October 2007 Archives

Goddess of Abundance
mixed media on board
11" x 7"
$50 sold

This is the first of my daily paintings. I used collage, acrylics, and oil pastel.  It was fun to make and I'm delighted with it!

The central image of the mature woman in all her glory comes from an IKEA print ad.  She looks so happy and comfortable with herself. There is something subversive about a naked older woman, and that appealed to me a great deal :)

I perched her on a throne of weathered stone to reflect her experience and "solidness".

The other main element is the gigantic corn stalk. I must admit that I wasn't thinking about the symbolic meaning of corn when I choose it.  I just liked the masculine, shall we say..."upthrusting" of it. 

Seriously now, the juxtaposition of the feminine and masculine in that weathered setting worked for me. 

Later, it occured to me that corn is probably symbolic of something.  I looked it up and found out that corn symbolizes plenty. According to PhoenixMasonry:

An ear of grain has been an emblem of plenty since the mists of antiquity which shroud the beginnings of mythology. Ceres, goddess of abundance, survives today in our cereals. The Greeks called her Demeter, a corruption of Gemeter, our mother earth. She wore a garland of grain and carried ears of grain in her hand...The Hebrew Shibboleth means both an ear of corn and a flood of water. Both are symbols of abundance, plenty, wealth.

I had my first studio built in 1997 as a 40th birthday present to myself.

I had always wanted a permanent studio designed exactly to my specifications, but thought that the expense was not justified.

However, as I approached my 40th birthday, I realized "if not now, when?" I took the plunge and called a builder, and never looked back.

The studio exterior of grey cedar siding, naturally faded cedar shakes, french doors, and big window boxes fit in with the garden setting. In spring, the window boxes sprout fuchsia tulips and pale yellow narcissus; while all summer a wildly coloured mix of petunias, lobelia, cherry tomatoes and other annuals trail almost to the ground.

Inside, the studio had lovely views into the garden on two sides, as well as four skylights on the north side. The absence of telephone and household demands made the studio a wonderful retreat, and I always had at least one of my cats for company.

In 2003 my husband and I sold the house where my first studio was located. People asked "how can you bear to leave your beautiful studio behind?"  My reply was that if I could lift it up by helicopter and plunk it down on the new site, I would!

But I did the next best thing:  I built a replica on my new property :)

Grrrl Power
Mixed media on canvas
24" x 16"
$450

This was the second painting I did using photos and transparencies. 

Whereas in Being 13 I used only dry media (paper, photos, transparencies, oil stick), in Grrrl Power I branched out into using a combination of dry media (paper, vintage wallpaper, photocopies, transparencies) and wet media (acrylic paint).

Grrrl Power began with a photograph that I had taken of my ten-year-old niece Leonie and her friend Annie.

In the photo, Leonie is impatient with posing and wanting to leave, while Annie is clowning around pulling her tiger t-shirt over her face.

I enlarged the photo to 11x17 and then used a photocopier to make lots of copies in various sizes. I used a stretched canvas as the support, and prepared it by "building" a surface of texture using old wallpaper and fabric. I then played around with various configurations of the photocopied images until something surfaced.

What I discovered is that the most evocative part of the image was Leonie’s posture* - her outstretched leg and beautifully curving outer arm. I decided to feature the shape of her arm by repeating it in diminishing sizes.

While I was working on the painting, I was thinking about what it means to be a girl in our society. To represent my hope that Annie and Leonie’s apparent joy and confidence would continue, I added the angel holding a candle. After adhering all the collage elements, I painted around and over the collage elements with acrylic paints.

*After reading this analysis, Leonie said "Aunty, I disagree.  The most evocative part of the image is the relationship between Annie and me."  Smart kid.

Being 13
Mixed media on matboard
$200


This is one of my all-time favourite pieces.  It was the first piece I did using photos combined with transparencies.

The girl in the photo is my niece Karla.  She was thirteen at the time, hence the title Being 13.  I took the photo of Karla as part of an assignment for my photography class and liked it so much that I turned it into this painting.

I've had this in my "can't part with it drawer" for quite some time but have recently decided I have to start parting with more things!