Bath House Reception

Yesterday morning I spent on trash duty, hiking and cleaning up debris at Spring Creek. There were about twelve of us, some with dogs. Both my dogs came along and had a big time since it was a combination of hiking and swimming for them. We were all tired at the end of the afternoon and I fell asleep on the couch and woke up just in time to get to the reception.

Big crowd at the Bath House last night for the opening reception of Some Like It Hot, an exhibit of encaustic artworks by my local group, Texas WAX/Dallas. There's a concurrent show, also quite good, of women printmakers.

I bought a number of plastic containers with the idea of testing them out as molds for cast resin. I haven't perfected my process and it makes me crazy. Especially when I continue to design installations including cast elements. I'll be pouring samples today to determine what works and what doesn't. I'm not looking forward to it since it's a toxic and messy process. Oh well.

Women Impressionists

The featured show at the Museum at the Legion of Honor is women impressionists. I am not that fond of old art, but I'm enthralled by Mary Cassatt. I took my time examining her work, and let the crowds flow around me. I was in the zone. Walking out the front door of the museum headed towards the car, my eye was drawn to the line of surf now visible with the clearing of the fog. And there it was -- the deep orange tint of the Golden Gate bridge. I've seen it so many times, yet I'm still in awe.

The Dahlia Garden is in full bloom in Golden Gate Park. There was a handsome young photographer with a tripod setup zooming in on some macro shots, but the breeze stirred the flower heads. We started talking, and long story short, he's a kayaker and we're heading out together on Monday to Monterrey and Elkhorn Slough where there's a large otter population. Should be fun.

The De Young Museum has a Chihuly exhibit, and I've long been a fan of his organic blown glass forms. Some things were reminiscent of his installation at the Botannical Garden in Miami a couple years ago. Actually, I think the gardens were better than the austere interior of a museum to show off his work. Still, I'm glad I went to see show.

Painting Again

It's been awhile since I've actually painted. I've been too busy at the computer conceptualizing (which is equally important).


I'm painting today, but it's not really a good thing. I had painted the abstract above, then took it to get transparencies and a scan. The scan was terrible. I didn't know how terrible, since I no longer had the original painting. So I processed it as best as I could, and printed the giclee in three 44"w x 60"h panels. Then four coats of varnish.

Once it was delivered and compared to the original painting, whoa - the blue color was way off. So off it went to the designer for approval. She liked the blue color fine, but did not like the shading of the curvy swirls. So today I am painted those swirls white with a pearlized finish. It's not easy. Takes three coats of paint. And I guess I'll have to varnish again when I'm done. I have gesso all over me, and I've had to be very careful to not get paint where it doesn't belong. aaaack!

Tomorrow is a new day, however, and my friend Helen is coming to town from Berkeley. She's here for this weekend's conference, the College Art Association and the Women's Caucus for Art. And Friday night there are lots of gallery events, including my own show with TexasWAX.

Reading Things Wrong

I made a mistake. Joanne Mattera will not be at the meeting of the Texas WAX group today. She has promised, however, to stop by our exhibition next Friday night at CAMP, 2631 Commerce St. Suite B, Dallas, TX 75226, from 6-8. Come see the show of Texas WAX artists!

I'm up to my creative eyeballs in work. This is the cerebral part, not hands-on, but brain-on. Have two new local projects looking for art. One is a project I've already got the PO for, and it's all design work, for a 3d installation piece with almost 30 components. That's the kind of project I stress over, because I am doing all the design, in multiple mediums, and have to arrange each piece to coordinate with every other element. Things like this always make me crazy, but it's so satisfying when it's all done and on the wall.

And resin is haunting me again, in the project I just mentioned, and also another one. There are fifteen pieces of cast resin, and they want a cleat embedded in the back for hanging. Yikes, have to do a sample to see if the two plastics are compatible.

Who would have ever thought that being an "artist" could be so demanding. Jeez! (I love it!)

Missing the Forest for the Trees

Sometimes I get so busy I completely forget what I'm doing. Case in point, did you know that I joined a brand new group of encaustic artists here in North Texas? I missed the first meeting, and Saturday is the second meeting. There's also a photography convention on Saturday and I had signed up for an all day workshop on enhancing photos using Photoshop and Painter. When Deanna Wood, founder of our new wax group announced that guru encaustic artist and author Joanne Mattera would be here for our meeting I promptly canceled my computer class.

One of my goals has long been to get more involved in my local art community and this is a great way to get started. Texas WAX (including me) will be holding an exhibition next week in collaboration with the weekend meetings of CAA and Women's Caucus for Art. My friend Cheryl McClure will also be showing. It will be nice to see her, too. We last met up when Nita Leland was in town for a workshop. The three of us had dinner.

I've been printing most of the day. I will be SO glad to deliver these huge prints (4' x 5') on Monday. That gives me the weekend for the ink to cure and three coats of varnish.

Lost out on a project this week, but it was so fast I barely noticed. I think it was a 5 day turnaround between the day I submitted concepts to today when I found out we lost. That's amazing in a world where I have submitted for projects that are under construction and won't even be completed until next year! Historically the hotel business has a long lead time. Unless somebody messed up and there's an art emergency. I've certainly benefited by that a few times.

Got another hit of that "is this my destiny" question when I found out that a new project is a local Embassy Suites. If it's the one on Stemmons, that would be too coincidental, since I did stained glass ceilings for that hotel in the early eighties. And I didn't even live here then. I really must be in my groove. Those years as a commercial real estate paralegal and contract administrator were just a side path that brought me right back here. Funny world.

Entering Shows

Considering the nice comments I received about Blue Forest (which you can see in its final form here), I have decided to enter it in the Texas Visual Artists Association exhibition "Works on Paper". I thought it was appropriate since it's painted on a tissue paper background.

I don't usually enter shows, I've done only two or three in my whole career, but things are changing and I have to start somewhere.


While I'm at it, I will be entering the the International Encaustic Artists juried exhibition with "Itch", pictured here.

Ugh. I haven't been taking my thyroid medication, and today have a serious reminder. I did drag myself to the gym this morning, and that usually gets me started, but it didn't work today. I just want to lie down and take a nice nap - which is totally out of character for me.