by Susan Lobb Porter | Kids, Process |
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.
by Susan Lobb Porter | Art
I’m sitting on the sofa, feet up on the coffee table. Big exhale…I’m tired, a good tired. Been a good day, spent a lot of hours in the studio. I stocked up on canvases last year. They were on sale locally, 70% off if you bought a case. SEVENTY PERCENT. So I bought them by the case. All different sizes, from 3X4 feet to 5X7 inches. Big fat gallery wrapped canvases. CASES of ‘EM.
Ahhh…
And then I spent the summer and fall painting on wood. That’s just a little bit of it, up above. Plaster and wax (both hot and cold) need a solid substrate. Something that won’t flex and crack. So I built cradled panels, so many I can’t even tell you. I almost sorta forgot about all that canvas. The elephant in the room.
Not any more. The studio is chaos right now. So many works in progress. They’re all in acrylic. Not my favorite medium, not after the juicy lusciousness of oil or the richness of beeswax. And plaster is just plain old fun. But then acrylics mixed into glaze medium and layered and layered and layered and then turned into something magical…ah, I can handle that.
So I spent the day painting backgrounds. Just backgrounds. Random strokes, random colors. Filling the canvas. It’s fun, really. No ego involved, just me and the music. And with all the canvases I have, I could be doing this for the next month. Eventually the paintings will come to me. And when they do, I’ll be ready to go.
For a look at how a painting evolves, check out my recent post ‘Making Peace’.
by Susan Lobb Porter | Art |
Quick look at what I’m doing right now. Oils, mostly on plaster. Works-in-progress, every one. Early days. This is my favorite:
It’s oil on plaster. Think thin coats of oil paint, colors over colors with lots of scratching. And then there’s the heavy texture of the plaster underneath. But this is just the beginning. As soon as it’s dry enough I’m going to go after it with wax. Layers and layers of hot wax with who knows what in between. I think this one is 12 X 16.
This is also my favorite. It’s a mom thing, got to love ’em all equal. Warning: the photo doesn’t do it justice. It’s also oil on plaster and I’m seeing this with handwriting in the wax-that-has-yet-to-be-applied. Soon. This is 12 X 12
For some reason I’m into rectangles these days.
And scribbles. I love scribbles. This is a little one, 6 X 6. And down below is a lineup of a few more.
Like I said in the beginning, it’s early days for these guys. It’ll be a good week before I wax ’em, the oil base is already tacky but time is my friend here. Meanwhile I’ve got some big cradled panels in the works. Should have lots more to show by the weekend. Maybe even some finished pieces.
Finished pieces are good. Especially with a show in three weeks!
by Susan Lobb Porter | Art |
Heavy on the carbs tonight and now I’m nodding off to Z-Land. Or maybe it was the yoga with weights DVD I did this evening, which happens to be my new favorite workout. Comes with cool little weights and a foam prop and it’s even on sale. No one is paying me to say this either, just my thighs. Which are screaming, by the way.
Or maybe I’m tired because I was in cleaning mode all day. Got half the studio done, the room where I make my boards and paint. Thought that was the most logical place to start since I had boards to make. And plaster. And/or gesso. The boring-but-gots-to-be-done prep work before painting.
Normal people reading this are probably thinking what the —? It’ just a bunch of unArt. There’s nothing there but white stuff. Please, don’t think of it that way. Think of it as…possibilities. As masterpieces waiting to happen. And then raise your hand, jump up and down and say, “Oh! Oh! I WANT one of those when it’s done!!!”
And FYI, Art Peeps? There’s MORE of these in the wax room! But I’m not going to show you the wax room right now because it’s such a mess. It will be cleaned tomorrow, so I can get down to business with Judy Wise’s new encaustic class.
One more photo before I trundle off to bed.
More magic waiting to happen.
by Susan Lobb Porter | Art |
Studio day! Yay! All day in the studio!!! Pinch me pinch me pinch me–I can’t believe I got to make art ALL DAY–except for the part of the day when I was loading up at the feed store and then back here unloading a truckload of hay. All by myself. But the rest of the day, well, most of the rest of the day… I WAS IN THE STUDIO–
Burning, torching, scorching, playing with fire. Literally. Experimenting with some new (to me) techniques. I love love love trying new stuff. Allowing myself to make mistakes…which is a good thing since I make them regularly. And often.
Some samples from today–but first the disclaimer:
- That picture up above–that’s just part of my wax counter. No burning was done in that room.
- I did NOT burn anything down. Like a building. Or the mountain.
- I
used proper ventilation had all the fans going, blowing out.
- And I wore a respirator. Which proves I value self-preservation over vanity.
- Yes. I HAD A PLAN. I didn’t just go in there with a torch and start firing away. I had a book, “Encaustic Mixed Media” by Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch. I read it (looked at the pictures) and then I started firing away. Sorta knowing where I was going. Art by the seat of my pants.
So this is a closeup of some texture attained by burning wood glue. It was on a cradled board and there was plaster involved. Looks like there was some green paint too. But that unfortunate lapse of judgement came after the fact. It will go away.
Reminds me of a toasted marshmallow. Haven’t had one of those in years. I had a two part marshmallow technique. Stick it in the flames. Burn it to a crisp. Eat the charred part then toast the sticky wet inner part to a nice bubbly brown.
But no mistaking this for a marshmallow, especially after I added some more plaster, leaving the texture alone. Can’t do any more until tomorrow so the plaster can dry. Right now I’m thinking I’ll sand the plaster smooth and sand off the paint as well. But who knows what I’ll do when the time comes.
It’s butt ugly right now but, like all of us, it has potential. I’ll post a photo when it’s finished.
The second piece I did was the same technique sans plaster. Just glue and wood, fire and wax. And a few beads.This one might be done, might not. I’ll live with it and decide later.
