First day of spring...

First Day of Spring, 3/20/2011

, 24 x 8 inches

This piece started over a year ago, I got to a point and stopped, I liked it, but knew it needed something more, so I hung it up near my desk, and waited for the right time to finish it.

Work in progress...one from the back log of things to finish...

Bones of the Earth, Encrusted with Lichen 3/13/2011

It's been a long time since I started this painting, it was from the summer of 2009, I liked it, but there was more I wanted to do with it, but I didn't know what...well, I took it down from the wall on Sunday morning and started slathering my bits of mat board and paper shapes with earthy tones and started splattering...it's hanging in the dining room where I can visit with it, ponder what I've done, and dream of other things to do...

My Fred and I have finished the work on our art book Elemental: Abstract Art from Two Perspectives, and set it up through Blurb on Sunday night, we're waiting for the 'proof copy' to come, as soon as we're satisfied with how it looks, I will post the link to it, get a widget up for online browsing of the little beautiful thing we've made...it is a magical time for us, so much coming together... our little gallery has another opening coming up on the 25th, there's the fundraiser, CNY Art Showcase, Rotary Club of Eastwood, Syracuse, on April 8th, to raise money for St. Joseph's Hospital and we've been selected to be on TV to promote the event! April 4th, Channel 9 WSYR, the morning program "Bridge Street"! We're going to be painting live and interviewed about what we do, how we do it, and that sort of good stuff, it's all very exciting and it feels good!

My Conversation with Georgia, 2010 (Featured on the cover!)

Lumina #2, 2008

Snowed in again...

Midnight Dreams, January 2011

Evening, Blue and Gold, 2010

I'm finally putting these two up, I have them hanging at the gallery and didn't have photos of them, so I took pictures at the gallery one night after work at long last! Midnight Dreams has never been posted before, but Evening has gone through several changes, and FINALLY, I'm satisfied with it.

Our art book project is nearly done, I'm revisiting my comments, and doing final revisions, keeping it simple and conversational rather than long blathering essays full of incomprehensible bullshit...it’s been good for me to think about what I'm doing rather than the how I'm doing it with the mediums that I'm using, and although I pretty much can explain what my paintings are about having to do with what series they're part of, Nocturne, Bones of the Earth, Blue Sky, Celestial Spring, The Ancients, and so on, I have enjoyed addressing my ideas with brief anecdotes of personal experiences, such as the music that I listen to while painting.  I listen to a lot of Beethoven, or if I'm not actually listening to the music, it's there, humming around in my head. I think my favorite bit of writing so far is the one I wrote for my little painting "The Fifth" being about Beethoven's  5th Symphony and how he was pressed to explain what it was about, Anton Shindler said that Beethoven once told him that it was "Fate knocking at the door", a student said that there was a piece of it that came from the song of a little bird, and another person piped in that the maestro would say anything to get rid of people with pesky questions...which I catch myself doing from time to time, and then later on, I'll come up with something else, I’ve had to back track through my blog and journals to double check titles and ideas, hoping that I’m not contradicting myself too much!

The Fifth, 2008

 Another Beethoven related entry is for The Edge of Night, Cavatina, a little painting on canvas board that I made one sunny afternoon while feeling perfectly content and happy, is quite the contrast from the music that I selected from one of the string quartets (5th movement of Opus 130) to name it. At the same time I painted this, I was working on my novel The Fractured Hues of White Light, it is curious how my creative endeavors to spilled over onto one another and overlapped in layers of thoughts...both pieces give me great joy, but it's odd how sometimes happiness can be painful, almost a cause for sorrow, like a longing for something that has not been and could never be...

The Edge of Night, Cavatina, 2009

This book is going to be so beautiful!

It's back to snow again after several days of rain and warm temperatures, I'm glad the wind has stopped howling in the eaves, that was very unsettling, I always forget how windy March can be...the red wing black birds have arrived in a flock, blown in by the wind I suppose! The chipmunk is above ground again, scurrying around collecting seed in his pouches, poor little thing, I watched him on the porch, snow on his whiskers, quite pitiful...and my cats know he's there, and they "wants him!" But I won't let them outside to get him!

Details, details, details...

Detail, Celestial Spring, the Phases of the Sun and Moon, 2007

Detail, Moonlight, 2009

Detail, There is more than blue going on in that sky..., 2010

Detail, Pastoral Window, 2007

Detail, Ancient Artifact, no. 3, 2010

Detail, Bones of the Earth, 2009

Detail, Celestial Spring, the Comet's Tail, 2008

Detail, A Mid-Summer Night, 2010

Detail, Mind's Eye, 2009

Detail, Ancient Artifact, Navigation, 2010

Detail, A Cold Day in July, 2007

Detail, Elemental Autumn, 2009

Detail, River of Fallen Stars, 2008

The news is...my Fred and I are in the process of creating our very first art book featuring us, of course...our paintings, a hundred images, or so...and in full color! So, I've been busy photographing and scanning, and writing about my paintings and process...it's been a good exercise in self-assessment...spending time with the art, thinking about what I want to say about what I've done...studying the details and really looking at these paintings, the big and the small, on canvas and paper...the comparison and contrast between us as artists is a visual conversation...seeing it all together in this form so far is breath-taking...it is a work in progress...I'll keep you posted...

Opening 1/28/2011

 After weeks of preparation the new show is up in our little Moonlighting Gallery...Thursday night we took some of the old and put up the new...this is what it looked like before we left at the end of the night, Suzanne has a way with putting it together...

My wall after hanging on Thursday night

The night before, after the hanging, Ken's newest painting on the easel

A grouping of my paintings in the hallway

Suzanne's wall and Ken's wife, Chris's jewelry tree

Suzanne and Ken's shared wall

Ken's wall

My Fred's wall and Suzanne's furniture...

And so the day of the opening came...I spent the day at work, doing what I do to pay the bills...

A LONNG day at work, pre-opening, my little size 6 1/2 "dogs" were "barking" ...I took a photo of my poor tired feet after a long day cataloging an incoming collection from a donor (I just completed documentation of the 100th piece.) But I gotta tell ya, the Frye's are awesome boots and soooo comfortable.

The NIGHT! It looks so pretty!

Thankfully we missed the coastal storm so the weather was good, we weren't up to our eyeballs in snow (just our knees, right?), what's there, has been there for awhile with a light dusting to make it prettier...

...and the people came, filling the space with excited voices and enthusiasm...I made a "gallery playlist" on my mini and hooked up speakers for cool tunes, Moby, Grouper, Warpaint, Blur, the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, TheWho, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Emily Barker, Florence and the Machine, Groove Armada, Imogen Heap, M83, Mistle Thrush, Artemis, Paul Simon, The Ravonettes, XX, Tracy Bonham, and Metric...just a mix...

Fun was had by all...it's a sweet little space, and we feel so fortunate to have a place to hang our work and to have the chance to invite friends and the community in to visit with us and see what we've been up to lately...everyone we meet loves the concept of "Moonlighting", we're working artists who work day jobs, we pool our resources and follow our bliss...

Moon paintings...

Setting Crescent Moon, January 9, 2011, acrylic wash, sumi paper on canvas, 4 x 4 inches

Full Moon at Dawn, January 9, 2011, acrylic wash, sumi paper on canvas, 8 x 8 inches

I did a little bit of painting this weekend, not as much as I wanted to because yesterday was a total wash out due to FMS symptoms that made me happy to tuck into bed for the day. It's just how it goes sometimes. I did move forward on a few paintings that I was stalled on, these two were my successes of the day. The little crescent moon came into being because of the moon I saw setting one night in a haze of cloud cover, it was creamy orange in the darkness...oy was that a pretty sight to see! No photos of the event...I just enjoyed looking at it rather than trying to fit it through a camera...some times it's just the experience that matters more...and I love the simplicity of it, sometimes I bog myself down with too much fussing around with throwing everything I've got into a painting and making a mess that I forget to keep it simple.

The dawn image is more of a fantasy, I wanted to use yellow ochre so bad one day and the canvas sat there being yellow ochre for quite a few days before I went at it with the blue and white...I added the full moon tonight...I might tinker with it a little more...or not, depends on how I feel about it later, but for now I'm glad to see that this little canvas has something on it that I'm happy with...it had something completely different on it previously (one of the not so satisfying pieces that I made go away!)

We're going to have a reception for our new work on January 28th at Moonlighting, so I need to try to finish up a few paintings, but looking at what I've got set aside, I have more than I thought...so no real panic to pull it together.

New Year's Eve 2010

The Childrens Moon, New Year's Eve morning

It's looking like this is my last painting of 2010, it's just a wee bit, 4 x 4 inches, part of the blue sky/children's moon series that I've been working with lately. I was noticing the moon in the morning sky for the last couple of mornings (we've been fortunate to see the sun for the first time in awhile), and I had this little painting in limbo for several weeks, only the background pleased me, not so much the moon until I made it into a crescent moon yesterday morning after I saw the little pale crescent riding high in the morning sky. I loved it immediately, but waited until today to see if I still liked it, and I do, so I signed it. and it's done. (YAY!) There are still unfinished paintings on my work table left to do, but they are going to wait for another time.

I've been a busy girl this year, painting, drawing, making photographs, publishing another book, and opening a gallery with our friends...(much of this I mused over at my other blog Upstate Girl http://upstategirl-laurajwryan.blogspot.com/ I posted a few of my favorite photos there)...it's been a good year along with the usual ups and downs of life, I can't complain...it's all good.

I will post my most favorite paintings of 2010 here...

Full Moon, 2010 (The one I'm glad didn't sell.)

If Not, Winter, 2010

Nocturne, Winter New Moon, 2010

Bones of the Earth, 2010

Ancient Mechanism, 2010

A part of the "shared painting" project with Ken Nichols at Moonlighting Gallery

 There is more than just blue going on in that sky...2010

The Childrens Moon, November 7, 2010

Winter Moon, November 7, 2010

Has anyone noticed the overwhelming color...blue? I guess it's my favorite.

Defining art moments of 2010 (at least the ones I could find pictures of!):

Our Wall at The Delavan Gallery, April 2010

June, 2010

A full house with me in the middle of it

The Sign is UP!

Happy New Year!