Process

Process
Oil on Panel
24 x 48"

I'm teaching a class at Lake Tahoe Community College called 'Portfolio Development', which is great for me to do because it's forced me to take stock of my portfolio, resume, artists statement, etc. I've deliberately taken a step back from the more 'commercial' aspects of making art for a while to focus on painting for the sake of painting - which is a luxury. However, I felt that in order to teach the students, I had to undertake all the exercises and assigments I'll be giving them myself.

It's been good, it's helped me to verbally crystallise what I've been working through visually. I still felt like a rabbit in the headlights when I had to give them a Powerpoint presentation of my work, as a model for their final. Eww, I hated it, I have to say.

I've given presentations before in all kinds of different environments - usually a tipsy crowd of rock climbers, or other artists. I 'opened' for climber/author Paul Pritchard at the Ape Index lectures many years ago. Niall Grimes had organised this cool series of lectures at a pub in Sheffield, and it was a big honour for me. I was nervous as hell and drank several strong G&Ts before I went up there. It probably showed, which was bad, but it took the edge off. This time I had no such veil, and the experience was startlingly real.

More Bedtime Stories!

More Bedtime Stories
Oil on Canvas Panel
10x8"

$79.99
Click here to purchase

I got a nice big delivery of art supplies yesterday from Dick Blick, so I was really excited to try out my new canvas panels for these studies. I also ordered to big roll of canvas and some 60" stretcher bars, so that should keep me busy for a while!

This is a painting I've had in mind for a long time, and has a lot of meaning besides the subject for me. Most things I paint end up having some kind of personal metaphor embedded in them, whether or not I realise it at the time I paint it.

Sometimes I have to sit back after I've finished a big painting, exhausted, and just stare for hours at it. I'm becoming familiar with it, which I know sounds weird because I might have just spent a few weeks being obsessed with it while I'm structuring ideas, making drawings, stretching canvas or preparing a panel, and then actually painting it.

Sometimes it feels like someone else painted it, and I just came along at the end and decided on a title. I think that's when I know I've really allowed something subconscious to drive a piece, and so the emotion can be somewhat raw and challenging. I used to be fairly spiritual, and imagined that someone was channelling though me in some way. I don't feel that way any more. I know it all comes from me, from my experience, from my body, and my mind. It's not always an easy thing to accept.