Plans

I'm really enjoying my painting these days. Getting out there and really trying to expand my color palette. Not so much that the pieces don't look like mine, only a bit more colorful and playful. It is still production mode, as I still have a few shows this year, along with a 3 month exhibit at the Angel Fire Visitors' Center, a show at the local gallery celebrating the 6 women who have been with the gallery for 7 years, which is scheduled for December. Then we've got a Lawrence family vacation in the works for the end of November, right after my last show.

But, I digress. I was talking about production versus creativity flow. Or at least that was the topic I thought I would address when I signed into blogger a few moments ago. What I wanted to talk about was how I relish my time away from merely producing for shows, the time when I can experiment and try new things. Really, for an artist, it is crucial to follow this step. Otherwise, I think the work could get stale....we've all seen artists who have been doing the exact same thing year after year, decade after decade, and some of it is just old and tired. I don't want that to happen to me and my work. It needs to grow. And in order to do so, I need time to experiment and try things. The last 2 winters I have been working with oils and alkyds--and I'm having fun with those and plan to continue more experimenting with them.

I also want to try some very different things--working with venetian plaster and more layering of texture along with some work in actual buon fresco. I find this avenue to be of interest for several reasons: 1) I wouldn't mind coming up with a secondary body of work that is not so New Mexico centric 2) I'd like to experiment with some more abstractions of the landscape and I think this might be easier to tackle in a medium I'm not so familiar with 3) As many different combinations of fixatives and varnishes I have tried--maybe I'll show you the complicated matrix of those combinations sometime!, I'm still not totally satisfied--and I really don't like the toxicity of the fixatives.. With the fresco, the pigment actually chemically bonds with the plaster so that it becomes part of the plaster--no need for sealing, if you don't want to. Although you can use a wax, if you like. But, all in all, much greener than what I am doing with the oil pastels. I really have no idea what will come of this/these ideas. I've been researching the tools I'll need for both of these things and have many carts filled with potential options. I'm excited about this. Nervous, too. Now that I've put it out there, will people ask how it is coming along? Will the work I produce be so differnt that people who like my other work, hate this other stuff? I have no idea. But, I know whatever I learn from these attempts will/should make me a better artist. At least I hope so. Please, wish me luck!! But, be patient, I'm not starting any of this until after my show in Dallas the first weekend in October!