ooops, nearly forgot these little guys

These two small canvases were done for the recent Same Size Same Price No Signature held at artEC Gallery, both sold on the opening night.

Lost generation 5 300x300 oil on canvas

Lost generation 6 300x300 oil on canvas

The first week of the rest of my life....

Over the last few years my once regular blogging has diminished to a trickle, for a number of reasons which have basically been discussed in previous posts. However, my knee replacement has been a huge success and as of this week, I have finished my 3 year term as Chairperson at the artEC/Epsac Community Art Centre (check out the website or facebook page to see what the gallery and art centre are all about.) This means the biggest stumbling blocks to my regular art production are out of the way, and the studio is beckoning.
The other stumbling block is probably still there, and that is the relative slowness of loading pics on blogger rather than facebook, although it seems to have improved a lot since my last attempt.) I have decided I must just grit my teeth and put up with this, as facebook is usually limited to one's friends, whereas blogger is more of a public forum. And it has formed a useful journal and catalogue of my work and arty musings in the years since I started it, so it is worth continuing, if only as a record for posterity.

A backlog is always a pain to catch up, so please bear with me, and I'll slowly trawl through my pictures from the past year or so and fill in the gaps.

For today, I want to share a few of the recent works produced since the last post, and also a piece of good news. Well actually, great news I think, I recently sold a painting to the World Bank, along with the publishing rights, to be used on the cover of their next financial report. So 5000 copies of the painting will be circulated around the world soon, sheesh you can't BUY publicity like that, never mind being paid for it!  The sale was through SouthAfricanArtists.com who sell my work online, and are a delight to deal with. If only all art agents and galleries were as ethical, efficient and pleasant to deal with! (my page there is here.)

It was this one called Conflict Resolution. It is an expression of the idea that we might be opposites, one flamboyant and unpredictable, the other controlled and thinking "in straight lines" but we always have a little of each other in us, and if we make the effort to reach across the things that seem to divide us, we will find we have more in common that we realise, and actually enhance each other.

Conflict Resolution, oil on canvas, 900x1100mm

(World Bank is the copyright holder of this Work)

Ok and some recent ones in no particular order:

children of the shadows, oil and metallic foil on canvas 1000x1000 mm

.....And then, thanks to the Greg Kerr workshop I attended last year, a new departure for me. I have always skirted the issue of drawing, and jumped straight into the whole delectable world of paint and colour. But Greg revealed the subtle delights of charcoal drawing and since then, I have been enjoying the occasional foray into charcoal on paper. In fact I like it so much, it is now finding its way onto my recent canvases, and I am loving explorations of paint and charcoal drawing together...  but that is a story for another day :)

 

the seasons in life

I have mentioned before that I am a cyclical painter. I cannot go to the studio for hours every day, day in and day out, and paint. Mostly, it is part of who I am. I have always worked this way, in huge bursts of productive energy followed by rest periods where I recover and build up momentum for the next creative burst.

But some of it is also due to circumstances, like the need to also be a useful member of my family, and society, and to market the art by networking. Usually this all dovetails well, and the flow of creativity continues. However there are times when one of my activities outside the studio starts becoming too demanding, and it prevents the next creative burst, until i am in an internal state of war, dying to get to the canvasses, but held back by other commitments.

I am stuck in one such war zone at the moment. On one side, I have a wonderfully exciting project beckoning.... my friend Nox Mafu, who is from PE but is living in New York while obtaining her PhD, is a wonderful poet, and we are planning a collaborative exhibition in New York, where I do a series of paintings to express the themes she covers in her poetry, and the works will be exhibited together. I can't wait to get stuck into it, but, to do it justice, I will need to be completely focussed and dedicated to the task, to let the works evolve as they go along. I want to build up a big body of work so we can handpick the ones that resonate most with both of us and form a symphony with the poetry.

On the other side, I am currently the Chairperson of our local Community Art Centre, run by a committee of volunteers, and am throwing my usual passion into transforming it from what was, essentially, a stagnant relic of the colonial era, domain of hobby painters and not taken seriously by professional artists. Along came yours truly, full of Quixotic zeal to turn it around. Make it relevant to all artists of all races, help those in the poorer areas to exhibit, source funding, get mentors among experienced artists.... draw the top artists back by raising standards... yadda yadda yadda, you get the idea. It has been a roller coaster ride of note, alternating between hair pulling frustration, and jump-up-and-down-with-delight moments of really making a difference in the lives of artists who are so talented, but whose circumstances hold them back.

One really exciting connection made during this process is John Lombardo, a New Yorker who has a heart to help deprived children living in the Townships, and street children in Central, through teaching them art. I'm sure I'll be writing more later, but he is on his way back to New York for a month or so, and will be holding an art auction there to raise funds to keep the initiative going. here is a link to the ArtWorks for Youth website and one to the Facebook AUCTION event page

So it is not just a time-sucking pointless exercise, it is hugely worthwhile, and that makes it hard to just drop the ball and retreat to my studio.


However there is light at the end of the tunnel.... we have grown to the point where we can now afford to employ the level of person who will carry the admin load, and free the committee of volunteers up to get back to our own lives, and just do the visionary steering, while the staff attends to the actual driving.

So watch this space, who knows, before long there might be fresh new work flowing from the studio... I can't wait!

All I have produced since the 4 Women exhibition in November are 2 paintings specifically painted for an open exhibition called "Book Titles", which asked artists to produce a work with the same title as a book that has had an impact on them.

The Face of the Earth

800x600mm

Based on a book I have had since I was a kid (so yes, it is an OOOOLD book) by G Drury, and it is a reference book about one of my passions in life, physical geography. Since my earliest years I have been fascinated by the forces that shape our earth, in fact, by the age of 8 I already had a great collection of rocks and minerals. I love the fact that the forces of nature follow such specific physical laws, yet can produce events of such mind-boggling power that the results are random and chaotic.... the running turps that can be controlled to a point but in the end produces its own results seemed appropriate to express this.

Thunderhead

800x600mm

An early passion for horses and horseriding was ignited when an aunt in England paid for my sister and I to take riding lessons at a very early age (I think she was only 4 at the time, and I was 6). As a result any book on the subject became a favourite, and on top of my list was the Flicka Trilogy by Mary O'Hara. Based in Wyoming, My Friend Flicka, Green Grass of Wyoming and Thunderhead were read and re-read throughout my childhood. Somehow the vivid descriptive writing amalgamated some scenes into a picture in my mind, and I really enjoyed the opportunity to try and capture the atmosphere of that imagery that has  rattled around inside me since then, resulting in this composite where Thunderhead, a magnificent young white stallion runs off into the Rocky mountains, is in a snowstorm, and sees at a distance the herd presided over by his sire, a mean and powerful old stallion known as the Albino.