And then these turned themselves red!

There is a bit more evidence of the journal pages in this group. The mark making, the exposure of some of the collaged imagery from the printed journal pages. It is difficult to transfer something which is beautiful small and have the same success with the same imagery in a large format. I need to have larger hands and tools for bigger mark making to achieve the same ratio. I'll keep trying.....These are not even that big!

The red in this work is actually a permanent marker, rich, rich, rich in hue, yet translucent! And stinky!

So here they are, heavy paper, printed versions of the journal pages completed obscured. Wax, plaster, encaustic gesso rolled over the paint. How do you like the format

The small yellows are on panels and the above pieces are on paper. That was the plan. Some of my struggle is with format, squares or rectangles, long or short, horizontal or vertical? The journal pages are 3.5x5 vertical, there is something about that narrow vertical shape. Two squares on top of each other also offers this ratio. Let's see

hellohellohellohellohello.....I think I like this one. In this size or maybe this size or maybe times, yes , this is much better.

Welcome yellow, so way not mellow! Below are some new pieces based on the journal experiments I have been messing with all term. First, my mentor, Jill Slosberg-Ackerman, loved those little books and wondered why my paintings were so disparate. She suggested I just work on the books for a bit, which I did. I disassembled one and created the 36x48 painting which is somewhere below...way down. Maybe that was a mistake, I don't really know. My next assignment was to scan and print out a few pages from the journal and use those as the basis for a new body. Which I did. What you see here is the continuing evolution of those pages. I am beginning to feel alright about them.

white paint stick

I wasn't really done ,so here i will continue......So, I said the part about the portrait, she said the struggle was the greatest in the face. How much do I let get covered? " Let go even more",she says. Am I preserving too much of the foundation? What do I do about Matthew Barney? The white brings unity between these images. Am I deeply philosophical about my process and intent? Do I make gratuitous marks in my abstraction or is there a convincing logic, Like Rauschenburg? She say's "use more of you as the glue".

Work on self portrait. why? I don't want to paint representationally. Where is the balance? Where am I? Eleven Oclock on sunday.

White paint stick!

these pieces are on paper. They are a combination of wax, oil paint, red perm marker, encaustic gesso and graphite. Oh, also they have below them the printed images from the journal, blown up. I have no idea where I am going......I feel like I am trying to move forward but am stepping backward in order to do so. I am just going to push it until it tells me to stop. Do and undo, do and undo.

It is definitely an excavation, a dig, only in reverse.

I had a conversation with Jill today (she is my mentor) I showed her a portrait I had done from life. The portrait is in walnut oil. I will post it when it is something that I like. It is very loose and gestural. Jill said that in the portrait, gesture is as important as the image being depicted. She continued to say that I was trying to speak two different languages at the same time. One of abstraction and one of representation. And that I should try to bring all that I do in abstraction into representation

Each year select artists are issued a room somewhere underground, inside the bunker. My installation was in the room at the far north end of the tunnel. The tunnel is 150 long so whatever is in that room has the potential to be seen from 150 feet away. I had many assistance on this install including my 3 year old grandaughter Tallulah, who helped collect pine needles and painted the walls. The walls of the room are cement covered with grafffiti. we used rollers to roll inconsistent vertical bands around the entire room and ceiling, leaving the graffiti between the bands to suggest the continuation of the forest. This would have been enough for me as the walls were akin to my work in the studio,(even more so satisfying than what I am doing it the studio now!) We foraged the island for fallen trees (of which there are thousands downed from severe storms of the past few years). All of the trees required 125 inches in length and a fairly rigid linear stature. We cut 20 total. Getting the measurements exact took time and a chain shaw. The bunker is dank and decrepid and basically crumbling with age so each tree had to be cut many times to allow for secure wedging upon erection. The sound of the chain saw inside the bunker was mesmerizing, Something about that I love....power tools as musical instruments, hmmmmmm. Our light came from 50 or so candles floating in jars which lined the room along the walls on the floor. The floor was covered with a lofty bed of orange pine needles. The sound inside the room was muffled echoes. Oh, and I looped a disc of Tuvian throat singers which played for the duration of the event. The effect was powerfully zen, calm, meditative. Spectators entered and stayed. planting themselves on the pine needles.

I will try to upload a few more good images of the install

There is an Art event every year around the harvest moon on Peaks Island called The Sacred and Profane.

It is an opportunity for artists to exercise their gifts outside of their studios. It is held at the same site each year, in an old underground military bunker called Battery Steele.