Maine is a fairytale, for real!
A Glimpse of the Sea, 8”x10”
Summer Island Day, 12”x9”
Sturgeon River, 24”x18”
I had a week that was both good and bad, but the best part was that I sold three acrylic mixed media paintings, one through Arundel Farm Gallery, and will live (financially) to paint another day (year)! Sturgeon River was a special piece for me, since it was my first experiment with this technique, in a series of 6 that took forever to complete; they are SO time consuming! I collect visual ideas, motifs, patterns that resonate with my interests and carve them into lino or stencils, set up a paper hand-printing factory in my basement, iron the papers, organize them in clear bags, sketch possible compositions, often with the process of collage as an idea generator (good for quick decisions and unexpected changes), prepare the panel, lay out a tentative composition, cut and layer papers and medium, sand it when dry, repeat, repeat, repeat, many times repeat, until the desired level of complexity and overlapping patterns is achieved, along with values and translucency. Then I start glazing, with multiple layers again, over the "grisaille" of black and white, using the accumulated texture of the tissue papers to add interest, until finally it is time to add the "frosting" which is acrylic paint detailing applied with a brush or liner pen or peculiar applicator that can "write" lines or dots. I am not even including the finish coats and beeswax final finish and the framing I have taught myself how to do in the backyard by the woodchuck burrow. Now, a long process does not = good art. These works I kept kind of to myself because I did not know if they were any good. They were not at all like plein air landscape painting where you spend a couple hours outside and get a painting out of it. But, they did something for me that I needed to do. I did not trust them. I felt they were too much like my magical childlike vision (coupled with about 30 years of ecology science) and I almost threw out one of them! Later that one I almost discarded was wanted by several people! I think there was a vulnerability in them. Or a childlike delight about the world. Maybe that is a good thing. I recently went to Maine islands thinking this work was too like a fairytale, but noticed that this is exactly what Maine islands look like and feel like. A fairytale! All an artist can do is what they must do.
