Paint on the hands, Art on the mind

forest fire #1
Forest Fire #1
5″ x 7″
Oil on Canvas

I spent some good quality time with my studio this weekend. I worked on 6 more small paintings and even added a layer to a larger one that I previously thought might have been doomed to destruction. I finished 2 of the 6. I am really enjoying working small. I can work fast and I like how some paintings just come out in one shot, while others demand more layers. It feels so good to be back in the studio. I think I started believing I was an impostor. What a terrible feeling that was. I am thinking about watercolors and pens. Maybe tonight or sometime this week I’ll spend some time playing around on paper.

These little paintings continue on the theme of tiny disasters or tiny catastrophes. All the imagery is gathered from photos off google and flickr. They are all about small or not so small events that when added together start looking like a slow trickle towards an apocalyptic end.

flood #1
Flood #1
10″ x 10″
Oil on Canvas

I’m still on a quest to find some sort of art related social life. I don’t know any artists in Portland and I feel sad going to openings by myself. I did go anyway to both First Thursday and First Friday. I had kind of hit a wall of frustration Thursday day so my eyes were all dry and bloodshot from crying. I walked around to a bunch of galleries anyway and tried to have a good time. I always feel shy and awkward around strangers. Tom came with me Friday and it was so fun exploring Portland with him. We drove around to 4 different places. Seems like a big bummer that all the First Friday galleries are so far from each other. I also am having trouble finding a single place to see a list of all participating galleries for First Thursday. Maybe it doesn’t exist? Ditto for First Thursday. I think people just assume everyone knows where to go? I’m new here, I have no idea what I’m doing, help! help! Grass Hut was my favorite First Friday visit. It’s my second time there and I had so much fun looking at everything I forgot to take pictures. I also loved finally getting to see Good Gallery because I think they are a fine bunch. They have themed shows that I’d love to get involved in. The next one is a self portrait themed show. Maybe I can get my act together. I hate my body so much right now that I’m not sure I can handle even thinking about a self portrait right now.. even a more conceptual, non-literal one. Yeah, that’s how bad it is. Low self esteem and loneliness are eating me alive. I have to do something about this.

So in my quest to get an effing life I signed up for three art classes. One has been canceled due to low enrollment and a second is under threat of being canceled. I really want/need the second class. It’s a drawing workshop called “drawing water from an empty well” at OCAC with Nicole Gibbs and I think it’s going to be a whole bunch of fun if it’s not canceled. It’s on July 18th and 19th if you are interested. The third class is probably one that I don’t need. It’s a blogging class. I wanted to take it because I was in a desperately lonely mood when I went to the PNCA website to look for classes. But besides the loneliness factor, I’m hoping it’ll give me 5 weeks to really work on my blog and website, and finally make a site I can be proud of. For years and years, I just get by. I’d like to have a beautiful website but I never devote any time to it other than a few minutes of posts here and there. So here I am, finally devoting time. When blogs were few, I had pretty great traffic, but it’s waned over the last few years. It’s finally started picking up again thanks to Twitter and probably thanks to Mississippi. I want to take some time and do it right for once. I also made an appointment to check out the PNCA MFA program.

After our last First Friday at the Red “e”, we wound up having beers at the Saraveza which has got to be one of the coolest pubs in Portland.

Saraveza


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