Living in a Painting

Month # 5, Work, Work, Work

How to know when good is good enough, when improvement is complete? How to step away?

This painting has been my constant companion--I've been working on it almost daily for the past 5 months. It is a self manufactured problem needing to be solved--but solved in a way which compels others to be swept along into my peculiar reality. How to entice and excite interest: this, for me, really is a fun puzzle. Maintain a certain mystery,  include plenty of candy indulgences (centers of eye pleasing pleasure) but it has to feel genuine. Balance the colors so that they almost, but not quite, shock the viewer. Activate all the potential dead areas with stimulation or is a calm transition more helpful? Several times this past month I was convinced I was finished. Some days I would stare and stare hoping to be convinced that it could not get any better but always I was wrong. So I tweaked and refined, painting elements in, painting them out. Stare and stare, until I got to the point that I believed that even if it could get better, it shouldn't. And so it is finished. And the next painting will be better for the experience of this painting because my life and work is one great long line of learning. 

Many thanks to Brian, my husband, who visits my studio and takes great pictures.

Earth Has a Long Memory, Dedicated to the Lost Pines of Bastrop County, oil on canvas, 44x54", 2013

Interiors, Taming the Wilderness Within

I am gathering ideas. Entertaining a new direction. Not ready to dive in just yet--just putting some tentative toes in the water...

Creative ideas and impulses percolate everywhere, mostly where and when I do not expect, so I try to keep my whole person open in order to collect them. I follow some, but never completely ignore the others. For roughly the last 15 years I've been painting botanically inspired images, fantastical landscapes, and scenes revealing a bit of subterranean earth--inexhaustible subject matter really, which challenges my painting skill while allowing my oeuvre to continue to evolve. Mostly this is true--and stimulating enough to keep me satisfied and growing artistically. Yet, I am increasingly drawn to subject matter not at all related to the out-of-doors: interiors, in particular, and in the traditional sense. I love Vuillard's interiors especially, and Balthus's of course, but it's been many years since I have painted a true interior scene.

This was, I think, my last true interior painting, 1985

Saturday, oil on canvas, 36x48", 1985, Valerie Fowler

 So, for now, I am cataloging subject matter, hoping to connect some dots in my own mind until I recognize my role. Scenes, venues, settings, already important in my out-of-door subject matter, are becoming contained, controlled and hemmed in.

Marathon Texas,  2012, Valerie Fowler

Marathon, Texas, Formal Living Room Chair, pencil on paper, 2012, Valerie Fowler

Balthus, The Living Room, 1942, more on this picture here

Ramona After Balthus, oil on canvas, 35x54", 2009, Valerie Fowler.
My first and only attempt at homage to one of my all time hero painters.

Marathon Texas Living Room, 2012, Valerie Fowler

Vuillard's preparatory photo of the Bloch family sitting room, 1927

 Vuillard Bloch Portrait, 1927-29

Not sure where this will lead or what it says about my mental state, after all, the interior scenes to which I am most attracted are usually dark, claustrophobic, and quite eery. I must own what is mine.

Meanwhile, Happy Holidays. 

May your interiors be most merry, sweetly cozy and never completely tame.

Busy Busy Busy

I have been so, busy, busy, busy, and now, finally, I'd like to share some of the results of some of that work.  Here are a few links to the shows in which I will be participating and some preview images from each of the venues. I have never participated in so many art events at once. It's a new feeling--happy and energizing. So yeah, I'm feeling O.K. about throwing out there a little self promotion. Here's the (not so) skinny:

E.A.S.T.(for maps and complete EAST information>> East Austin Studio Tour)
     
 Agaveprint --A group show, fine art prints, here's one sample, below.

The Deeper You Go, The Richer it Gets, oil on canvas, 42x28", 2012

Austin Art Connections-Small Works, Pump Project Art Complex
 A group show of mainly small pieces one of which is shown below.

Landscape for Looking, hand colored original print with mixed media collage, 16x20", 2012

Log Jam --East Austin Studio Tour Hub/group show, I'll have this older piece, below, on view.

My Left Hand, oil on maple panel, 8x10", 2006

Grassroots --Austin Bergstrom International Airport, East Airside Gallery, Below is one of two of my paintings on view, concourse level, near gate 8. I love our airport.

Negotiating Safe Passage, oil on canvas, 36x36", 2008

East Side Glass/Boom Gallery --new gallery adjacent to this fantastic glass blowing studio. It's a group show mixed with fine art glass. Here, below, is one painting I'll be showing.

Pecan Tree Portal, Rio Frio, Texas, oil on canvas, 44x37", 2012

Also, these venues, on the west side of town:
     The Continental Club Gallery, "Dear John...", on view until December 1st in the upstairs gallery, open nightly at 8pm. This is an old piece, below, which seemed appropriate for the show's theme.

His and Her Palm Fronds, oil on maple panel, 12x16", 2005

The Austin Wine Merchant --My favorite wine shop. Event scheduled for November 28th. One night only fundraiser for The Be An Artist Program, an arts in education program run by local musician, Darden Smith. More details forthcoming...

      Plus, on going--at Austin City Hall--The People's Gallery until February 2013, one of two of my pieces on view, below. Third floor of our excellent City Hall.

Rio Frio, Opening Earth, oil on canvas, 12x36", 2011

So come on out and see some art--mine yes--but also, a city-full of amazing art. This town is crawling with artists, as always, but this month we are organized nicely into literally hundreds of terrific shows. Use the EAST maps to divine your way to infinite treasure. Meanwhile I'll work some more...

Earth Has a Long Memory

This post is a continuing pictorial saga from my last post from September 29


Today is my 51st birthday. On this day I want to say: I am grateful for daily painting. I am grateful for every day it is possible in my life. Every day I learn more, every day the scope of my subject is larger and more intimate at the same time. Daily painting isn't practical, it doesn't pay well, sometimes nothing at all, but for now I thank my husband and family and just do it anyway because for now, I can.
I hope to have this painting completed by November 1st, ready for E.A.S.T., but I don't yet know what finished will look like. And that, to me, is pretty exciting.

A long way from finished but it knows what it wants.

details, added some blue to sky, and yellow and red

second, or 4th coat of reds

lime green grass, fine tuning as I go

Please stay tuned...

Dedicated to the Lost Pines of Bastrop County

  I LOVE to paint large. On the first day my kids went back to school this fall I stretched and gessoed the largest stretcher I had and set to work. I had recently driven to Houston through Bastrop County and on that late August day the burnt sticks which had once been an extravagant forest--the Lost Pines area--spoke to me more than they had before. I have seen the results of last year's record fires several times before, in pictures and in real life, but on that day the sky was dark with purple clouds and the recent rains had produced lime green new grass which made the black of the burnt pines look velvety rich, and the soil, which is typically a ruddy red, look incredibly orange. And as I passed by in my van, late for my Houston date, I saw one tree which still had it's branches--but with scarlet red foliage, probably a dying tree. When I returned home I immediately drew up a sketch before my memory faded. On the day I mapped the painting out in oil the local radio station I usually listen to had special programing, interviewing victims of the fires, each telling their very dramatic and heartbreaking stories--it was the one year anniversary of the historic fires. I immersed myself in the sounds of their voices and painted. This is the chronology of the painting.

This might be the halfway point, halfway to completion. I won't know for sure until it's done and I can look back, but I know this is the point where I glimpse infinity. Every part of the painting needs attention and detail which could go on and on and on. The job now is to decide how much detail, and where, and if those details actually serve the painting.

detail

Earth has a Long Memory, as of 9/29/12

Please stay tuned....