Tower Arch

This is the finished painting of Tower Arch, oil/canvas, 40" x 30". It is the largest completed work to date in my Block Series. I also have two more larger works on the easel right now that I hope to share with you in the next week or two. I'm excited to start having some larger pieces to show, because a selection of paintings from the Block Series will hang in two upcoming exhibitions this spring and summer (more details to come). Most of my work is in the 12" x 16" to 18" x 24" range, so breaking through the 2 feet marker is very exciting for me. I have always believed that the expressionistic, abstracted still lifes in this series would benefit from larger scale. There is something more monumental about a block construction when the blocks are larger than life. Scattered cubes, balls, arches, etc. on the floor are scaled for children, not adults. When these building materials are inflated in a painting hung at eye level for the viewer, nuances of form and meaning come to light.

Tower Arch was inspired by a photo that my sister, Paige, sent me of a similar construction. It was built by a student in her pre-kindergarten class during block playtime at school. On a regular basis, Paige sets aside time for her students to create with a variety of building materials. They can stack and pile, line up, bury in sand...whatever their imaginations cook up! As basic as these blocks may seem to the adult eye, they are a rich world of exploration for children. Two cubes, a rectangle, and an arch become a house where "baby sleeps" and "Mommy cooks supper" and a couple of cylinders and some rectangles becomes a fire truck. When I saw the photo of a stack of arches bending precariously in one direction, I knew I had found the subject for my first larger scale block painting. Tower Arch is a study in color. I incorporated more hues in it than in previous paintings to focus on the brightness of play and creativity. The intensity of the colors is all the more striking against the strong white background.

Leaving the Party Early (Bad Night)

Leaving the Party Early (Bad Night), oil/canvas, 12" x 16" concerns issues of loss, acceptance, and belonging - concepts that I see my young daughter already experiencing, even if she doesn't much understand them, yet. It is also a meditation on the painting process, especially the role of balance in composition. As a painter, there are many elements I'd like to include in a painting, but sometimes for the sake of a strong composition I'll eliminate one or more of these elements. The sketched, transparent object on the left is an homage to all of the "rough drafts" we create and discard in the process of making art.

In Progress - Tower Arch

This is the underpainting for one of my recent works called Tower Arch. Sometimes I enjoy starting a painting on a white canvas, but other times I find it helpful to "tone" the canvas a neutral color. I typically use raw umber thinned with mineral spirits for this purpose. Whether starting from a toned or white canvas, I often use a simple monochromatic underpainting to work through form and composition choices and to define values for use in subsequent layers. Lightness and darkness become more difficult to articulate once local color is applied, so an underpainting can serve as a guide on which to build more colorful layers.

Portrait in Blue

Portrait in Blue, oil/panel, 16" x 12", 2009 evolved out of the same sessions as Tango with Teacup. I enjoy creating texture in oil paintings, and the wood panels used in these paintings provided ideal surfaces for experimentation with palette knives, rubbing and scraping techniques, and other kinds of paint manipulation.

In Portrait in Blue I used a traditional still life composition of inanimate objects grouped on a table-like foreground. However, the comfortably familiar arrangement of objects yields to unexpected qualities in the painting's subjects. While the tall cylinder could be construed as brand-new, the other objects have a bit more personality: the ball is somewhat punched in, the teacup is balancing on the weight of a bent handle, and the little cylinder tucked underneath is more ethereal than real. Note also the intentional crowding of objects with strong directional lighting and a limited palette - these choices are an homage to one of my favorite artists, Giorgio Morandi.

The idea for this painting emerged while I was thinking about family portraits and the ways in which we arrange ourselves for these public displays of unity. I imagined how a menagerie of objects might present themselves to others if given the opportunity. Portrait in Blue hints that balls, blocks, and teacups have a few stories to tell when they're not primping for a photo.

Tango with Teacup

Tango with Teacup, oil/panel, 16" x 12", 2009 explores the relationship between objects and outside forces. I created lots of movement in this painting - a dipping block tower, a quivering moon-like orb, and scratches and rubbings throughout. Childhood objects bruise, chip, and crush through use, gather dust from neglect, wiggle atomically, and stack, crash, and roll at the hands of little toddler architects everywhere. Much like her toys, Stella will develop a patina over time: shaped by her own actions, but also by forces beyond her control.

Works in Progress

Just a quick note to say that I have several paintings in progress right now, including the large one pictured here. Most of my work to date in this series consists of small studies and mid-size paintings. Now I'm excited to ramp up the scale of my block art. The larger canvases will emphasize the monumental nature of block towers, in particular, and also increase awareness of these small childhood objects that are easily overlooked.

To keep things lively around here, I will be posting about works in progress in addition to notes about completed paintings. Thanks for looking!

Lineup

Lineup, oil/canvas, 12" x 24" is another painting inspired by a recent talk with my sister, Paige, about block play and children in her classroom. In this one I chose to focus exclusively on cylinders, omitting the ball of its predecessor, Lineup with Ball. Also, this time I flooded the cylinders with light, washing out much of the color and emphasizing the contrast between dark and light areas. The remaining objects are almost skeletal. I enjoyed observing and capturing the subtle differences in form among seemingly identical objects.

The repetition inherent in a line of blocks reminds me of the act of learning. Children (and adults, for that matter) need to complete a task many times before mastering the associated skill. These "lineup" paintings celebrate the individual act of placing one cylinder next to another as much as the glory of a final construction.