) because I’m not convinced that life is going to get easier, or delusional enough to think someone else is coming to save us.
Yet…
Spring reminds me that life, goodness, joy, and beauty are still here and I can still access them, and just as importantly, no dark season has ever lasted forever. |
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| |  | (Wildflower Wallflower, Oil on Canvas, 20”x24”) |
| | Speaking of Spring, I decided to enter the piece above into a botanical themed art show. When thinking about what I wanted to create, I asked myself “How can I include flowers without painting any real flowers?” I’m not sure real flowers can be beat honestly, but I figured it would at least be interesting to change it up a bit.
The process: I don’t always do this, but I recorded pretty much every step of the process to share, and you can find it all in my story highlights on Instagram. |
|  | This piece required even more steps than my paintings usually do and I had no idea if it would work. I do think risk is a very large part of practicing creativity though. I used floral canvas from Rifle Paper, stretched and prepped it with several layers of clear gesso, sewed the outfit for my model (my cute kiddo!), photographed her, and then started the drawing/painting process. The challenge of course was to match the outfit to the background as best I could. I worried that it would look too busy, but also that’s kinda the whole point. My backgrounds are usually very minimal but I am pleasantly obsessed with how this “busyness” turned out.
I decided to tackle the complication of painting the patterned fabric by painting all the flowers first with local color. Then once it was dry, I went back in with thin glazes to create subtle light and shadow to make her stand out just enough to show some form and outline without ruining the illusion of her blending in.
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|  | Left: unglazed. Right: glazed. A subtle solution. |
| The inspiration: I believe everything is connected and no idea is truly original or new. We are always being influenced whether we realize it or not. Painting on patterned fabric certainly isn’t new, just something I wanted to try. I can specifically pinpoint how I came to this idea. Coles Phillip’s sensational fadeaway girl illustrations from the early 1900’s, a scene of Wednesday in Addams Family Values, another scene from Garden State, and finally, the clothes made from drapes in The Sound of Music all influenced me to paint a girl blending in with her background. |
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|  | The inspiration from left to right: Fadeaway Girl by Coles Phillips, Wednesday Addams, scene from Garden State, outfit from Sound of Music. |
| I haven’t seen any of these recently, but they all decided to take up space in my brain until I did something about it. It’s an idea I’ve wanted to paint for a long time but I always thought it would be quite hard and time consuming, and, big surprise… it was! |
| | | I was recently asked to recreate an old piece for a new purpose. My son was cast as the dentist in his high school’s musical, Little Shop of Horrors, and his theatre pals asked me to design the poster. They liked the Audrey II piece I painted years ago, so that was the inspiration, but the entire thing needed to be redrawn digitally and rearranged to fit the new format. I’m really looking forward to the production, and am so freaking proud of my kid (who has no real musical background), for putting himself out there, getting cast, and working his butt off for something he’s newly passionate about. |
|  | The digital poster (Procreate) and the original painting (gouache). |
| | | I’m so happy to finally start offering some fine art prints from my oil paintings. It’s taken so much back and forth to get the color and quality just right, but I’m happy with how these turned out. |
|  |  | They are currently only available in very small quantities but I hope to be offering more later this year. These are archival quality, printed locally on heavy cotton rag, and packaged in plastic free sleeves. Available here. |
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| | | If there is something you would like me to write about in an upcoming newsletter, please let me know! I’m happy to answer questions about my art practice or chat about pretty much whatever, really.
While you’re at it, let me know what’s keeping you inspired these days. |
| | | READING
For the Love of Men, Liz Plank
Hi, are you a man or do you know any men? Okay, then read this book. Packed full of research, statistics, interviews with men from all walks of life, and actionable steps, Liz explores how deeply Patriarchy and toxic masculinity are harming all of us, including men. We are very much living in the real time experiment of this ideology and I have to say, I don’t think it’s great or healthy for anyone, not even those who uphold it or think they profit from it. I feel like I live in the upside down where true strength is continually confused with weakness, and we all have to suffer for it.
LISTENING
I Thought I Saw You, Deb Talan
I adored The Weepies (still do) back in the day, and happily got to see them in concert before they split. I’m still following Deb’s adventures and I’m so happy she’s still making music (and painting!) Having overcome childhood trauma, cancer, and divorce, I think she knows a thing or two about resilience. Her lyrics always seem to capture the bittersweet jumple that is the human experience. There are definitely some Spring themes in there, and I found myself listening to this album a lot on walks or while I was painting “Wildflower Wallflower.”
WATCHING
The White Lotus, Season 3
Cringeworthy characters in divine destinations pretty much sums it up. Oh, and murder! What’s not to like? This season’s locale is especially enticing. Love it.
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| |  | Janea, my model, being her adorable self. |
| | Leaving you with this one verse from Andrea Gibson’s recent poem, “What’s Real?”
“My mind argues like a seasoned lawyer, all objection and rebuttals. But I, an artist, stretch my heart out into canvas, hand one brush to joy and another brush to grief, grinning as I watch them paint the exact same rolling meadow the same hue of emerald green.”
WIP always, dolly |
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