Studio Notes

  (click image for a larger view) Nina and I had our weekly art jam today, and for a change I worked on Amber’s portrait. Realism is NOT my best friend, and I feel like I have been painting this portrait for a lifetime.  In fact, I began in October, but have only managed three or four sessions on it. I’m not being methodical at all, and I paint whatever details seem most comprehensible at the moment. At one point I had the canvas turned sideways, to better stroke the fur in the direction that it grows. Amber really does have that slightly disapproving glance, as if to remind us that we are not royal Abyssinians and we never will be.     

Things aren’t perfect in WordPress land yet.

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Yesterday, N and I had a good art jam session in the afternoon. She worked on a portrait of her cat, Simba. I finished the weaving for the small drawstring bundle, sewed it up, and made the drawstring cord. I haven’t decided whether to add any beads or other embellishments. The symbolism of the bundle is the part of your self and your energy that you hold dear to sustain you on your journey through life. This concept can be hard to embrace.  The corporate world demands 100% of you, all the time.  110% when they can get it. In our personal and spiritual lives, we often feel the desire to love  and give so much that we destroy ourselves by giving too much.  Keeping a bundle is not a selfish act.  It is a self-sustaining one.

Because the bundle’s energies face inward, I’m not sure I should add any surface embellisments.  Maybe I should focus on what goes inside it.

Studio Notes (this blog) replaces the beautiful but impossible to maintain original Studio Notes on ::collagespace.com:: as well as the Melange_Artiste LiveJournal.  

I hope you will enjoy my comments on art, weaving, life and spirit. They are all intertwined in my life, and it makes little sense to isolate each along some very arbitrary lines. My creative energies flow from spirit, and are shaped by what I believe and who I am.

 (click image for larger view)

Book of Shadows & Light, poly-clay mosaic on a purchased book cover.