I know I haven't posted in a while. I have been running around like a chicken with my...well you know the rest. Not enough time in the day to finish everything.

After an eventful and fabulous week of my figure painting workshop, I have been going nonstop preparing for our 9th annual EEAG juried show. And as Murphy's Law has it, everything that can go wrong, has. First, the day we shot the photos for the catalog, we only shot one for each participating artist. The museum requires a photo of all the pieces entered into the show for insurance purposes, so this week I was contacting all artists so that they could email me their images. All 98 pieces. I, then, in turn, had to prepare a cd containing all photos and take them to the museum. I also had to prepare the invitations and take them to the printer so they could be ready by tomorrow. After heading to the printer's yesterday, the invitations were not ready as promised and was told to return in 3 hrs. Upon returning home after picking up the invitations, I realized that they misprinted them. The plate they made was missing an all important "L" in the name of the museum. I immediately called them to see if they could fix this problem by today, and of course their response was no, they could not be redone until Monday. Way too late. So at this moment, I am reprinting 300 invitations on my printer. The other 200 was printed by a guild member who so graciously offered to help me out.

In between all this, I have been working diligently on the show's catalog. I designed and created the layout for it. It is now ready to be proofed and then set off to the printer, which by the way, will not be the same printer who screwed up the invitations. I also am on the hunt for a new printer and am hoping I can do this tomorrow, as our show is on Sat. the 2nd of Feb.

The drop off for the show is tomorrow and then we begin the hanging on Monday. It will probably take us two full days to hang the show. There will be 5 rooms in the museum for us to use. It is really a great space for a show. I will post photos of the show after the opening.

Figure Painting Day 4

Progress for today:

Tomorrow another full day on pose. Final day.

Figure painting progress

The first couple of days into our figure painting class was working on organizing and blocking in lights and shadows. This is a sample of yesterday's progress.

Today we went into color and this is my progress so far.




More tomorrow as we are working on a pose for the next two days.

Figure painting workshop

This week will be spent in a workshop given by Robert Liberace. Rob is a classical figure painter and I am really excited about this opportunity to work with him. I spent the weekend preparing my canvases and paper for the workshop. I will post photos and updates about my experiences as the week progresses.

Dante Rossetti

"One of the grandest and most elaborate portraits of Jane Morris created during the latter part of Rosetti's career, Astarte Syriaca, epitomizes the ideal of the voluptuous, sensual woman -- the muse. After the death of his wife Elizabeth Siddall in 1862, Rosetti returned to the subject matter of the female figure with greater intensity and captured his models with an obsessive sense of sensuality that heralded a novel theme in his work. The painting, Venetian in style as a result of Rosetti's multiculturalism, received mixed criticism due to its strong, often disturbing, erotic content (Rossetti Archive, Astarte Syriaca [for a picture]). Indicative of the nature of his relationship with Jane Morris, Rosetti's treatment of color and feminine subject matter allocates a sense of melancholy within the work, a sentiment that consequently divulges his own tragic love for Jane, the second great muse of his life.

Rosetti renders Jane as Venus Astarte in the painting. Depicted as an icon of desire and sensual perfection, Venus's direct gaze, bare shoulder, and strong stance reveal the strength of her own sexuality. Behind her torch-bearing attendants, a crescent moon shines in symbolic representation of her relation to the cosmos and the divine immortality of her womanly beauty. Rosetti introduces this idea in the first line of the accompanying sonnet of the same name, as he makes an allusion to the figure of the "woman clothed with sun" from the Book of Revelation 12:1, thus revealing his perception of the divine and cosmic power within the beauty of the female (Rossetti Archive). He describes her physical features in an idealized manner that implies the realization of these divine orders upon an encounter with such beauty:

And from her neck's inclining flower-stem lean
Love-Freightened lips and absolute eyes that wean
The pulse of hearts to the spheres' dominant tune.

The image of the spheres here refers to the Pythagorean music of the spheres, and the weaning of the pulse of hearts implies that desire itself can instigate a realization of the cosmic order, the ultimate mystery (Rossetti Archive). Thus, as a composition that references religious iconographic imagery, Astarte Syriaca depicts "the very epitome of the Rossettian Pre-Raphaelite love goddess" (Wood 102) through the idealization of the woman."

Saturday morning visitor

Visitor on my deck this morning, driving poor Riley crazy.

More Ramblings

Thinking out loud...

What is art? How is it defined? What makes some work stand out and others ignored? What makes it special?

Does truly good art transcend boundaries of country, of culture, of politics? Shouldn't art be universal, something that everyone can relate to on some level? I think it should speak and make a statement. I want a piece of work to move me, to keep me thinking long after I have seen it.

How do I apply this to my work? Do I have the endurance and the strength and training to create a substantial contribution to the art world? I guess time will tell.

San Juan Galleries and Links

Happy New Year Ramblings...

We welcomed in the New Year with some old friends and some new ones. I always find that on the first day of the new year I tend to look back on my accomplishes and shortcomings of the previous year. I made some tremendous strides in the past year...I traveled to Denmark and saw some fabulous art, I took bold steps in learning a new painting medium (encaustics), I freed myself of some old hurtful feelings and opened myself up for new experiences. I said good bye to some old friends and hello to some new ones. Made peace with some family and personal issues and welcomed some new learning experiences. A mentor once told me that things don't happen to you, they happen for you. I find this to be true. It is up to me to look for the learning opportunities in each situation.

The new year brought the passing of yet another family member, my husband's uncle who was 63. After a long illness, he went quietly with family members by his side. It was very sad. But it made me think of my own mortality and what I will leave behind as my legacy. What do I have to offer? What will I be remembered for? The only thing I have is my art and how it will be received and remembered is totally up to me. My task for this new year will be to define that in my own terms and work towards making it happen. Beginning today!