Last night I couldn’t sleep. My bad. She-who-has-been-eating-clean ate crap, lots of it. I won’t bore you with the details except to say that salty sweet popcorn was involved. And olives. And gluten free pizza. And watermelon. I know, in hindsight heavy on the ewwwww WHAT was I thinking???? factor. Enough so that when I climbed into bed my body said, “Mwaha-ha-ha, you’ve GOT to be kidding!” Then it ramped upeverything internal that it could. Let’s have a bit o’ racy heart, shall we? And a rumbly tum. And maybe a bit of indigestion because those olives would rather be sitting up.
So I sat up. And since Mr. Spouse was out of town I turned on the light and grabbed the iPad. And since my legs were in front of me I decided what the hell, might as well photograph them. Because I’m easily amused at 2 AM and what’s not to like about bare nekked thighs?
So I photographed my legs, my bare nekked thighs and came to the realization I’d better art those suckers upbecause what if those olives were bad and I died and my kids went through the ipad and found those photos??? OMG, I would die of embarrassment if I wasn’t dead already. Or even worse–if they found them when I was alive–they would be merciless.
Little shits darlins’.
I played with the photos in a couple of apps before importing them into Procreate where I played with them some more. Looking at those images dispassionately, studying them with an artist eye, I could sense a landscape waiting to happen. And then another.
And BTW, that’s not a blob of Cheeto fat living under my skin. I believe it’s my knee. Yes, we’ll call it my knee.
I thought I’d be super-artist and have an actual painting to show you by tonight, based on one of these studies. Uh-huh, right…. Three hours of sleep was not conducive to a productive day. Go figure.
Now I’m off to take more photos. Think I’ll focus on my feet tonight. This is already becoming a series in my mind, Bodyscapes. But I have aquestion–should I identify the parts or keep some mystery in the finished pieces? If you have an opinion let me know in the comments below.
If you read my blog last week, and I sincerely hope you did, you will recall that I was in Texas. There are not many reasons a fresh veggie lovin’ liberal from northern California would visit the land of everything-deep-fried-including-Oreos, certainly not for the foot long corndogs or the politics–no, no–NOT the politics, but I had a VALID reason to go to the lonestar state, the BEST reason of all … I’m a grandma.
Now go read that post so you can see how seriously I take this grandma stuff. You have to do that so you can understand how leaving the munchkin would’ve been hard, would’ve been devastating, would’ve broken my heart in a thousand little bitty pieces…if I didn’t have something to look forward to…
A side trip to Las Vegas to visit an old friend. A friend who knows me well enough to know that rocks and sun and light and big sky would feed my soul. Feed hers as well.
It was a quick visit, 48 hours, nearly every one of which–when we weren’t sleeping—involved driving around the desert.
Chasing the sun.
And falling in love with a landscape stripped down to the basics. A landscape that makes you reach deep inside and pull something out you didn’t know was there. Something...holy.
Long before the gamblers, the silicon titties, the wild and frantic seven deadly sins check-list that is the Vegas strip, long before that, THIS was here.
And the ancient ones who painted their lives, their gods, their hunts, their stories on the walls of rock were here.
I’ll be back. I HAVE to go back. Have to experience this more deeply. I want to camp. And hike. Take photographs. Make art. And I want to share this with you. The seeds of a workshop have been planted.
Now I just have to figure out the logistics.
And listen to da muse who was WAY inspired. Inspired enough to play with charcoal on a whole ‘nother level.
Primal # 1. Susan Lobb Porter. Charcoal on paper
Primal # 2 Susan Lobb Porter. Charcoal on paper
You up for joining me? It will be quite the arty adventure! Promise, really. Pinky swear even.
As always, would love to hear what you have to say in the comments below.
Oh my sweetums, I have a confession, indeed I do. Your favorite-best-beloved-kale-swigging artist, AKA Moi, has been dining on Reese’s for the better part of the day. But not because I WANTED to or gained ANY pleasure from doing so at all. No no no!!! I was taking one for the art team, you see. It’s all considered Open Studios prep, a quick source of proteinnutrition, something to tide me over while painting–no, NOT JUST PAINTING, painting my hiney into the arty frenzy that comes before a show.
Which is a grand and glorious way to impress you with my creative productivity, as opposed to leaving you shaking your head and tsk tsking at the thought of paint smeared gobs of peanut butter and chocolate finding their way straight from my mouth to the aforementioned hiney. Because that’s the way these things work.
In the end it’s not sugar and fat, it’s body sculpture.
And Muse Magic. Because I’ve been on FIRE. Oh yes, FIRE all day. All week. Got so many works-in-progress going right now I can’t even guestimate the number. Lots. Not your average lots. We’re talkin’ the kind of lots that really means LOTS.
It’s so exciting!!!
I’m going to show you a couple of ’em right now. Remember last week’s post, Between the House and the Barn. I posted some photos I took that I considered to be inspiration for paintings.
Disclaimer: Inspiration DOES NOT DICTATE creativity, it merely kick starts it.
So don’t expect my paintings to look anything like the original photos. Just sayin’…
Original photos:
Works in progress derived from above photos:
Work in progress SLPorter
This one is oil on top of other things. Acrylic. Collage. We’ll call it mixed media. Small. 8×8 inches. Maybe 10×10.
This one is oil and cold wax on top of collage and acrylic. I believe it’s 24×30 inches. They’re both on cradled panels.
Work in progress oil and cold wax SLPorter
Not the best photo in the world, color is a bit off. I’m thinking I might experiment with some shellac on this. Maybe. Get some nice honey drips going. That’s something from sister Marjorie Ellen’s bag o’tricks.
We’ll see….
Hey, thanks for dropping by. As always, let me know what you think in the comments below. And if you like what you see, please share with your friends. xoxo
Oh my sweetums, I’ve been spinning my wheelsuber busy in ArtyLand, so busy I neglected to post last week. Imagine that!
If you’re impatient or have a short attention span, you may scroll down now and watch the video. But if you’re here for a good story, stick around. You’ll get to the movie eventually.
It’s not that I forgot you, au contrair, you (my most best, BEST beloveds), have been on my mind CONSTANTLY. I’ve thought of you even more than I’ve thought of CHOCOLATE!!! Which is a lie, by the way, because nothing comes between me and my chocolate. But it sounds good, like overtime devotion in bloggy land.
Have you ever gone from point A to point B via points M,Q and X? Well, that’s what I’ve been doing. And getting nowhere fast in the process.
It all started when I got this idea for a blog post. I was scrolling through my iPhoto library, grumbling about the BAZILLIONS of photos I’ve taken and have yet to organize… yada yada… and I must be NUTS to think I can ever find a specific photo. Getting a wee bit frustrated because I’m not exaggerating the number of photos (well, yes I am because I don’t believe bazillions is an actual quantifiable number) when it dawned on me–ping–like a light bulb in the brain–that a lot of my arty photos resemble a LOT of my paintings. I don’t consciously take photos of rocks and paint them. And I don’t consciously paint pictures and then go photograph things that remind me of them–
But you’d never know that from looking at all those photos.
Never. As in NEVER. EVER.
So I thought it would be cool to post photos I’ve taken that inspired my paintings. Or at least resemble paintings enough to see where I drew some inspiration. I began picking and choosing photos to illustrate that point, saving them all in an album. Then I thought what the heck, let’s see how this works as a slide show. And then, since I liked the way it was working, I needed to find music. Music that was legally MINE to use and wouldn’t get all this work kicked off FaceBook or YouTube. That meant half a day pouring through license free music sites. Which is a mega time suck, believe me. I finally found something I liked, tweaked the timing so it would work, converted the whole shee-bang to a movie file, did the YouTube upload and went to bed.
Where I lay there thinking of how I could make it better.
The next morning I got up and did it ALL OVER AGAIN. New music. More bounce. Tossed out some photos, added others. Rearranged EVERYTHING. And then I added text because WHY NOT?
And when I finally got the video I was REALLY happy with, I thought the heck with a blog post, this is going to be my HOME PAGE on my website, the one that showcases my ART. The site I basically ignore.
Ah, but if I’m inviting people to see my stuff I’d better clean things up. Like get the galleries updated, the store open. Things I’ve been ignoring because they’re H.A.R.D. Technical. Not.Fun.
So now you know where I’ve been. I’ve been herding ducks. That’s right, getting all my little duckies in a row. You ever try and do that? It’s like herding cats on quack. (I’m high fivin’ myself for that one, yes I am!) What began as a simple blog post, turned into a video, a revamped website and a functioning store. Holy crap, I’m even impressing myself.
All because of this:
Do me a favor, if you liked this post PLEASE tell your friends. Share it on FaceBook. Give it a tweet. And, as always, stop in and say hi in the comments. I love it when you do.
I called my friend Harriet once, around the time FirstBorn was thirteen. Maybe fourteen. Whatever…he was feeling his soon-to-be manly oats and was a total, absolute pain in the ass.
I wanted to kill him.
Oh, indeed I did. But first I needed to find out if a jury of my peers, i.e, mothers of teens, would put me away for life or give me a high five and send me to a spa. Prison was out, horizontal stripes make my ass look fat. But a spa? I could handle that.
So I called Harriet and asked if it was against the law if I did away with my son. Figured her kid, a few years older than mine, was still alive. I wanted to know if it was by choice or grand design.
She told me it was perfectly alright to kill him, as long as I ATE him. She said it with conviction, without any hesitation, so I knew it must be true.
But there wasn’t enough Maalox in the world to pull that one off.
I’m kind of glad I stuck it out with FirstBorn. He turned out okay. Pretty good, actually. And now when he calls and tells me what’s going on with Princess GrandDaughter, I find myself laughing and wheezing and enjoying myself immensely.
Because grandchildren are the best payback.
And now that we’ve established that, I’m going to put on my Arty Life hat and tell you to gather ’round. Because I don’t want to shout, not on the interwebs, not where everyone can hear me. Because they might not understand when I say artists must kill their children.
No no no…don’t jump to any conclusions and call me as your defense witness. The children I’m talking about the ones that bleed paint. Or clay. The ones you’ve put your heart and soul in and then one day you look at them and think you suck. Or maybe just I can do better than this.
The number one lesson I teach my students is nothing you do is precious. You need to be free to experiment and push beyond your comfort zone in order to find your creative boundaries. And once you find them you need to push past them too.
It’s incredibly liberating to create without attachment to the outcome.
This was an assignment from Judy Wise and Stephanie Lee’s Plaster Workshop. I carved a portrait of a young girl into a plaster covered board and then painted it. There was nothing wrong with it, I’m sure someone would’ve bought it some day. But to me it was an assignment. I didn’t feel my artist voice. So after letting her hang around the studio for a couple of months, I whipped out some joint compound and had my way with her.
Looks like buttercream icing, doesn’t it? But it’s not, I assure you it was death-in-a-can for the poor dear. But her passing gave rise to this…
One of my all time favorite pieces. Something from the sweet creative spot.
The title? Portrait of a Young Girl, Revisited. Of course.
And then another. 
