Thursday, July 16, 2009
A New LUNA is Emerging
No, I haven't gone to sleep like Rip Van Winkle since my spring courses at PafA ended and we had an Open Studio Exhibition here in my apartment. I've been painting on my own - some stuff just for fun, some paintings in neighborhood coffeehouses, Rittenhouse Square, and of Independence Hall. I also took a course from Neil di Sabito, on drawing hands and feet, and will post some of those drawings as soon as I get them out of my camera. Ditto for some of those coffeehouse paintings.
But my biggest project at the moment is based on the Moon, of all things. I'm preparing to enter a juried exhibition on the theme PAPER WORKS, as in "works that utilize paper as a medium, including: art books, paper sculpture, paper-mache sculpture, assemblages, collages, constructions and installations; not just works on paper".
Ummmmm. So, what to do? I usually work - ie, paint - on canvas or board and that won't fly.
Gotta get inventive. So: It came to me while I was daydreaming on the train while going out to visit Patricia. I would paint the four phases of the Moon as Luna, picking up on the feminine aspect of this celestial body. The Woman in the Moon. For this, the paintings would be on paper plates with the shadow portion of the phases treated as black hair fashioned from paper mache made from cocktail napkins. Sound too macho? Consider the sexual demographics of the average buyer of paper plates/cocktail napkins, and I rest my case. Finally, the paintings will have to be mounted on a rotating box to emphasize Luna's ever-repeating cycles. Voila - I now have an CONSTRUCTION, and the materials/process provide lots of opportunity to engage in supporting Artspeak!
Meanwhile, it has gotten me thinking about - and painting - other ways to depict my Luna. They're fun, and I'll post some of those too. Again, when I get them out of the camera.
