Out of the Darkness

"Out of the Darkness: 3"   24x24" Acrylic on Canvas

I recently took a workshop on non-objective art. My instructor had us do exercises trying to express an emotion in a single line. This is as difficult as you think would be.... what does an angry line look like? A sad line? I tried to turn off my brain and draw "with my gut", the same way I try to translate music into colour and form in my other paintings. This wasn't easy.... It's a meditative thing, and it's hard to get in the right space while in a room full of people. After looking at everyone's line drawings, the entire class agreed: what the negative emotions gave us was much more powerful than the positive ones. So that was where I decided to start.

"Out of the Darkness: 1"   24x24" Acrylic on Canvas

With the "Out of the Darkness" paintings, I wanted to express feelings of sorrow, but still convey a glimmer hope and optimism. Like when you've been sad for a very long time, and something happens that makes you think things are going to somehow get better. There are three paintings in this series at the moment. I have 3 more canvases the same size that I had bought with the intention of continuing the series, but it seems to be difficult space for me to occupy for any length of time. I may decide this is as much as there is. 

"Out of the Darkness: 2"   24x24" Acrylic on Canvas

New Year, New Projects: Part 2

I recently bought myself a camera. Well, technically it was a Christmas present from my husband, even though I'm the one who did everything required to actually get that camera into my hands... but whatever. It's a good camera. My first SLR since film went the way of the dinosaur. I bought it so that I could take good high-resolution photos of my paintings for reproduction purposes (yes, prints are coming), but once I had it in my hands I remembered something: I really like taking pictures.

My dog Cleo | Jan7 

I used to love my camera. Anyone who went to school with me can tell you what a pest I was. Every few weeks I'd carry the thing around for a day and take photos of my friends (don't worry, I'm not going to post any of them... but I still have them all, so be nice to me). These were the days when you had to get everything processed and printed, and it was expensive. And I was young, and broke. So I didn't use that camera nearly as much as I wanted to.

These days everything is digital, the memory cards are huge and I can take as many photos as I want. So I think the time has come for me to actually learn all the ins and outs of how the camera works, and experiment a little. To make sure I do it, I signed up for Blipfoto... an online daily photo journal. One photo a day for a year, uploaded to the site. Now I'm not silly enough to believe that I will actually take a photo every single day. I know I don't have time for that. But if I can manage a couple a week I'll be happy. I imagine there will be lots of shots of my dogs, some pics of works in progress, maybe one or two of my kid if he'll let me (though at 16, that's not likely).

My grandmother's piano | Jan 3

It'll be interesting for me to see how my painting is influenced by this project. I use photos for reference, but usually these are snapshots taken with a point and shoot, and I find sometimes the shot I thought I had just isn't good enough to work from and I have to discard the idea. I've played around a bit with image transfers, but ideally, I'd want to work with my own images, not the stuff I can rip out of magazines. And what about collage? There are so many ways I can use photos in my work, it could open up something totally new and exciting.

Blipfoto will automatically post my photos to Facebook and Twitter, but not to my artist page... that I've been able to figure out yet anyway. If you are interested in following the journal, my profile link is here:
http://www.blipfoto.com/morris4of4

New Year, New Projects

It's a new year, and in the spirit of starting afresh I have assigned myself a new project. A couple actually, but the first one I got a start on this week.

I've been thinking about transformation... it's one of those subjects that appeal to me for some reason. It's a recurring theme in many of my favourite novels and movies. I love the transformation of the landscape from a fresh snowfall, or the sense of renewal after a thunderstorm. So in this spirit I approached my first works of 2014... I would take 3 canvases that I had deemed to be beyond redemption, and transform them into something else... hopefully something decent. I have a pile of these reject canvases... I start them and don't know how to continue, so I just keep throwing paint at them until they are all kinds of ugly. The beauty of acrylic is that everything can be painted over, and there are techniques that will allow the under layers to show through in varying degrees. It allows a luminance to develop that you can't get from a flat tint of opaque paint on a gessoed ground. This is what I hoped to achieve here.

"In the City: I" 9x12 Acrylic on Canvas

"In the City: II" 9x12 Acrylic on Canvas

"In the City: III" 9x12 Acrylic on Canvas

In the entire 3 canvases, this is the one area that I completely and totally love. I love the way the colours interact, the way the transparency gives depth to the layers, the patterning that I got in the dark area. If it were bigger it could be a painting all on its own. Maybe I will use it as inspiration to do another piece... but who knows if I'll be able to replicate it. That's the thing when you're playing... how do you remember what you did? I'll get better at that as I go along, I'm sure. But for now I'm just going to play.

Winter Wonderland

Ice on the evergreen in my backyard

The last two weeks have been a bit overwhelming. Apart from the usual pre-Christmas craziness, work has been incredibly busy, I've been sick as a dog, I had an allergic reaction to something and was covered in hives, and two days of freezing rain left a good chunk of Ontario covered in ice and without power. Luckily the area I live in wasn't that hard hit... we got lots of freezing rain but the damage was limited and power was restored fairly quickly. Many of my neighbours are still making repairs from the floods in July, so more damage would have been devastating. Personally, I slept through most of it.... like I said, sick as a dog.

I can't remember the last time I caught something that hit me this hard. I suspect it's because I've let myself get run down and haven't been taking care of myself the way I should have. Perhaps this is my body's way of forcing me to slow down. When I finally emerged from my neo-citron and cough syrup induced haze, the streets had been transformed into some kind of winter fantasyland. It was truly beautiful... the sun reflecting through the ice on the trees made everything sparkle. It was amazing. It was a couple days before everyone was able to get out and about... it actually took me 20 mins to get the door of my car open so I could warm it up and scrape off the rest of the ice, which took the better part of an hour. If I didn't really need to go see a doctor, I would have just given up.

The ice was everywhere. This was 4 days after the storm, when it was starting to melt.

I am still coughing but seem to be on the mend... at least I've been able to sleep for more than a couple hours for the last few nights. I'm hopeful today will be a productive painting day. It's been almost two weeks since I've done anything and I'm getting a little antsy. I'll keep you posted.

Finding Inspiration

The year is almost over, and I've been looking over my work from the last couple years, trying to figure out where to go next. There are so many choices... I know I'm not quite done working with music as my base subject, but I feel like I need to branch out a little too. The last few weeks doing projects outside of painting have shown me how I'm settling into a comfort zone with my work that will, eventually, make it look stale. If I want to keep growing, I have to keep trying new things. So... where do I start?

The view outside my studio one evening a
couple weeks ago.

Some things just take your breath away. That's always a good starting point. For me, it's things like the colours in a sunset, reflections on water, intricate shadows, frost patterns, an image created in a poem or story. Can I work these things into my painting somehow? Maybe I should try working on something other than canvas... maybe yupo or terraskin paper or wood panels could inspire me to do something new and exciting.

When doing creative exercises lots of things pop up... but I have to admit I haven't been doing these kinds of exercises nearly often enough. A gallery owner told me a few years ago that I really needed to produce a significant number of new pieces a year to be considered a "serious" artist. I think the number he threw at me was 52 (one a week... and this was on the low end of the scale). Even at my most productive, I haven't been able to pull that off. I have a full time job, a necessity if I want to own a house and eat on a regular basis. Add to that my responsibilities outside of work... well, even painting pretty much every day, that seems like an impossible target.

hand-painted book cover inspired
from colours of that sunset. This is the same
design I used on my glass etching.

And so, with my time limited, I neglect other things that would undoubtably help me to be more creative, more inventive. This year I will not neglect these things. Surely I can find the time somewhere... my lunch break at work, whenever I have to wait for something or someone, maybe instead of lying in bed and not sleeping (insomnia seems to be a permanent part of my life these days... if you know a cure, please leave me a comment...). It's kinda like exercising. It's for my own good, and I have to make time for it. I fear this is easier said than done.....

Creative Exercise: found poetry
I used some of the things I learned in my non-objective painting class... large shapes, balance of dark
and light, texture and pattern repetition. Visually, this works for me pretty well. Even without using a
whole lot of colour, which is my normal.

Outside projects

One of the things I do around this time every year is get elbow deep in some kind of creative project outside my usual comfort zone. Usually the finished product ends up being a Christmas gift for someone. I rarely give away my paintings as gifts... mostly because when you are close to people, you can never really be sure if they are saying they love your work because they do, or because they don't want to hurt your feelings. There are a few exceptions, of course... just this year I gave a mid-size piece to my niece as a wedding present, mainly because she knew exactly which one she wanted and I was pretty confident it would end up on a wall, and not stashed away in her storage locker. But for the most part, art is so subjective and everyone has such different taste, I just can't assume that my style or subject matter works for someone, just because they are part of my life.

My etched decanter. I have a vine of
flowers winding around the neck, but
couldn't get a decent photo.

One of the reasons I make a point of doing this is for the same reason anyone would want to try something new... to branch out, learn a new skill, stimulate a different area of the brain. In past years I've made jewellery and put together books by hand. This year I gave glass etching a shot. I had tried it before, maybe about 20 years ago, but I was pretty sure things would have changed. So many new products around that it had to be a bit easier now, right? I was completely wrong on that one... I guess it isn't a popular enough hobby for that. The only thing available now that wasn't on the market then was the array of pre-cut stencils. I didn't really want to go that route anyway, as I prefer my gifts to be a bit more personal. I needed to design something specific.

If you know me, you know I have a bit of an obsession with hummingbirds. Don't really know why, except that they are completely captivating. They show up in paintings from time to time... but not that often. For etched glass, they became a perfect subject. I had to simplify dramatically... I have to hand-cut my stencil while the mask is already attached to to the glass. Not an easy task, and simpler is most definitely better in this instance. I looked to Art Nouveau for design inspiration, and eventually came up with something I thought would work... the bird was reduced to two lines, the flower three shapes and the vine a wandering line. Overall, the effect worked pretty well. Sorry about the not so great photo... there must be some special way of photographing glass that I'm not aware of, because for the life of me, I couldn't get a good shot. I didn't even try to shoot the glasses that go with the decanter. Maybe I should have tried filling it with wine...

A Questionable Opportunity

In Harmony
12x12 Acrylic on Canvas

It has been an interesting week.... a few days ago I was contacted by an "international" magazine about the possibility of publishing some of my work. I was flattered, of course. They said some really nice things. But then... well... a few things bothered me. First, it came from a gmail address. Having done a fair bit of magazine work over the years, that didn't sit quite right. And I'd never heard of them... I was in New York fairly recently. You'd think I'd have seen the magazine, at least there if not in my local bookstore. So I did a bit of research.

A quick google search revealed a few interesting blog posts. Reading through the comment sections was eye opening. The follow up email revealed the kicker... they were requesting $1900 for a "publicity campaign". Here's the email:

Dear Marianne,

I am glad to hear from you!  I found your work on artgalleryflambeth.com and then viewed your personal website as I am very impressed by your work. The colors and textures are captivating and create movement and energy palpable to the viewer. I am especially drawn to Serenity, Solitude, and In Harmony.

My main focus is to work with artists to help gain international publicity and attention.  We offer a three part publicity program with exposure online, in print, plus an optional exhibition in NYC (please see attachment).  Our magazine and websites offer a level of exposure focused on the artist. Other galleries do not offer international publicity with a print magazine and the large web sites and when they do the publicity it's for the gallery and not for the artist.  

I am working with the owner of NY Arts Magazine and we would like to publish a full page of your work in print and online.  This is a strong opportunity to promote and present your art to the world. The fee for a full year of publicity and promotion is $1,900.  This fee includes a year of publicity in our print and web media, a full-page in NY Arts Magazine (sold internationally in major bookstores), and an optional gallery exhibition in our Soho Gallery.

Here is a sample of our work with Lee Claremont (http://www.nyartsmagazine.com/?p=8156).

I have attached the documents, please don’t hesitate to contact me if you need any help or have any questions.  Feel free to call me at the gallery (212) 274-8993.

I think your work would make an amazing addition to our publication and benefit greatly from the exposure.

I hope to hear back from you and that we can work together soon.

Best,

Sarah

hmmmmm....

I understand that magazines have to make their money somehow or they can't exist, but that's why they sell advertising, right? And I'm also totally ok with galleries taking a commission on sales. Hey, if they sell it, they deserve to be compensated for their efforts. And if the galleries promote themselves through advertising and websites, that works for the artists too, doesn't it? It gets eyes on the work, and hey, it won't ever sell if nobody ever sees it. But this... well...

Many of the links and search results I found on these guys were no longer available... I would guess it probably included the word "scam" and it was requested that it be removed.  As much as I think this is perhaps not entirely ethical, I think scam may be a bit harsh... they do clearly state their fee and what you get for it. But I don't think an art magazine should be asking for payment from their content providers. An art magazine can't exist without the content (provided by the artists). So given that, I'm of the belief that charging us for the exposure they provide is kind of unfair, and not something I want to be a part of.

So... what is the prevailing opinion here? I'm sure there are other artists out here who agree with me, but maybe there's some that don't? How do you all feel about paying for this kind of publicity? Is there value in it?