Archives for posts with tag: reflections

This painting is called “Who is scared of the bogeyman”.

I noticed I have a three tier approach to my artworks. I am hesitant to show my paintings publicly, as I use the painting process to solve problems. The act of painting decelerates my speed. The resulting images are often quite scary. I personally don’t mind their scariness, but each and every image reminds me of the issue I dealt with at the time.

My photography and composite imaging is different.  I use it to explore moods as well as my surrounding and I don’t have a problem showing the pictures, as long as I am reasonably happy with the outcome.

My puppets on the other hand, have a life of their own and I can’t shut up about them (: Even though they are very much part of me, they also reveal the least about myself. Throughout history, puppets were allowed to say what they wanted. I like that! I can always blame the character. I love their fun and their cheekiness. My paintings are no fun.

Further to my Easter post (Up to your imagination) – now see what happend!

The puppy is finally finished. It has been sitting in my studio from before the launch and I only needed to put the skin on. It was good that it took me a while, as in the meantime I came up with the story and chose the skin accordingly. Puppy is eternally in love with Skeleton Edeltraut. But the love is not returned. This will be a big part in the sequel to Hermit’s Web. Edeltraut is still going out with Monster and  cute little Puppy turns into a stalker.

I told some people the story already and was surprised how few got it that Edeltraut is the logical choice for Puppy’s desire.

I am reluctant to put my paintings on this blog as they can be pretty scary. Painting is an amazing leveller of moods for me.

It’s not so much the outcome, but rather the process I am enjoying. I go through all possible emotions while painting. When I am reasonably happy, I have to hide the work for a while – otherwise it will get painted over the next day.

Last week was frantic and I am so looking forward to finishing one of my puppets today. The Sad Puppy.  It only needs its skin.

 

For a period I explored chess pieces to work through a very unpleasant experience in my younger years. Needless to say, the black king featured very strongly. I came across one of the prints recently and was looking through my files today to find the electronic version. But they seemed to have disappeared. I think it must be good on ten years, and a few computers ago when I worked on this…

This image here will have to do. It is from the same period. I used this one in a book before, therefore it survived and was easy to find.

When I went through my chess phase, I began to wonder: How come that the queen is realistically the strongest piece on the board and can do all the moves… While the king, on the other hand, needs protection from all his men and is effectively very weak. He can only move one square at the time. Now, how old is the game?

A very nice side effect of this book project is: my skeletons seem to have moved on. I always thought I am good friends with my skeletons, but now that they are gone, I don’t miss them much.

 

 

Okay, I have uploaded Hermit’s Web onto fishpond. But of course I haven’t read the fine print when I originally investigated how to sell the book. The title has to be included in the Nielson Book database, before it can be sold via fishpond. I have filled in the form for Nielson last Saturday and emailed it off. When I uploaded the book info onto fishpond today I read, that it can take up to f o u r! weeks to be processed by Nielson and then another two weeks before fishpond actually starts selling it. OMG, in this time I can write the sequel.

Back to plan B. I need to get our own web page up-dated.

The three images I have put up today are from a series called “Gallery of ancestral portraits”. They are layered and scratched on wood blocks and are sitting on my mantelpiece. When I am painting without intention I always end up with sad faces.

 

 

It’s late again and I am still at work. I have to think of my dad, who passed away a long time ago. He had this saying: “In the evening the lazy ones get busy”. How true!

However, evening is the quiet time, when nobody interrupts you and you get much more done than during the day. I have finished 3 of my 4 tasks. The one I haven’t finished (actually I haven’t even started) is the GST returns for the tax man. Why am I not surprised. Unfortunately that is the one task I really should have done and it means I have to come back tomorrow and do it. buggeridoo!

It’s Friday again and looking back at the week it wasn’t a particularly successful one. I’ve set out to do all these things and I ended up with half finished jobs, jobs not started, as well as having done things that needn’t to be done this week and also dealt with stuff originally not anticipated. To cut a long story short, my to do list hasn’t changed much since Monday, but I haven’t been idle this week either. I guess that’s life.

Today I have four things to finish on my to do list and I hope I will have completed them by tonight. So, let’s not procrastinate further and get on with it.

Moving on

I was hoping, once the launch is over, I can slow down a bit. But I can’t. I have no idea what drives me at the moment and where the energy is coming from. I have two new photographic projects, I would like to embark on, though the puppets are still requiring all of my attention. I am currently putting a proposal together for an exhibition in a gallery and I am also about to send a couple of books to the mothership (that is the newspaper the puppets are made of). I will labour over that particular letter for a while, as I will have to write it in German. Even though German is my mother tongue, it won’t come easy as I haven’t written a letter in my native language for yonkers. I don’t even know the proper format anymore.

I still have to update our website, but I think I will capitulate here. Down the corridor is a company that does web sites and they will be able to solve the technical problems much quicker and more elegantly than I ever could. This will free me up to do things I really like to do. Time is an extremely precious commodity… But what am I telling you (:

I’ve noticed, that my posts don’t get many likes at the moment… Sorry if I bore you, what I am writing here is more like a diary, basically for me to remember in a year’s time what it was like. I am also writing for my students as they will have to put themselves on the line once they will have completed their studies. I hope sharing what I go through will help. As one artist friend of mine told me: “When you go out there and exhibit, you are nailing your heart to the wall.” I don’t know if these were his own words, but they stuck!