The Cosmic Clown, a slow work in progress

Sometimes when I take a break from painting for a week or so, it is so hard to get back into it. I am not an artist that can just constantly paint and churn out work. I can't seem to just paint to be painting. I have to really be inspired and in my creative zone it seems. Then there is the perfectionist in me that thinks every work needs to be even better than the last one. This gets me into trouble a lot, as it is right now.
I started a new painting last week. I had no real plan with it. Honestly, I had been staring at the amazing work of Nashville artist Danielle Duer and those crazy little inky designs she does. I wanted to play around with some ink and tiny little brushes, and that's about it.
I didn't use a reference model. I usually find some pic of a fashion model and base my girl roughly off of her, but this time I made her up. I just wanted to see what happened. Well, I could not get something I liked. I gessoed and gessoed over her face. I got frustrated over and over with the way she was looking, and yet nothing I did seem to make it better. She kept seeming too masculine and not "pretty enough". This made me really think about what my real goal for the piece really was. Why do I need them to be pretty?
Once I started to think about that the whole idea for the painting came to light, and maybe ideas for future ones too. I got to thinking about expectations laid upon us, and about how we are eternally acting out these expectations. We are truly always acting, even when we are being the most real. The Internet is where we really do our best acting and Facebook seems to be our greatest stage. We present ourselves in a certain way by what we choose to show others.
So I realized this painting is frustrating me because she is reflecting me in so many ways right now. She came completely out of my subconscious and I guess this is what my subconscious wants to express in the now. I want to do a series of paintings that touch upon our many roles. Especially as women, we are expected to play so many roles...nurturer, listener, healer, warrior, provider, maid, sex kitten, the list goes on and on.
I am starting with the Cosmic Clown. In college when I was studying Western Native American cultures I was always struck by the idea of the Sacred Clown. This idea was so very important to cultures like the Lakota and the Hopi. These clowns exposed hypocrisy and arrogance before these behaviors got out of hand. Thus Sacred Clowns were considered spiritual leaders in their tribes, because they helped keep the balance in the community.
So my Cosmic Clown is a Sacred Clown, but maybe a wounded one. One that knows how important her role still is, but also knows that no one seems to care anymore about the part.
I am working really slow on her. It is not a big painting or particularly detailed, I am just having so much trouble finding the energy to finish her. I keep thinking I am going to put her on the unfinished shelf, but for some reason I don't. I know it is still because she is not perfect in my mind. Why can't I get over that expectation? Oh, those nasty expectations.......

WIP "The Gifting"

I had this plan to do the three fates of Greek mythology one at a time. I was going to start with Clotho, the fate that holds the distaff and begins the weaving of the fate of each human. I am intrigued by the fates, and other web/weaving goddesses like Ariadne. They are often connected to the stars and spiders. Also the word faerie is derived from the Latin fata, or fate. It has been speculated by many that actual faeries were "people" with the gift of second sight, or the ability to see the future.
I wanted to do my Clotho in a very modern way or another one of my "pop surrealistic" goddesses. I started to work on the pencil sketch on a larger size (for me) 24x36 canvas.



I struggled with her face a little more than usual. Something about her really bothered me. I decided to give her my bangs for some reason. I almost think she looked too much like me and that was what was bothering me. I erased her face more than a few times and finally decided to just let it go and she would evolve once I started painting.



I sometimes do my sketches with a water soluble graphite pencil that does not need to be fixed before you add the acrylic paint. It ends up just blending away with the paint. For this painting I used regular old graphite and sprayed it with a fixative before I painted. I thought I wanted to leave a lot of the graphite lines showing, but now I am wishing I would have put a light coat of white gesso over it to dim the pencil lines a little; you live and you learn I guess. Here she is with an added hand:



I have drawn a barn owl in the background that I planned to be bringing her the beginning of the thread. I wanted it to be as if she was chosen by nature to have the gift of sight. As I am looking more and more at it though, I am thinking about making the thread that the owl is holding a snake instead. I guess I haven't quite gotten over my snake obsession yet. Here she is with some background color:



I finally started to like her face and her general look. I am not really sure if she is still Clotho, maybe just an ambiguous woman being gifted by the Otherworld. I still feel for some reason there is more of me in her than normal.



This is the last photo I took of her. I have since added a delicate off the shoulder blouse on her. I hardly ever dress my girls so I thought I would play around with some fabric. I need lots of practice with fabric folds. I am excited about this one now, I wasn't at first. Funny how your work can evolve sometimes into more than you expected when the idea was first birthed.

I have not been keeping this blog very up to date. I keep forgetting about it; guess I am not the best blogger around. Sometimes I feel like I have so many thoughts in my head it would just take too much time to blog about it. Well anyway, here is the latest completed piece "Jezebel".



I rather like the way she turned out. Jezebel had about the worst treatment of a woman in the Bible and one of the most horiffic deaths. Basically she was flung out of a window and left to be torn apart by wild dogs. Recent archeaological finds have proven that she was a very powerful woman in the ancient world (as it seems that in the Bible the word whore is a code word for "really powerful woman"). Also her name was most likely not Jezebel but this was a corrupted spelling of her real name, I mean who would name their daughter whore of god in the first place. We probably will never know the truth of who Jezebel was as her story was written by her murderers as they were trying to justify their killing of a woman.
I wanted to paint Jezebel in honor of all women who have been born to be the ones that we could blame.
I must have listened to Iron and Wine's Jezebel about a thousand times while I painted this. I really do feel like a painting can take on the vibration of the music you listen to while painting.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghBJhGIcneU

Pearl, complete

Here is the completed "Pearl", and I guess she is my last completed piece for 2009. I am thinking a lot about how far my art has come along this year. I feel like 2010 will be an even bigger year for me and my art. I plan to do more fairs and hopefully some exhibitions. I am pretty excited for what is to come. I think 2010 will be a year for many to burst with new creative energy. Now, if I could just get the energy to start my new exercise plan.

The Seeker, finished

This is the "The Seeker" finished. The seeker represents the beginning step of the initiate as she steps onto the path of ascension. She wears the hermetic symbol the Seal of Light over her third eye region. This symbol alone represents the totality of our initiation into a state of perfection. The circle represents all energy and the ultimate expression of unity in the Cosmos. The square represents the crystallization of energy into definite form and the idea of perfect harmony. The trinity is shown by the triangle. Finally, the inner circle represents eternity.

At a deeper level of initiation however the three geometric solids equate to the alchemical solutions of Mercury, Sulphur and Salt. These represent not only chemicals but the spiritual and invisible principles of Soul, Spirit and Body and the three lights, Stellar Fire, Solar Fire and Lunar Fire. To those in possession of 'the key' this symbol, or cipher, is thought to reveal the 'alchemical' formula for discovering Man's essence and transmuting him in stages into a state of perfection - a reflection of God (definition of hermetic seal from http://cosmiccipher.blogspot.com/2006/10/symbols-ciphers-divine-proportion.html).

She wears this symbol, and yet she has not seen it yet. It guides her from her third eye, but she is not consciously aware of it yet. Behind her is a forest that she seems to have just came out of, and yet behind her is the direction she needs to proceed. The two giant egg shapes represent her own hidden potential. The bird and the feather are representations of gifts from spirit that will help guide her along the path.

She is excited to begin the journey, but she is not quite aware of the gifts she possesses. She is the seeker, much like the fool in tarot. The hermetic seal is also repeated in the way the two trees form a square, along with her own triangular shape, and the circle of her face. In a sense, this potential of transmutation is always with us, and all around us.

I really enjoyed experimenting with this piece. I had so much fun with the drip effect. It is definitely a process of letting go for me and letting it just happen. I am looking forward to working more with this technique.