Starting Over

Oo look at those blank walls. I love a good clean blank wall. 

I spent the day patching nail holes and scrubbing the floor. I have a cleanliness tick inherited from my Mom - I can't start painting/working in a messy space. Disorganization is ok, but a dirty floor gives me an eye twitch. So once I get everything in the studio back to bleachy goodness, I'll start working on the commission pieces and experimenting with some new ideas. And I strung up a curtain to the keep the new project semi-secret. At least until I figured out if it's viable (or good). 

Typewriters, Bell Aliant reps and flying pennies

Caleb discovered the typewriter. The novelty lasted a whole five minutes.My brother Caleb came to visit the studio last week. Disaster imminent. 

Let me put this situation in context: Caleb is a big six-foot-two mega-athlete with more energy than is humanly healthy and blissfully unaware of physical space he consumes and the path of destruction he leaves in his wake.  My studio is small. With wet paintings everywhere. Oh goody.

We had the brainwave of making new artwork labels with an old typewriter I have at the studio. Caleb thought that was BRILLIANT and was entertained for a whole eight and a half minutes. A phone call from a Bell Aliant rep distracted him - he got to the phone before I did, answered with a highly professional 'Jooooones Gallery', and then decided to terrorize the rep by bellowing 'HELLLLLLOOOO!' repeatedly into the receiver. She hung up. 

Don't I look happy. This is me mid-threat. Caleb, no longer preoccupied with telemarketers or typewriters, dug some pennies out of my cash register and started shooting them across the studio. 'LOOKHOWFASTTHATWENT!' he tells me, as I envision pennies embedded in my newly finished paintings. I politely asked him to stop, underscored with a mild threat of disembowelment. 

Mom arrived just as Caleb was starting to experiment with my painting palette ('Can I paint something?!) and took him away to expend energy elsewhere. Moms are just awesome. 

Caleb's new typewritten cards

In the Studio

I moved my art studio from home into the (freshly painted and bookshelf-free) space at 122 Germain Street on Monday. And I can now concretely say that this has been the best week of all time. And it's only Wednesday. This space (previously my bookstore/gallery, Bean Books) is the ideal size for an art studio - enough room to paste gigantic pages of newsprint doodlings on the wall, have multiple canvases on the go, and spread around my art-making paraphernalia on every available flat surface. The only problem is that all the pieces I have been working on for the past two months are due up at the Saint John Arts Centre for my show next week, leaving the walls at the studio depressingly blank. So blank that the place echoes. Time for a new art project.

I went on a photo expedition last week to get some new material/inspiration, and had a pretty happy art-moment over this shot taken from Pitt Street. I've used Courtenay Bay many times in my work before, but generally just the Bay itself. This scene has a great combination of row housing, poles, and lamps directing the eye to the more industrial horizon. Plus check out those power lines. Good stuff. I'm planning to tackle this scene with a couple mixed media projects - layers of cloth, paper and oil paint. I'd like to also try some linseed paste or beeswax for some added texture - but no luck finding either yet. Still hunting...