So here are my results:

Word 1: JAIL

Jail 4x4 inches, acrylic on canvas

 Word 2: Sunbaked

Sunbaked 4x4 inches, acrylic on canvas

Word 3:  SPAN

Span 4x4 inches, acrylic on canvas

I decided to go with my usual means of exploring thoughts and emotions using abstract portraiture.  I literally attempted to personify the 3 words I received.  Who are they?  What do they look like?  I wasn’t terribly thrilled with my word selection.  Jail seemed so overdone and boring and negative.  sun-baked was just plain difficult, and not much fun either.  Span was interesting.  That word can mean a lot of different things depending upon how it is used, and its visual vagueness left me more room for creativity.  I guess I prefer looser boundaries.  I have the most fun when I just get to do my own thing.

Cosmician

A cosmic mother musician.

16x20 Acrylic on Canvas

As I grow older, the more I realize the importance of personal integrity.  Though I have never been one to intentionally go along with something I don’t agree with, I still find myself occasionally caving in to weakness.  Sometimes it takes more energy to make a stand, and be on one’s own, rather than go with the crowd.  This painting came about after a renewed resolve to be true to myself.  As a free-thinker, I  have spent much of my life sorting out which thoughts are really my own vs. those that result from conditioning.  Humanity can not move forward until we come to the understanding that hatred, violence and arrogance are results of how we are conditioned to think.  I keep imagining a world where people wake up to the damage being perpetuated.  This little flower is my wish for the world:  ”May all people, everywhere, take the courage to truly think for themselves!”  -M.E. Murphey

Supplication, 18x24 acrylic on canvas

There are times when the circumstances of our lives seem totally out of our control.  I used to always tell myself that no one is ever really trapped, that there is always a way out, always another choice, another option.  In a way I suppose that’s true, but it’s rather naïve.  In reality there is usually only one choice a person is willing to make, and the rest is about letting go.

Trapped

(To my friends and family: I’m FINE, really! Please don’t worry!)

This is a quick attempt to represent a culmination of lost dreams, regret, unrequited love and the emptiness of a dead relationship. I’m not not sure it is successfull, since the figure really just looks like she is going to vomit, but hey…. Perhaps I should change the title to “One Too Many”, although with the picture of lovers in the background that could be taken the wrong way. Perhaps if I had painted the bathroom as it really is, a cluttered mess, it might have added more of a feeling of oppression. I don’t like it enough to do it over, and I don’t really like looking at it. I will keep it, because it reminds me of something I don’t want to forget. My son (9) liked it… it made him laugh…which made me laugh…which made my daughter (7) laugh… And there we all were laughing ourselves silly in the laundry room (i.e. my studio). It was a cathartic experience of sorts.

detail

 Here are some quick studies I did on YUPO paper.  I’ve been wanting to try it out for a while.  It’s very strange…painting on a sheet of plastic…seems appropriate material for the times.  Anyway, its kinda’ freaky how the paint just sits on the surface until it dries to a sort of chalky residue. 

Woman at Church, 9x12

I don’t know if I like it enough to devote hours to learning all the different effects, and means of manipulating paint on it though.  It does offer a luminosity of color that is hard to match on absorbent paper.  Perhaps I’ll try a few without the pen and ink, and see where that leads.  

Empty Boat, 9x12

Of course, if I did that I would have to let the layers dry inbetween.  With the pen and ink outlines, it isn’t so crucial if the paint bleeds and mixes.  I hate stopping to wait for paint to dry.  When I want to paint, I want to paint!  I don’t want to sit and wait, or stop and come back.  I think that is why I gravitate towards acrylics.  They dry so fast, I can just keep working and working.  

Pub Music, 9x12

“Ah, patience grasshopper…”    I have much to learn.

The Horizon

 Well, I have to admit something difficult…  I have been doing a lot of soul-searching (ie. internet browsing) trying to escape the feeling that something just wasn’t right with my work.  I couldn’t put my finger on it… just something felt wrong.  So, after months of seeking validation, justification, and the likewise, I discovered the truth!  My recent work has not been authentic.  It is not what I set out to do, and it is not honest.  I have since updated my website, and deleted the work off of  this blog, my website, and Facebook (although it’s still available on Etsy, you can expect the prices to be dropping soon!).  I have returned to my original focus in creating art.  I have updated my artist statement, and you can read it here.  All of this…thanks to those darn Stuckists and their beautiful, witty and honest manifesto.  God bless ‘em.  Here’s to a new world of honest, holistic, authentic painting;  painting with fearlessness and integrity!

 

Anyway,  this is the  experimental piece I mentioned in my last post.   I finished it a while ago…  I don’t have a whole lot to say about this one.  I think the composition could use some work…  It was fun.  I found the watercolor a little hard to control on this paper.  I used plate bristol (260 gsm), because it is so nice for the ink work.  The inspiration really came from the poetry of William Butler Yeats,  “Where dips the rocky highland of Sleuth wood in the lake…”  Perhaps there will be more to follow.