Golden Hour

During the creation of this piece Renee Good and Alex Pretti were murdered by DHS agents.

Because I post frequently about my artwork but almost never about politics, I feel morally obliged to say something about my feelings regarding the state of the world. 

 My art may not show it, but I am in a state of great fear for our democracy and disdain and utter disgust with our current administration.  Politically, I am a lefty democrat who votes in every single election and attends protests (which, btw, I do not enjoy.  I would rather be doing just about anything else!)

 Very deliberately, I have chosen not to make political art. It often feels reductive to me, even when I agree with its message, and I’m more interested in addressing the complex emotional expressions of individual experience. My work is personal rather than persuasive and given that those drawn to it tend to share my sensibilities, overtly political content would likely amount to preaching to the choir. This also applies to how I engage with social media.  I rarely post political content.

 There are times, like right now, when this attitude can feel like indulgence.  For the record, I don’t think it is. People always need to attend to the full spectrum of feelings and experience, no matter the political climate.  But I felt moved to explain this in case people are wondering if what appears to be silence means I don’t care and am not acting on my beliefs.  I do, very, very much care and I do act accordingly.  I just choose to express it by voting and protesting and not in my art or on social media.

 

And now, on to the “The Golden Hour”.

...a paean to self-soothing in hard times. 

  

"Golden Hour" 31.5"x27"

 

 

Conceptual:

Never mind the fact that I ripped the original "Reynardine" window from this yellow border and was seeking to reuse it somehow rather than throw it out...

 

In Creative and Mental Growth, child psychologist Viktor Lowenfeld describes ages 7-9 as the Schematic Stage. At this time, children develop symbols for things in the world. The radiating sun is one of the most obvious examples: a circle to stand for the sun, with lines to signify light or heat. Another would be individual blades of grass growing up from the bottom line of the page used to symbolize the ground.

 

In “The Golden Hour” I used this very recognizable schema as the organizing principle to arrange doodled elements of flora.  Basically, I just wanted to create a garden of imagined images—a big theme of my work for a while now.  I can’t seem to stop and as long as I find this intriguing and inspired, I will continue.

Working sketch

 

Apropos of politics, Dear Orange Leader has forced people to choose sides when it comes to conceptualizing reality as either science facts or “alternative facts”.  As if there weren’t reason to hate the guy enough, this hits close to home for me.  There is nothing more wonderful to me than “alternative facts”. I do not like being forced to choose between subjective and objective reality.  But I suppose an object lesson in the perils of fantasy is well taken.  However, I hope people never forget the value of myth.  As I have said many times recently, expressing one’s imagination is a RADICAL ACT.  Especially when “alternative facts” are being used to enforce some kind of sick conformity with a fascist.

“The Goden Hour” is intended, as much of my work is, as a picture to get lost in the details and to reflect on how nature and imagination work in symbiosis. Is there a place in the brain where the soul and brain matter “meet”? Is there a place in the material world where that meeting becomes manifest? To me, that is the “function” of “The Golden Hour”.

 

Technical: 

TO SEE A SHORT VIDEO OF THE STAGES OF THIS PIECE IN PROGRESS, CLICK HERE!

 

The piece was created with glass enamels—red for flesh and stencil black (formerly made by Reusche) mixed together to make a brown.  I mix with water and some glycerin. No gum arabic because I am painting on a sandblasted surface.  Yes—that was one crazy stencil!  It is basically the entire image in silhouette. It took over a day to cut it by hand (Xacto #11, about 20 blades died to make this stencil) and about 30 mins to sandblast. LOL, throwing the stencil in the garbage is always a treat.

 

 I would say the piece ended up having about 5-7 firings (1250 F) all in all.  I like to engrave the fired paint!  I also use files and diamond burrs unplugged. I go back and forth between painting, firing and then engraving—5-7 times as stated.  The yellow color is actually Orange silver stain—fired right on the paint layer! So there.

The glass is a Lambert’s white opalescent on clear.  The piece will be in a lightbox which is a dammed pity because that glass does lovely things to sunlight. 

 

 

Technical+Conceptual=The Golden Hour—

I think it’s false to find meaning only in the conceptual aspect. As the maker, I certainly find myself engaged in the making 90% compared to the 10% thinking about it!  Or something like that.

The piece required an intense focus on “being in the present” with the image.  Each stroke of the liner brush (Kafka #4 and #0 script liners) was an infinite world unto itself…more or less. The downside is that’s a hard place to get to mentally, but the upside is that’s very self-soothing!

Long live the unity of mind and body.

 

Nows here's some deets!