When I was a young girl I wanted to be a ballerina. I took ballet lessons until given the choice between Ms. Botsford’s Social Dancing lessons or ballet. I followed my friends and my ballet career ended.

I started a painting from a 1950’s photo I found of my sister and me in my ballet recital outfit. Her teasing pose reminded me that she favored playing in the back field and catching snakes.

This painting is shown below as it progressed in the studio.

The figures are on the canvas and I'm starting to add detail.

Dark tones were added to the background to bring Betsy, on the left, forward on the canvas.

I like the subtle addition of iridescent paint on my paintings. If you look closely the plaid jumper has iridescent ‘pearl’ buttons. There are also tiny iridescent ‘pearl’ details on the shirt collar and the top edge of the tutu. I’ll continue to add more detail to Betsy. I’m keeping the background figure more faded, as my memory of that recital has indeed faded.

The Wall Street Journal’s “Friday’s Journal” section had a fascinating article about Gerhard Richter titled, “The Top-Selling Living Artist” this past Friday March 3, 2012. I like his abstract works, but particularly like his realistic works, based in Soviet Realism. His painting from the Wall Street Journal’s article below has inspired the idea of painting my own subjects in unusual, unexpected views.

I had a great conversation yesterday with fellow artist Josh who had just returned from a gallery hop  in New York City. I couldn’t make the trip and feel so sad that I couldn’t experience the artist Zimoun’s installation.

“We walked around this wall of cardboard boxes and entered the cardboard enclosure,” Josh said. Suddenly they saw the repetitive motion and heard the soft thudding sound created by hundreds of cork balls on wires, agitated by dc-motors. This was one of Zimon’s kinetic sound sculptures. A combination of mechanics, engineering, and sound with sculpture. His works are a true sensory experience. I really would love to experience this in person!

This is Zomoun’s,
294 prepared dc-motors, cork balls, cardboard boxes 41x41x41cm
Zimoun 2012

121 prepared dc-motors, tension springs

Zimoun 2011

There is a wonderful video on Zimoun’s website showing many of his kinetic sound sculptures in motion that is hypnotizing to watch and fascinating to hear. Check it out for a visual and audio experience. Enjoy!

http://zimoun.ch/index.html

This beautiful snowy day was a good day to stay inside my studio and paint. Light snow floated by the studio windows as a robin and goldfinches returned to the feeders.

I added some light and shadow to Painting number two in the series and developed Painting number three. Once the three are together I need to decide the order they will hang. Painting number three represents the memory of having just held the inflated sphere . . . or does it represent the memory of the anticipation of catching it?  Which of the paintings comes where in the order they are hung? I’m not sure. Others’ thoughts on the order they should hang as a tryptych will be interesting to hear at the critique on Monday.

In what order do you think they should hang?

Paintings Number two and three

Here are close-ups of the paintings . . .

Close-up of painting Number 2Paige Painting Number 3

Work on the tryptych I’m working on continues. I have a critique on the three paintings this coming Monday led by my painting mentor Heather. She saw the first of the three in Sage Art Center the other day and suggested I leave the first two at the sketchy, faded-paint-stroke-edge stage they were now, and paint the third to the same level of the first two. Then, I can look at all three and decide if I want to add any details that would add to the meaning or leave them as they are. She thought that the background’s unfinished strokes suggested the faded memories my work speaks about. The dark colors I’m using will always be close in tone and of not of much contrast . . . to suggest memories fading into the dark corners of our minds—as time passes.

Below is painting number two in the series. I’ve used photos I took of grandaughter Paige with an inflated sphere my own fading memory thinks was a balloon she and her sister were tossing around.

Painting 2 in the series with Paige and the inflated sphere

Come back to see how the series progresses and what Paige does with the inflated sphere.

Some time has passed, the studio is finished and I’m making art there.

Building a new studio, as is normal I’m told, takes much longer than anticipated or promised. With the talent and flexibility required of a few good local craftsmen as I perfected the layout, working around unexpected blueprint flaws. This very workable space is finally finished and I’m becoming comfortable in it. The windows remind me of the artist’s loft windows seen in old movies and my old loft in the Smith Gormley Building on St. Paul Street in Rochester. This wall full of tall windows provides beautiful light to work by.  My orchids, African violets and banana tree are thriving in their light. Let creativity thrive in it too.

I’ve started painting a new series that references memories associated with childhood. I’m exploring my own loss of childhood in my work I’ve been told. That certainly is true as another recent anniversary of my birth has passed. The memories portrayed in the images I’ll add to the paintings will fade into the dark canvases, just as memories fade over time.

A photo of the early stages of the paintings in progress in the new studio can be seen below.

New paintings in the new studio

I had the pleasure of helping hang Tim Massey’s current exhibition of illustrations at the University of Rochester’s Art and Music Library gallery. This allowed me to look closely and study his mark making techniques that are full of delightful details.

As a lover of nature and a dog lover, his illustrations of plant life and dogs showed his emotional and personal interest in these forms. These are “two prime examples of what “we as humans have tried to control trough domestication, breeding, grafting, etc,” Massey says in his artist’s statement. His work is about this control, or lack of control.

Especially apparent in his illustration containing dogs, is is realization that animals have animal instincts even though they may be completely loyal to us. The tenuous balance between wildness and domesticity can be seen in his illustrations.

His illustration titled “reassured” I found on his website is a good example of this tenuous balance. The man’s calming hand reaches out to the dog to ‘reassure’ him.

"Reassured" by Tim Massey

Tim is another artist who’s use of layering of marks and images is inspirational to me. His techniques is masterful as he overlaps values and tones of imagery. I simply loved exploring his beautiful illustrations and aesthetic!

If you have the opportunity to see his work at the Art & Music library you will be sure to enjoy it too! Tim is currently Assistant Professor of Art and Gallery Director at SUNY College
at Brockport, Brockport, New York. Some other examples of his work can be seen at:

www2.pittstate.edu/art/harrykruggal/TMassey/

Jane Notides-Benzing is one of the award winners in this year’s Arts & Cultural Council’s juried 2011 “Summer Member Exhibition”. Her mixed-media, three dimensional work “High Tension Storm” was selected for an Award of Excellence. It is one of three pieces in the show, including “Fiesta Sky” and “Memory Rain”, that show her multi-layered work encased in Plexiglass.

"Memory of Rain" by Jane Notides-Benzing

In an article about her work in the Art & Cultural Council’s Fall 2011 publication Metropolitan (page 21) she describes what inspired this current work.

“A few years ago, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York city, I saw two giant sheets of transparent fabric suspended from the ceiling. As I walked through the gallery, I was intrigued by the way I could see through the first sheet and blend the two images together.”

The plexiglass case that encloses each of her abstract multi-layered works could be thought of “as a miniature gallery,” she says.

Creating a miniature gallery with the transparent box works well to focus our gaze on her artwork. I like her layering technique using transparent materials with abstract markings. She is “interested in vaporous and watery elements with intrinsic energy: clouds, rain, sunshine,” Norides-Benzing says.

The show at the Arts & cultural Council’s space is open through November 30th, with a reception November 30th from 5 – 7 pm. If you are in the area stop by and look at her work, or go to their website:
http://www.artsrochester.org/

One of the greatest benefits of a course at Visual Studies Workshop in Museum and Gallery Management was the behind the scenes tour of the set-up for the Memorial Art Gallery’s 2001 Finger Lakes exhibit. The pros and cons of installing a gallery show were explained as we walked through the show’s gallery space.

As we turned a corner in the exhibit space, Benjamin Entner’s giant, inflated nude male figure titles “Self Portrait on a Cold Day” was a delightful artistic discovery. His piece really intrigued me since I have spent many years creating my own 3-dimensional stuffed pieces I’ve painted and drawn on — similar to Entner’s technique.

Benjamin Entner's "Self Portrait on a Cold Day"

He draws on his fabric with Sharpie marker, making shadows and highlights with the lines. Entner creates tension in the fabric by inflating it, and at the same time his hard black lines on the soft fabric create a different type of tension.

He experiments with materials and plays conceptually as he creates his work. The viewer interacts and reacts with his work through the use of large physical presence, wonder and humor.

His artist’s statement says he “explores the boundaries and interplay between two and three dimensional methods of making. Specifically, the point at which a drawing can become form and an object can become representation.”

“Self Portrait on a Cold Day” certainly is a drawing that has become a form, as well as bringing humor and wonder into my experience.

More of his fun artwork can be seen on his website:
http://www.benjaminentner.com/

“I remember being terrified as my Grandfather’s goose nipped at my heals while I frantically tried to run up the steep flight of stairs. I returned 30 years later to discover those stairs were only three steps.”

I’ve always been fascinated the memories people have of their life’s experiences. And I’ve been especially interested in childhood memories. In my work I explore and transform personal memory and the past. Through my own memories and memories of others, my histories and my photographic archives, I try to represent that past.

Memories often reveal themselves in layers. I overlap fabric, images and paint to reflect his layering. Sometimes my paint and stains are blurred like the edges of memory. We seldom remember with sharp and exact detail, in the same way the edges of my work are not always sharp and exact.

Layers overlap as memories overlap. I often use fabric removed from the traditional stretchers to explain a certain narrative through the layering of fabric, paint and other embellishments. The lines and shapes are often in fragments, as are bits of our memory.

Images of family memories are easy to relate to, while not revealing specific histories. I use objects and figures to trigger memories of times, situations and emotions of the past.