Colorado Art Studio

5″ x 7″, acrylic paint, cotton fabric and thread
I finally finished my 2nd “soft painting” installment in my Earth Series yesterday afternoon. I had begun this a couple of weeks ago, but have been overwhelmed with a marketing class I’m taking and also the events that have transpired in my personal life.

My duties this week are starting to lighten, however, and I am finding more time to work on my art. I found that naming the pieces in this series is really fun. These are based on geological phenomena and the titles serve a double meaning. The term intrusion, in geology, refers to an event where igneous molten rock intrudes on another type of rock (such as metamorphic or sedimentary) and then crystallizes as it cools. So when you’re out looking at rock formations or even holding small rocks, you can often see a streak of something else through the rock’s body.

Here’s an example:

From Class Zone

Obviously my version is abstracted using both color and magnification of what it would actually look like to the naked eye. I love how the literal meaning of the word Intrusion implies and additional possible interpretation, just as Collision does as well. To intrude means to “thrust or bring in without invitation, permission, or welcome.” To collide means “to strike one another or one against the other with a forceful impact; come into violent contact; crash.” (Taken from dictionary.com)

Without knowing the meaning of the work, I wonder if a viewer would be scratching their heads wondering why this colorful seemingly abstract work was titled Intrusion. I have often struggled with titling art work and especially get a kick out of the title generators found online such as The Abstract Art Title Generator. Now I have realized that the idea behind the work will go miles and provide all of the inspiration for titling and writing about art. Maybe others who specialize in abstraction can correct me here. In the past when I have tried to make abstract work with no idea behind it, it becomes more about patterns and color and that’s why I have had such a hard time naming them. BTW, I consider these 2 soft paintings to be based in realism, but most likely the viewer wouldn’t.

Collision was donated to the Art Student’s League of Denver for their Mini March Madness Auction last Saturday evening. I haven’t heard whether or not my piece sold or not, but would like to find out if it was and to whom. Otherwise, I would like to have it back so that I can keep this series together.

I was fairly productive yesterday and managed to finish 2 new fabric postcards and this piece (above) that I am donating to the Art Student’s League of Denver, Mini March Madness Auction which will take place on March 3, 2007. I am really excited about this piece as it represents a new series that I am going to explore in paint, fabric and thread. I had so many ideas flowing through my head as I was making this and how I can tie it in with my ceramic work.

The new series is based on geological phenomena which I’ve decided to call the “Earth Series”. I was looking through an old geology text book of mine a few days ago and happened upon an aerial view of the San Andreas Fault. The photograph itself, looked like a beautiful abstract painting. So, I decided this would be the beginning of my new series. An exploration of the earth’s plates colliding, sliding and scraping against each other as the earth’s crust shifts and deforms the surface. Ironically, when I was studying plate movement in my geology class, we wondered aloud why developers are allowed to build on shifting land. So, I suppose this could also be read as a collision between man and nature as well.

I’m having a little difficulty in categorizing my work…is it mixed media, fiber art, painting, stitched painting? This piece was done using acrylic paint on cotton fabric, applique and machine stitching. I’m calling it a “stitched painting”, though it’s probably falls into the mixed media category.

If you want to see my new fabric postcards, I’ve listed them in my Etsy store. These were finished using some of my Shiva Paintstick backgrounds from a few weeks ago.

Before bisque firing
After bisque firing
I went into the Art Student’s League of Denver on Wednesday morning and spent about 6 hours in the studio. I was slightly nervous because I hadn’t thrown in such a very long time. Surprisingly, it’s just like riding a bike! I sat down and managed to throw 5 forms in a couple of hours, from bowls to my favorite narrow necked bottles. I’ll try to get into the studio again Monday when the pots have dried to a leather hard state so I can trim the bottoms and add a foot to the pieces.

While I was gathering all my supplies to go to the ceramic studio, I happened to find the piece that’s pictured above. I had previously shown this porcelain pot on my blog last summer as a slide show highlighting how I put the texture onto my work. You can see the slide show here. The texture was done by painting shellac onto a leather hard pot and then wiping away the excess clay. The shellac acts as a resist, so where there’s shellac, the clay surface remains. Where there is no shellac, the clay wipes away which leaves a raised surface. The shellac burns away once it’s bisque fired which is done at cone 04 or 1940° F in an electric kiln.

So where am I going with this? I am FINALLY going to glaze this poor abandoned orphan. I’m trying to decide which color glaze to use at this point.

Meanwhile, if you’ve happened upon my blog from the Art Quilt Ring or the Art 4 U blog and saying, “What the heck? This is supposed to be a blog dedicated to 2-d art.” Well, it still is. Only, it will now be combined with my ceramic work. I had a flash of inspiration yesterday while I was looking over some ceramic glaze technical reading material that I’m reviewing. Mixing glazes can make one feel like a bit of chemist and I had to pull out my geology book from school (one of the few text books I kept) to look up an element in the periodic table. As I was thumbing through my geology book, I was reminded how much I loved geology and decided to do a series of stitched paintings based on the earths minerals and rocks.

I had been trying to decide how to help my 2-d and 3-d work complement each other and I think this will be a good marriage! So, my donation to the league’s Mini March Madness auction is going to be a piece from my new series. (Fingers crossed, it will be good enough.)