Lillies opening

Morning Grazers - The well cared for steer series

On the back of a used envelopeI sketched these steers. Then I continused to refer to them as I painted them. This is oil on stretched canvas.

Ona Beach watercolor accordion painting

This is one section of a small watercolor accordion folded paper. I finishing up with watercolor pencils after it dried. One of my granddaughters was with me. We painted a little over an hour at Ona Beach on Monday. Although she had a little slide viewfinder, she said she knew what she wanted to do. She held the viewfinder up close to her eye so she saw the whole panorama. She wanted to have the grove of trees, the sand and drift wood, the bridge, the grass, the beach and the ocean. The long narrow format was a perfect way to do the whole scene. I wish I photographed her painting because it was delightful.

Ona Beach, July 19

Oil on board 12"x 12" x 1 1/4"

Iron Mt. Accordion Journal

Friday July 9, I went for a walk towards Cone Peak, Oregon with Rain and Farm Boss. In this painting I tried to tie areas together with line The landscape was a beginning point only for a look at the language of painting. I very interested now in line as a story telling element. Line like color is about emotion.

Frederick Heidel's "Garden Around Four" - a political vision?

Between 1962 -1965 Frederick Heidel was my painting instructor at Portland State College and again for a summer watercolor figure painting class in 1976. The gist of his instruction was learning the language of large color areas and sensitive line. He questioned us on how much the subject should be the concern in our painting or just a beginning to explore paint - a question for each student to answer themselves.

Around 1885, "Garden Around Four", 63 x50 1/2" was one of his acrylic paintings in an exhibit presented by the Fountain Gallery of Portland now known as the Laura Russo Gallery. http://www.laurarusso.com/

This painting made me feel happy and reminded me of weaving and mosaics - two interests I share with Heidel. It makes me want to play with color. For years I thought of his painting as being primarily about paint and did not read much meaning into it other than there were two women at tea in the garden. When studying under Heidel, I had a theory of how broken glass and ceramic shapes could be arranged on a tinted cement background. In Heidel's painting he organized natural shaped brush strokes using extra long, filbert brushes. In a painting with the colors so separated by the ground, my impression is that the subject is in the process of coming apart. In a mosaic the pieces are obviously from something broken and they are being put together.

A painting of depth invites interpretation beyond the intentions of the painter.

Politics today has woken me to further musing. Now I see "Garden at Four" as a vision of the female aspects of politics. The "Garden" refers to World War II freedom gardens. The figure to the right is like Sarah Palin wearing a buccaneer's shirt and a Peter Pan's hat. On the left is a female in a blue striped dress. Her hand has just tipped the full glass of pink lemonade. Her breasts shoot blood towards two hot peppers like two wars on the table. Where her head should be there is nothing but above towards the right is an enlarged donkey's head broken by cross hatches. On the arbor above the donkey party head is zigzagging lines talking at Sarah Palin on the right who is throwing cold water on the table.

The painting of the "Garden at Four" remains relevant although it is a comment on the Regan Administration. In 1984 Regan was reelected and he declared us to be at the "Morning in America". The two hot peppers on the table were Grenada and Libya. Just why Heidel represented the Democrat and the Republican parties as women is interesting to speculate. Possibly because the arguments between them were strident voices of women -- a negative attribute of women.

I am amused by another aspect of this painting. The brush strokes suggest the fraying and the coming apart of the fabric of culture. Heidel did not give me an A for one painting credit because I painted the dissolving and destruction of an urban renewal project that bulldozed a predominately Jewish district adjacent to Portland State College. In 1965 he said picturing destruction is anti-art. Twenty years later he might have changed his mind in his painting of a very incredible vision of America that is a standing example of the beauty of the American political system always looking shaky but still here. It is hard to say if he meant four in the morning or four in the afternoon at tea party time.

Field photograph #3

Near Iron Mt., Oregon, July 17

Field photograph #2

Near Iron Mt., Oregon, July 17

field reference photo 1

Iron Mt., Oregon, July17

Happy accident in the garden

Summer Line, Abstract from Grasses

The grass field in back of our yard is a springboard to enjoying oil paint without brushes. Without brushes to clean, I only occassionally use solvents and linseed oil. The canvas is 24" x 26"

Without brushes without a standard palette

I cut up plastic packaging for my palette and squeegee. I also use spray bottles and rags.

Summer grays, 2010

Acrylic on canvas
32" x 24"

Our Gray Oregon, 2010

Watercolor and gouache
on watercolor paper
8 1/2" x 11"

Grasses wet with mist

oil on canas, 28" x 22"

Wet Grass after a rainy night

Acrylic on canvas, 28" x 22"

Art Philosophy

We are all real artists. Real as in the sense that we are all involved in life learning, making new creative connections in moving people, animals and things into new relationships. The process of manipulating and organizing is real art. Sometimes we are aware of art as in a symphonic concert and sometimes we are not as apt to be aware of the process that goes into all our life including mundane repeated activities like drying our laundry.
Well accepted as being art are fine art painting and sculpture as are architecture, landscaping, the performing arts, culinary arts, and healing arts. Often debated during the 70’s and 80’s was whether or not the crafts were art like ceramics, weaving, textiles, and woodworking. In the past decade some of us women are looking at ourselves as a work of art in the making.
• Real art process can be subconscious or without intent.
• Real art includes fine art of course. But real art is not a value placed on the resulting product as in fine art.
• Real art processes involve our quality of life on all levels from our person, home, city, state, country and world.
• Real art is real in the sense that it exists but not always given recognition in everything we do or touch.
• Real art can be counterproductive in achieving human potential. For example humor is a real art form that is considered to be healing. "Laughter is the best medicine." But humor can also be abusive like making fun of people who are different from you.
• Real art process can make better more humane relationships or cause dysfunctional relationships. Understanding the workings of real art for strengthening or weakening the fiber of community is important in distinguishing artful lies from the art of illuminating truth.

After a rainy night

Oil over acrylic
on canvas 28" x 22"

Grasses Going to Seed

I painted all over yesterday's painting spreading matte medium- undiluted. Then plastic card squeegees have become like a palette on which I put dobs of Golden Acrylic colors. I mix the colors with a smaller credit card. A little water spray here and there softens the wet landscape atmosphere.

The painting is on stretched canvas 28" x 22"

Oregon Spring, 2010

Acrylic on canvas
28" x 22"
Painting without a brush, with Oregon rain wetting my canvas, the paint is poured and then spread with a 4" x 5" plastic card larger than a credit card.