Dream Woman Child

The woman with the sad story and I met recently. We agreed that I should do a second version of the painting in which she is lying in bad with a small child. This painting does not have a Native American influence, but I think it might be better. What do you think?

Free

“A free spirit takes liberties even with liberty itself.”
- Francis Picabia

The Prison Ship

A wretched prison ship plies deep blue waters under full sail. The sails themselves are the laws and words under which the men, who are transported in the Ship, are held.

Mermaids cavort among sunken treasure, compasses, ropes and rigging. The prisoners can neither see, nor can they take pleasure in their presence around the Ship.

During the American Revolution, prisoners were held in ships by the British. In fact, more American prisoners of war during the American Revolutionary War died on British prison ships than died in every battle of the war combined – approximately 11,500 men and women in New York Harbor alone, it is estimated. They died of overcrowding, contaminated water, starvation and disease. So numerous were the deaths that each morning the British jailers would greet the prisoners with, “Rebels, turn out your dead!”

Given those early sacrifices, we should continue to be mindful of this country’s laws with regards to those being held prisoner today, no matter what the circumstances.

In addition, a prison is a metaphor for many states of mind and emotion, not only physical prisons.

This painting incorporates many elements which I molded from objects around my studio, including the female torsos on the three mermaids and the thick rope along the water’s edge. They are made of gel medium, using the technique I described earlier in this blog. I enjoyed the poor casting of the women, because I thought they looked like weathered figureheads and fraying rope.



Acrylic paint, silk, 22k gold leaf and leather on paper.

Footnote: After the war, the British Commander in charge of the Prison Ships was brought up on war crimes charges and was subsequently hanged.

E Pele E Pele

I must have inadvertently painted a portrait of Kamapua'a when I painted my Tiki God. Because life has suddenly become interesting on the far side of the world.

It seems Madame Pele has awakened at Halemaumau Crater – the very crater where we made our perfume offering to the goddess. There is a new gas vent, which has formed and is glowing red and incandescent at night. This is why we were warned to keep our distance (and why we obeyed.) It is the first significant activity at the summit since the early 1980’s.

Lava is flowing once more into the ocean. If only She could have done this while we were there! All we could do was offer Her perfume. (She did give us back a rainbow.)

A savage (and very respectful) chant for Madame Pele!

Chant Text (Hawaiian):

E Pele e Pele ka`uka`ulï ana
E Pele e Pele hua`ina hua`ina
E Pele e Pele `oni luna `oni luna
E Pele e Pele `oni lalo `oni lalo
E Pele e Pele a`o kuli pe`e nui

Ha`ina ka inoa no Pele la ea
Eala eala ea, a i e a

He inoa no Pele

Chant Text (English):

O Pele o Pele, moving along
O Pele o Pele, bursting forth
O Pele o Pele, moving upward
O Pele o Pele, moving downward
O Pele o Pele, creeping, hiding your big knees
In the name of Pele
Tra la la

In the name of Pele

From A to Zola

"I am an artist… I am here to live out loud." ~ Emile Zola

Your Daily Tiki God

This painting is really just for fun.

I spent the day molding bits and pieces of interesting stuff around the studio, in preparation for future collage works. I even took two molds of my hands in two very different poses. That was tough, given the fact that the only other person in my studio was my dog, and he can't help me in these projects.

By the end of the afternoon I had tiny female torsos, horse heads, bits of rope and shells and more coins. And the two hands. I'll have to see how they come together later.

Then I had some time before having to return home, so I did this little painting. It reminds me of the shark gods one sees in Hawaii.

Acrylic paint, velvet and abalone shell on paper. 5 x 10" (13 x 25cm.)

The Moment is Near...

"I believe that the moment is near when, by a procedure of active paranoic thought, it will be possible to systematize confusion and contribute to the total discrediting of the world of reality."

- Salvador Dali

The Stain

I made the coins in this painting a few days ago – when I put up the description of how I was able to cast them. And in the meantime I glued some odd things together onto this sheet of Arches paper.

So does this count as a “one day” painting? It probably doesn’t matter, but I worked on this from 11 am until 3 pm today and was able to complete it in that time.

There are many stains on this nation’s history and the current situation is hardly the first. Slavery which was allow to continue after the new country decided that we were all born with certain inalienable rights was certainly one of the earliest. Often we have had a difficult time reconciling our stated ideals with our realities.

This young woman stands naked among the gold and silver and the scattered tea. Through her face are red and white stripes of what will in time become her country. The playing card refers to the Stamp Act mentioned in the gazette below it, but it also plays on an old ethnic slur.

Speaking of stains (and these are literally tea stains where they aren’t paint) I cut open Tazo tea bags and used them in the painting. For all the pretentious copy on the box, Tazo tea is almost undrinkable and is good only for such applications as you see here, as far as I am concerned. And so it appears here in the only important role it will ever play.

Drink Twinings of London. Or Black Pearl by Lipton. They’ll do right by ye.

Painting is acrylic paint, cotton, 22K gold and black tea on paper.

I'm Weaving Now

As a snowstorm swirled and raged outside the house last night I finished work produced on my new Colonial Loom, purchased recently from Williamsburg.

A few weeks ago my son came home from art class with a crude cardboard loom on which he was to make some simple basic weaving patterns. Intrigued, I tried my hand at it and found it satisfying.

When I saw the beginner’s loom at Williamsburg, I decided to get it, This one was very basic and fairly small, made by Historical Folk Toys in Indiana, a company which specializes in toys and home craft items which have roots that date back, in some cases, to prehistoric times. You can learn traditional games, Native American crafts, historical dolls, quilting,weaving, spinning or learn to play simple early musical instruments.

The company also provides some historical background for the products they sell. For instance, I learn that I am being quite the rebel when I do my own weaving... Back in Colonial times, it was against British law to weave one's own fabrics, since all colonists were expected to buy their goods already made from England. According to Historical Folk Toys:

"Early American colonists wove with flax and cotton even though weaving was against British law. Unfinished flax and cotton were supposed to be sent to England and the colonists were expected to buy the finished goods, such as fabric, from England. England would not allow their colonists to import sheep or to even have wool! Sheep were eventually brought to America from other countries allowing for the production of wool threads for weaving..."

This weaving is very soft, using acrylic yarn from JoAnn Fabrics in some pretty, seaside colors. It is too bad the beautiful sea-green color didn’t show up. Amd yes, the black band across the top is a color, not just a background. I love black and everything sings off it.

Since I am so new to weaving I am not certain what I will do with this or any pieces I produce in the future. But I am sure something will come to me.

To Coin a Phrase

In recent years, for the sake of visual interest, word play and a touch of reality, I have begun to add heavily textured elements to my paintings. I love to find beads, fabrics and printed matter, which will add instant recognition of Time and Place to the work.

There are two problems with this approach. One is that I often have a very limited supply of whatever it is that I am using at the time. And so if my thoughts continue down a certain road, I cannot continue to use the very same beads, or other found objects for very long. This is interruptive to my train of thought.

The other problem is that many of the elements in which I am interested are quite heavy. I am using strong paper and strong glues, but I am still very limited to objects which will not weigh down my paper unduly, or to objects which do not have too much three dimensional qualities, or else scanning and framing will eventually become problematic.

While in Beaufort viewing the Blackbeard exhibit, I happened upon some reproduction coins of the American colonial period. I was interested in the possibility of using the coins as collage elements in future paintings, but given the fact that I would like to really be able to pile on the coins and in light of the price of the coins, it didn’t seem immediately practical. I bought a selection anyway as a thought was forming in my mind…

I frequently use gel medium to adhere various pieces of old jewelry and so on to my paintings and I knew it could be manipulated into high impasto areas. I wondered if it could also be cast. If it could, then I could add as many coins as I wanted to my paintings and still have lightness and flexibility as well at the end.

Upon returning home I looked up the idea but found nothing on the web to assure me that gel medium could be cast. But I did find a product called Amazing Mold Putty .

It consists of two types of soft, pliable mold element which must be mixed together thoroughly, somewhat like epoxy, except that it is safe to the touch. It can also be purchased in bulk.

Once the putty was thoroughly mixed, I rolled it flat and pressed my coins into it. I left them there for the prescribed amount of time – about 25 minutes.

The mold easily released the coins and there was no residue left on them upon removal.

See what a beautifully detailed impression it makes?

The next day I experimented with just three of the coin impressions by filling them with my heavy bodied gel medium and allowing them to dry overnight.

When I very easily removed the dried gel medium from the mold putty, I had a beautiful impression in the gel.

The gel “coin” is light and flexible.


I painted each coin with a dark black-brown mix of acrylic paint and allowed that to dry. Then I coated them lightly with gold and silver respectively, just allowing the brush to glide over the surface in such a way as to catch the details and highlight them.

Here are pictures of the coins I made next to the original reproduction coins.


Now the coins can be trimmed or not, and glued down onto paper or canvas as collage elements while hardly adding any weight at all. They will remain as flexible as the acrylic paint around them, because they actually are only a layer of paint.

Such realistic touches will add authenticity to my paintings at the same time as a visual dimension. While I am perfectly capable of painting almost any illusion, in certain kinds of artworks such real items can be far more interesting and telling. The coins you see me produce here are the ones I used in the previous painting of the Mistress and the Stray Bay Horse.

Now I am in the middle of attempting the entire “pile” of coins.

Perhaps they will serve to hearken the mind to sunken treasures partly covered with sand and other bits of flotsam and jetsam. Now… exactly what other flotsam and jetsam? Hmmmm….

Historical note: The Spanish dollar (piece of eight) was legal tender in the early American colonies and in the US until 1857. It was by far the most common coin of Colonial times. The textured edge of the coin existed in order to prevent unscrupulous persons from scraping off the silver undetected.

The Mistress and the Stray Bay Horse

Of course I own an American Revolution-era mob cap. Doesn’t every self-respecting woman own one?

Visitors to Colonial Williamsburg may recognize the advertisement contained within this painting as one that comes from a replica of the June 1766 Virginia Gazette. The Gazette is filled with the news of the day, but it is the advertisements of land for sale and rewards for stray horses and runaway slaves which catch the eye most.

The announcement of the stray or stolen bay hourse reminded me of a story – a very short story – which I once illustrated. That tale told of a bay horse which ran away from his own story, in order not to share the same fate as the family chicken and the family pig.

I think that very same bay horse ran from that story to this story and now has run away again. I wonder where he will end up this time?

The Mistress in this story is obviously quite well off, since she is offering a rather substantial reward for the recovery of her bay horse. She offers 50 shillings for the return of her horse and if stolen, £10 if the thief is convicted. That would be, I believe, the equivalent of about $2000. - today.

The advertisement reads:

“Strayed or stolen from Warwick, the 27th of May last, a large likely bay horse, with a small star in his face, a hanging mane and switch tail, shod before, carries his head very high, paces remarkably well, and was in very good order. Whoever brings the said horse to me at Warwick, or gives information where I may get him again, shall have 50 s. reward; and if stolen, for apprehending the thief, and bringing him to justice, 10 l.”

The Mistress is painted on fine wallpaper and a fresh broadside advertising the latest goods from London. She is quite accustomed to the clink of the coins she keeps close to her bosom.

Acrylic paint, seashells, tea bag, beads and feathers on Arches paper.