The New Perch!

This is my new perch (when it is ready):


My new nest aka My Good Workspace will be up there beneath the ridgepole:


This magpie will look at this every day.

my response to a friend's encounter with modern art that she didn't like and didn't get

i am an artist. i know what i like. i know what is art. there is a lot of 'art' that is not "ART". we all know "ART" when we see it, feel it, because it carries that certain unidentifiable: the transcendent.

then there is art that requires a conversation: you know it is art, you don't know why, you know you don't understand, and yet, something gets stirred, one finds one thinks about it, one goes back to question again,

and then there is art that you don't get right away, and then one day far into another future, something happens. the art pops into your head and you go AHA.

and then there is art that is just plain ugly. and that is it:

"there is no such thing as good or bad art.

there is just the beautiful and the ugly."
(a paraphrase of some famous artist, the name momentarily forgotten.)


look at rembrandt's side of butchered beef. it is a horrible subject. it is one of the most beautiful paintings in the world.

Audrey Flack said (again a paraphrase and rumination on her writings in "Art and Soul"): "Art is an energy exchange. the artist with the subject, the artist with materials, the artist with self. then the art goes out into the world and people view the painting. again another energy exchange. (remember physics? anything observed closely is changed) perhaps what makes Rembrandt resonate is that there have been so many viewings, so many energy exchanges, the work vibrates and resonates."

wow...i am surprised i have so much to say. thank you for allowing me to use up some of your white space to write. i think i will copy and paste this to my journal.

deb.

ps: in feng shui anything that is pointed, phallic, are energy daggers, not conducive to a healthy living or work environment. what if someone walked into them? i once got snarled by a snarley curley copper wire wall sculpture thing. not good. not ART, just violent.

St. Peter's Windows continue

Today I noticed that this warehouse is being re-habbed, or overhauled. There is a dumpster outside these three windows. The windows are getting broken. The dumpster is filling. There is a bus parked outside one of the bay doors. The school bus looks as if it is someone's home. I think this warehouse used to be known as the FBI Bldg. Duh, as a kid I always wondered why our Federal Bureau was in Gloucester. Duh, it was a family logo. I think it was Frontiero Bros. Inc.

UP-DATED: Thank you Joey! This is the former GMF building, next door to the FBI building.



I'm just a Gloucester girl with lots of memory and the desire to document my soujourn here.

I want to produce paintings based on these photos in reverse glass with gold and silver leaf.

I am in need of windows to paint on.

Ferrini, beginning

I've had images stuck in my head of the first time I met Vincent Ferrini, almost 30 years ago at a party in East Gloucester. Two white hands came towards my head followed by a blurry white face with the words 'moon face', then a laugh and he disappeared into the dark. This artwork is the beginning of my attempt to document the various intereactions I had with him.

The painting is an 18x24" piece of glass, drawn on the reverse with white china marker and a Sharpie, then layered with egg glue and silver leaf. The egg glue keeps the silver from turning into a mirror. A mirrored layer will be applied after color is introduced and the shapes are refined.

I received an email yesterday that there is grant money available for 6 artists to do public art works based on Vincent's and/or other Cape Ann poets' writing. One must be a member of SeArts to apply. My work is not based on his writing, it is a visual response to his physical 'i am everything' .

I am not a member of SeArts (tight budget: $45 is food and gas for a few days! ouch!), so I will I not apply for the grant.

I will make the work.

Other images:

Vincent driving his red car to Magnolia (I often found him in front of me when I went to my studio).

Vincent battling dry weeds in a little weedy patch in downtown Gloucester (it no longer exists).

The clearest visions: his hands, hat, sunglasses and a jagged little mouth which he held kind of straight and tense when he spoke.

Flint Public Library

15 children (age 8-15) will learn to draw next week at the Flint Public Library. I will teach them how to see via the drawing of the portrait.
Tomorrow I will go to the Art Supply and purchase 15 set-ups for children, 1 set-up for me:

Set-ups to include:

Masonite Backing Board
Good Quality Drawing Pad
Ebony Pencil
White Rubber Erasers
Clamps

the size will have to be no larger than 18x24, and that might be too big. the room has tables. ugh. am thinking about how the children can spread out to work without keeping us all confined to a very tight cubicle. draw in the hallway? use windows as easels? chair set-ups will be better.

the library is in a cramped temporary location. the new addition is almost complete and the library will return home to its entire collection within the near future.

back to the space constraint,

chairs and hinged lapboards. very inexpensive to construct with tape and masonite boards. very good.

add tape (artist and duct) to list and large drawing pad for me.

4 hours to teach the construction of the head.

I asked the librarian to place 2 objects on her desk: a tennis ball and a square box, with this question:

What shape is the human head?
put the answers in the box.
sort of a guessing game, will read answers at class opening.

Bag Lady

I'm constantly moving stuff, from home to the studio, from the studio to home, from here to work, from here to various house sits. I will be moving my home again, within the month. This will be my 4th move in 5 years. We finished moving the day before EB went away to college. EB will graduate next month from Maine College of Art and return to find her mom in another 'new' homesite. This one will have room for me to move my studio back home. I need private space to work in, and financially it makes sense to pay only one rent, and let the studio and its attendant expenses go. My current studio situation has been cooperative and storefront for more than 10 years; it will be nice to work without other 'eyes' on my work. +I will get to weed out the work.

So, what's in the bags?

upper left: personal stuff: purse, glasses, gloves, etc.
upper right: hand dyed rice paper
midlle right: wet supplies: thinners, paints, etc.
bottom center: the sorted lottery project supplies
middle left: dry supplies, pencils, brushes, supports, silver leaf

Le Beauport: Gloucester MA

Want to see the Gloucester sunset? or sunrise?
Here's the harbor cam (turned off at night)
hurry, hurry, hurry, before you miss the light.

http://www.01930.com

and here's another facing west in Lane's cove:

http://www.lanescove.us/webcam/

the art and artist are one

"Spoons"
this is the reverse of a mirror. i carved through the coating to reveal the metal, then painted with oil. reflection superimposed in photo.