What Would Jesus Buy?

During our power outage on Christmas Eve day, I made this collage by candlelight. It is a meditation on the commercialization of America and the rhetoric of the last eight years--patriots must spend money to support our nation, and patriots must revere Jesus. That led to the thought that Jesus should save our economy. Thus the title: What Would Jesus Buy?

NOT AVAILABLE

What Would Jesus Buy?

Mixed media on canvas

12 x 12

Then, this morning, I saw there was a film by Morgan Spurlock by the same title--that must have been somewhere in my subconsious when I titled the piece.

The picture here is cobbled together because my scanner is not big enough to scan the whole piece.

My dad is visiting and he liked the piece so I gifted it to him.

Snowed In

The other day, we were snowed in (still are) and I made a few mixed media collages, which are now up on my Etsy site.

NOT AVAILABLE
Amulet against Headaches
Mixed media on canvas with Easel

2.5 x 3.5

Detail
Amulet against Headaches

This first item is one of my "mini masterpieces" (i.e. it is made on a canvas 2.5 x 3.5 inches in size with its own little easel). The title is "Amulet against Headaches" and it is designed to ward off the evil migraine spirits. It was made using vintage dictionary text and wax.)

The second one is a larger collage (8 x 10) entitled "Father." It is a meditation on the competing conceptions of masculinity in our culture. Materials include vintage maps, dictionaries, a gocco print I made of the Tin Tin rocket, some instructions for rocket launches, metal studs, a heart, some wax. I really like the colors in this one.

AVAILABLE

Father

Mixed Media Collage

8 x 10

$45

Detail

Father

You can view these works in more detail on my etsy site for "serious" artwork:
http://ajparis.etsy.com/.

Blue Poppies

Again, this is a square painting that I cannot fully scan, but most of it shows here. About two years ago, I did a ton of poppy paintings. They have all either sold or been given away as gifts. I held onto this one for a while, but now I'm making it available. Ready to move on to new work, I guess. I love the combination of a deep green/blue with yellow ochre (my favorite paint color!).

NOT AVAILABLE

Blue Poppies

Acrylic on stretched canvas

12 x 12

Update: I recently gifted this to my friend Margaret. It is now in her private collection.

More Inchie Paintings

I actually completed these a while ago, but at the encouragement of my friend Nena, I'm finally putting some new paintings up. I really like both of these pieces. Unfortunately, the scanner won't let me show the whole painting, but most of it is here. Both of these paintings are square.

I love the variety and richness of color in this painting, and the way meaning is implied in the letters, but not clear enough to be understood.

Thing Be

Acrylic on canvas

11 x 11

AVAILABLE

$45

Again, I love the colors in the painting below, but for the minimalism as opposed to the variety. I also love the way the composition suggests a human face, through an accident of inchie randomness.

Suggestion

Acrylic on canvas

11 x 11

AVAILABLE

$45

A new blue trailer

I found this trailer today while waiting for my friend Sascha to arrive at her studio. I was too timid to actually go into the people's yard for a better angle--too bad, because I just love this trailer. I think it might be as cute as my "little trailer that could." I need a better angle to paint it though!

Some more trailers

I don't know why I'm so into trailers right now. There is something so appealing about the idea that you could just put a whole life into one of these things--a microresidence, a microcosm, a snowglobe on wheels. And Oregon is just full of these retro beauties.

Carlton Oregon
November 22, 2008

More Minis

One of the women from my art guild asked for some small pieces of art to decorate the Christmas tree at the gallery we have at the End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center. I decided to use my mini-masterpiece canvases to do a few images from Oregon City.
Here is my favorite little trailer:

SOLD
Trailer
3.5 x 2.5

Acrylic on canvas

And here are two views of the Oregon City Municipal Elevator:

AVAILABLE
Oregon City Elevator
3 1/2 x 2 1/2
Acrylic on canvas
$10

NOT AVAILABLE

Oregon City Elevator with Train Tracks
2.5 x 3.5

Acrylic on canvas

Oaks Park Skating Rink

SOLD

Skating Rink 1
Oaks Park Series
Acrylic on Canvas Board
11 x 14

I have a very ambitious project in mind involving a Hopper-esque painting of some ladies behind the counter at the old Oaks Park skating rink. In the meantime, as a warm up, I'm doing a few atmospheric paintings from the same venue. Here's one of disco lights reflecting on the wood surface of the rink, along with some plastic balls they put out for the kids to play with.

Kitchen at Kam Wah Chung: A New Painting

SOLD
Kitchen at Kam Wah Chung
Acrylic on Canvas Board
11 x 14 inches

As some of you know, I'm writing a book of poetry that features the voices of 5 characters who settled the American West. One of those characters is Ing Hay, a Chinese immigrant who made his home in John Day, Oregon. In March, I took a trip to John Day to see his home, a store known as Kam Wah Chung.

Kam Wah Chung is now a museum. It was formerly a store, doctor's office, and pharmacopia run by Ing Hay and his business partner Lung On from about 1890-1950. These men were only teenagers when the arrived from Taishan County, ready to mine gold on "Gold Mountain." They arrived to find the gold mines largely played out, so Lung On turned his hand to business, and Ing Hay to medicine. They became business partners and lifelong friends.

Stepping into Kam Wah Chung is like stepping into history. The walls are lined with smoke-stained red paper, the shelves are lined with comestibles and herbal remedies from 100 years ago. I wasn't allowed to take flash photography, but the curator shone a flashlight on items I wanted to take pictures of.

This painting depicts the wok and tea kettle that Ing Hay used to prepare traditional Chinese food and drink for Lung On and their many boarders. Here is the photograph:


If you ever get a chance to visit Kam Wah Chung, you won't forget it.

Frist Apartment at Tivoli: A New Painting

AVAILABLE
First Apartment at Tivoli
Acrylic on Canvas Board
11 x 14 inches
$100

On the banks of the Hudson River, in the heart of Dutchess County, New York, lies the little Village of Tivoli. This is where my sister chose to make her home during the first year of her marriage. This painting depicts two of the earliest possessions of that marriage--a pair of blue lawn chairs.

I love painting objects that are overlooked in life, but beautiful when objectified. The most challenging parts of this painting were rendering the chair material transparent, and making all of the lines of the chair legs line up properly. I always fall in love with my paintings, and this one is no exception.

Here, for your enjoyment, the painting in all of its various stages:


Above: I've roughed in the basic shapes and colors. I like it already.


Above: Things are starting to look solid. The chair lying on its side is wrong, all wrong.


Above: Okay, now we are getting somewhere. The chairs are starting to look like they are the same size.


Above: Almost done, just a few tweaks left to make. Man, getting those chair legs to line up properly was a b****.

Above: Once again, the final painting.

Painting an "Inchie"

When you make hundreds and hundreds of one-inch-sized works of art (inchies), the question inevitably arises--what do I do with these? A friend suggested I make large paintings of them. Sounded good to me, so today I made a 12 x 12 painting of a 1 x 1 inchie.

Here is the 1 x 1 inchie:


And here is the 12 x 12 painting (due to the size of my scanner, you aren't getting the full painting, but this is pretty close:


I liked how it started to look like a landscape painting, so I decided to leave out the diagonal yellow lines, even though those are what attracted me to this inchie in the first place.

Howells: The evolution of a painting

AVAILABLE
Howells
Acrylic on canvas board
11 x 14
May 2008
$100

I've been wanting to do a series of Oregon City paintings, focusing on industry, business, and decline. I'm really attracted to the retro signage and buildings we have all over this little town. I've already photographed several of the subjects I want to paint, and I completed the first painting yesterday (above). Here is the evolution of the painting:


Here you see the painting in its very earliest stage, as well as the photo I'm working from. At this stage, I have roughed in the basic shapes and lines.


In stage 2 (above), I'm thinking more about volume and color, trying to work the entire canvas simultaneously.


In stage 3, I realize the perspective is off for the building roofline. I'm going to have to make some changes to the lines that are holding up the sign. I'm worrying a lot about how to make the lines and the metal look like lines and metal.

Here again is the final painting. I'm really happy with the composition and the sign itself. Not thrilled with the way the metal finishes turned out, but it's enough this time.

Inchies

Ya'll, I am obsessed. I first heard about inchies on http://www.craftster.org/. They are little one inch square pieces of art. You can pretty much make 'em any way you want, but from what I can tell, most people use a collage technique. Right away, I wanted to try making some. So I made a set of about 100 using a map of the Pearl District (Portland's arts district), some scrapbooking paper, and some handwritten messages I collected from the women who were with me at the scrapbooking weekend. Here's a sampling of the result (affixed to a notebook with brads):

Once I got into these, I realized they are all about RANDOMNESS for me. So much of my art is about control--making the image perfect--making the line just the way I want it--trying to get the light right. But the way I make inchies, I have no control over the final image, and each little square that comes out is a little miracle of composition, line and color. Of course they don't ALL turn out that great, but out of 100, you might get 25 really great images.

So I made some more (4 of 100):

And then some more (4 of 100): Then, I went to Chicago for the GREAT ART WEEKEND (more on that in a separate post), where I collected found paper all wekend, and created some more. In fact, if you look at the first picture on this posting, you will see approximately 540 Chicago inchies in progress. Here are a few complete Chicago inchies:

If you don't get it by now, you probably never will. But that's okay; I'll be making enough for both of us. However, if you want to make some, here's a tutorial on craftster: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?action=printpage;topic=211483.0;images

Mommy and Son Project

Duncan has been home from pre-school a lot this week. On Tuesday, I suggested we make a Robot. I was thinking about some construction paper and glue. But no. He had a particular Robot in mind--the one from a book his dad likes to read him called Le "Manitoba" ne Repond Plus by Herge (he's the same guy who does Tin Tin). So, we find the book and start making the robot. I cut out the shapes while Duncan picks out and glues on the buttons for the eyes, nose and mouth. Sometime while we are working, Duncan says, "Let's make all the stories that the robot is in." After some clarification, I realize he wants to make the whole picture, not just the robot. So, we get started on the porthole with three fish (he mostly glues it together while I do the drawing and cutting), the boy, and the girl. Duncan lost interest about 1/2 way through the girl, but I compulsively had to finish her anyway. Now, Duncan says, "we still have to do the monkey." Here's what the actual book looks like:

Slow Going Part Deux: Still Going

I am still working on the painting for my handy man friend (though he has probably forgotten my name by now). It is for his daughter Sophie, so my little hippo (who will be wearing a tutu en fin) is named. . . wait for it. . . Sophie. It's a terrible photo--blurry and the color's too green, but at least you can see the progress since the previous slow going post. Jeremy, if you're out there, I'll try to finish it before she graduates from college.

The Little Trailer that Could

This trailer was sitting by the side of the road on my drive home. Everytime I passed it, it screamed out to me, "Notice me, photograph me, paint me." So I did. About one week later, after having sat there for years, the trailer, along with all the other accumulated detritus in the yard, disappeared.

I've since taken photos of several trailers on my street, just in case there is a trailer Rapture in which all the quirky vehicles on Livesay Road suddenly disappear into the heavens leaving patch after patch of dead, yellowed grass where they once stood. Here are just a few:

Mini Masterpieces

I've been working on some tiny paintings: 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches.

The Swirl

2.5 x 3.5

acrylic on canvas

. My favorite shape has always been a swirl. This one turned out kind of cosmic.

The Tulip

2.5 x 3.5

acrylic on canvas

This one is based on a sketch I did many years ago. I guess I've been drawing these same two shapes, the tulip and the swirl, as long as I can remember. What's that about?

Argh!

The image above is a hand-carved stamp I made using a linoleum block. I then aged and stamped a blank notebook to create a cool pirate journal.

Slow Going

Well, it's been a long time since I posted, mostly because my art has taken a backseat to finishing my book of poetry, which is due to the publisher at the beginning of May. I do have a work in progress. I guess I can post a picture of it, though it's very rough at this point. Here it is:

Sophie, a commission for my friend Jeremy's daughter.

It has actually progressed a little further since this sketch, but not a lot. The color scheme is very Marie Antoinette, and the little girl is a hippo in her birthday tutu. I'm not sure when I'll finish it. I'm going out of town to give a talk on children's book illustrators (see my other blog for more info). When I get back, hopefully, I'll get a little further on Sophie. I've also been kind of obsessed with paper crafts lately, since I went scrapbooking the other day and then found the website craftster.