images from January residency

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sample of my work

When Rumi gets in the car, he immediately assumes he's in charge. You can see him here in the front seat looking very alert and responsible. I think that's because he's a water dog; he thinks he's driving the boat.











In my art, I am looking at color v. black and white. If I "mute" the colors with a dark scrim and frame, does that contain them in a way that they do not seem contained without? (as seen from above). I like the idea that the colors want to run wild regardless~

I went to the Peabody Essex Museum to hear Margaret Livingstone talk on the eye and the brain - hopefully I'll be a better(smarter?) artist thanks to her research. It was really informative.

Meantime, the pup got gorgeous. I hope you agree.

Rumi lovinglovingloving his kale. MMM-mmm-mmm. Or "woof!" I can smell some you left on the counter! That pup...(and don't be fooled by the photo. He eats a pile of kale. When there is a lot in front of him, his head is a blur of excitement)



And colors. I am playing with the intensity or not of the soft pink.




In the other piece, I'm still seeing if I can get the greys to look green and vice versa. This is an overhead view : just shows the "ingredients".

We were supposed to get several inches of snow - as you can see, luckily, it wasn't much. That's Rumi saying, "Is that all?" He ran so hard this morning. He loves the cold.






I am thinking about color constancy: when you know something is blue, your brain sees it as blue regardless of the light conditions, which the camera may see as very different. So, I am thinking that the translucent cloth is acting as light - changing the colors you see through it. But, of course,on the blog the camera is recording, so what you see is what the camera sees (not a good test for color constancy).

When I picked up Rumi as a puppy, the breeders told me that Portuguese water dogs don't retrieve. Dear Rumi not only retrieves endlessly, but he collects balls. I will throw one tennis ball and he will come back with 2. I have so many balls now - all old and well-used. If he didn't find them all the time, I'd have an excuse to get a decent one that had some bounce to it~













As for my art. I decided to add some more color to the landscape piece - I repainted the upper right corner of the big frame (hard to tell) and added a pink circle behind light organza in the back - also subtle.
So then I began to work on this next one - the idea being a garden-scape from above. Lots of color. My camera struggles to capture color well.

The piece keeps morphing. I feel pretty excited about this evolution.

6:30 AM this morning, Rumi is ready to enjoy the snow - it's a little too dark to see the ball in his mouth~

I took these photos for the catalogue for the June end of school show.

It's snowing outside. I suggested to Rumi that we go out so I could post a photo of a moving dog for once. This is the response I got. He actually likes snow - much more than rain. I guess he doesn't realize it's having the same effect on his coat. Who knows?

Anyway, I am onto a piece that I'm feeling more at home about than I have in a lot of my recent work. I'm calling it "By land or by sea", which sounds aggressive. In fact, I am thinking about the juxtaposition of the architectural v. organic.

I need to get a photo of Rumi in action. It's easier to catch him when he is "putting up" with me doing my art. This one happens to be from the bathroom late at night. But same idea. I should have gotten a shot of him barking at the poor couple in sleeping bags on the hill early this AM-probably to see the full moon. Rumi woofed at them a few times then ran and ran as if they were just another bump to navigate.

The art? One is Stockholder revisited : color "dripping". The other is the beginning of my search for matching the sensual cloth with the structure of the frame. I had thought I would use the frames to layer the colors, but then loved how the cloth on its own drapes in such a way to show off the colors. The sun makes it tough for the camera to catch the colors...

Fault line: set up on this day of the full moon