Welding Workshop -az

My father once suggested I should get into welding and in a burst of nostalgia, I agreed to take a MIG welding workshop when Karin invited me.

After being given a thorough explanation of safety, the tools, and the process of welding, Karin and I set to work. We were supposed to make a critter but when faced with an array of materials, I decided to make a heart instead.  My mind went blank when I was picking out materials. Fortunately Terrence, our instructor, was helpful in this department. I cut, bent, & joined the bars with a weld to make the heart shape, and then added the chains with more welds.

Andrea's metal heart.

Welding is fun but it requires practice. The auto-darkening helmets surprise you when you are welding because they go dark the second you start welding and and briefly you cannot see what you are doing. They adjust accordingly but that doesn't mean you have. Because for that moment I couldn’t see, every time I thought I had a good weld, I didn’t.

I have two welds- the dark grey spots-  where I should have one.

Karin is more familiar with welding so nothing fazed her. She picked out materials with her usual enthusiasm and got to work. When she chose an unusual garden implement, Terrence made the observation that her work looked like a parrot fish, which it did although I don’t think that was her original intention.

Karin's creation. 

We finished our projects early so we were lucky to get a demonstration of, and a chance to try a plasma cutter. You can almost draw with a plasma cutter (and cut through ½” of steel), which is pretty cool.

Andrea's plasma cut heart. Karin did a moon. 

So as long I don’t need to weld a bridge, I am not a threat to society. Although, Karin and I are considering world domination with a plasma cutter.

One of the windows on the Stonybrook Fine Arts Building.

Our class was held at the StonybrookFinearts studio. Our instructor was Terrence Wong who is an excellent teacher, could not have been more patient, and to whom we give our many thanks.  

Unicorn in the parking lot of the Stonybrook Fine Arts Building. 

The Ultimate Compliment -az

I made this painting and it had not found an owner. I was at a loss as what to do with it. Not being sure of the audience that might appreciate it, Tina Walsh, a friend, suggested that it would be good for a little girl's room. What a good idea but I knew no one with little girls. And so the wait began and continued for a long time. I finally gave up and was getting ready to send the painting to an alternative source when an opportunity to presented itself. My vet was pregnant with a baby girl. I sent her an email asking if she would like it. I got an enthusiastic reply and so the work found its new home.

I saw my vet again today and she let me know that the baby liked the painting, too. Her baby likes to look at the bright colors while she is at her changing table. My initial response was surprise as I thought babies liked really bright colors. But I really didn't think about the quality of the remark until much later ( I should add when my vet arrives my focus isn't on me. There is some anxiety on my part as I am hoping my horse will be a gentleman and he usually isn't.). But when I thought about her remark, it was indeed the ultimate compliment. In a world where I am competing with trademarked baby items, Emerson's response was very special. 

So I thank Tina Walsh, Megan, and Emerson for making this a extraordinary art day.  

16 x 20" acrylic 

Hand braided string and un-braided string outlines the horse. 

Hand woven binding on the background.

Soaked paper twirled around around beads as part of the background.

Old encyclopedia pages molded into inaccurate musculature.

Plastic pearls for the mane.

Old 80's earring for the forelock.

building blocks -kes

 a b c d e f g

h i j

k l m n o p

 qrs

tuv

w x y





                               z

Let's Play (SKF)

Hello Fellow Creators,

Let's play. I needed to return to a state of no agendas except the simplest judgements about color balance and the size of the running strips. I don't know where this is going. I don't even know what I am making, like driving blindfolded down an open highway. I just felt an urge to play with colors that I like together and to watch it grow. I started it last night and discovered that this morning
 I wanted brighter combinations.

Is it high art? Who knows? Sometimes it's a desire to return to the mindset you remember from childhood. One of the joys in being an artist is to be present in your own life. Just me and patches of color and texture, nothing else. A meditation embodied in countless choices. I can plan out paintings, design a park, or sew critters but to reduce all of the grand ideas to an immediate , "yup or nope" feels really authentic.
And I think this is key, to try and deepen our own aesthetic by how it resonates at an emotional level. Then you know you are onto something. I will update you on how this little exploration transforms, which could be crap, that's always a possibility but my experience tells me I doubt that will happen.

Love,
                                                               Sarah

A page from the sketchbook - az

 This is a page from my many sketchbooks. I started with the face first in 2014. I came back to it as I always do and decided it needed to be changed up a bit. I added a the horse. I wanted the horse to be smaller, but I didn't like the proportions so the horse got bigger as I corrected it. The work needed more intensity than my pencil could offer so I digitally altered it with the contrast and  'cartoon' filter in my camera. The upside of the filters is it gives you a chance to experiment without the commitment. The work now looks like it was done in black pen.

 So the mystery is what I should do next?

12x16 pencil on sketch paper

The process of an artist -az

I remember a time of being amazed at the amount of artwork that Karin and Sarah produced. At the time, Karin had many colorful and textural mono prints and Sarah was crafting all these unusual objects . At the time, I produced slowly and little. I hoped that someday I could create at that level but knew it was unlikely. Later, I learned how to amass a quantity. Simply to do what you do a lot. I draw whenever on whatever. I draw on good paper, bad paper, scraps,and scrapbook paper.  Some of my favorite works have been on the back of envelopes that I drew while waiting on hold on the phone. And I amassed all this art work just like my blog mates. Now, I am amazed at myself as a go through my sketchbooks, journals, and bags of loose works. The below of one of many, many works. 

Decades ago, I started this drawing, got bored, came back and started another.Years ago, I unearthed it. I didn't like the drawing, so  I practiced a warm up technique in charcoal, so there are lines of charcoal over and in the drawings. Then at some point in the last couple of years, I decided the faces were salvageable and somewhat finished it with black pen and watercolor. Later, I cut one drawing out and if you look at the figure on the left, there is an eye on the headdress from a figure I didn't like and erased. In what I think was surely a good plan, I painted the middle figure's eyes red. I then digitally altered the piece as a whole.  

None of the individual drawings are great. Composition-wise, the work is fair if that. It simply tells  a story of doing, producing, experimenting, and accepting the outcome which is part of the process of an artist. 

do you feed yourself? -kes

its the most basic question.
before answering consider the following

• do you yearn?
• do you wish?
• do you dream?

is a 'yes' answer somewhere in that list? i confess i am no different.
if i do everything i'm supposed to, why is the state of yearning, wishing, & dreaming so perpetual and often intolerable, like a rat in a cage?

i want to change my art. how does that happen? taking classes & buying books are both sensible, educational attempts. but art is a wild animal. it does what it wants. elusive wild animals rarely parade down Main Street at rush hour. [i will concede its possible.]

what i am trying out are new 'eating habits'.
richard dreyfuss in Close encounters of the 3rd kind is a poignant illustration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yecJLI-GRuU
devil's tower doesn't come to the front door of the house like a polite neighbor coming to tea.
dreyfuss's character observes, gives his time, and eventually goes to the source of something important.
i am observing & giving my time in new ways lately.

this isn't a defense of alien obsessions. consider some therapy for that, if applicable.
it's about inviting in that which makes one want get out of bed, to not play in traffic.
it demands, deserves, & needs airtime.
what is it? like dreyfuss i don't know and honestly i prefer the mystery.
i just know it's calling and i am picking up the phone.
wheels and dead vegetation completely seduce me. answering the call makes my life better.
this is the close encounters mashed potato phase of my life.

adopting wayward hubcaps during dog walks

pulling up roadside reeds that bite

https://youtu.be/AEIcSNs4IQE

a video document of hours spent in subfreezing temperatures arranging the inanimate

carpe diem and pass the potatoes.