chunks of goodness

not long after moving here i noticed these reflectors alongside the curbs on the two busy streets here in huntsville. i picked one up with a look of glee and incredibly tod actually deterred me from scooping it into my backpack. he thought them 'junk'. give us another month of walking around, looking for goodies to pick up for art and suddenly the tod 'got it'. bump it up to now and i've collected just over 20 of these. (just got two more since taking this picture) i love them. i actually go out on the bike just to go look for them. they are golden nuggets. maybe a wall of them some day? it almost doesn't matter if i do or don't do anything with them, right now it is the chase. i feel as happy as if i found a $5 bill fluttering on the ground, they make me THAT happy.

Redwood Assemblage #40

i have to say this one makes me quite happy. its fun and spunky and like a little child. so far there is no end in sight though i have stopped for a few days to just let this stuff 'rest'. it remains an exciting challenge to keep creating these wood assemblages from such a sparse chunk of materials. bits and pieces are what i have access to, long thin strips and little chunky rectangles. i wish i could find some larger pieces to cut larger triangle ends, but i gets what i get. and i make do with it.

i declare friday: new art find day

i've been spending a little more time looking at art, and in particular sculpture. last week i was at the sam houston library and my hands quickly found a large book by artist Barbara Chase Ribould. finding her work online hasn't been easy. the images are small, scarce and what i could find on Barbara has more to do with her authoring books. hmmm.. too bad. the works in her art book were fascinating, not sure i've ever seen that type of work. i found a link online that is now a decade old, but has some pictures and information about Barbara.

what i liked about her work was the fact she works in bronze (which isn't a favorite of mine at all) but also adds fiber to the sculptures. winding rope, fabric....cords of material are tied and looped...it all makes for astounding pieces that are unexpected and oftentimes reminds me of goth couture. i am most fond of the dark pieces (not the golden bronzes) that have black or navy blue fiber hanging like a tress from the piece.


Barbara was born in Philadelphia but spent most of her life in Europe. there is more about her here on wikipedia. regarding the art book, i'm still challenged when it comes to 'bronze', not sure i would want to look at such works every day, but as is the case with me and viewing of art, i tend to enjoy glimpsing possibility. to entering another wormhole of inspiration and creativity. i feel like i stumbled upon a gem that shines deep and long.

so behind and looking ahead

one of the entrance walkways to and fro the space offered to us

the ramp the landlord had built so people can get to the art walk space and view from the 'balcony'. the little building next to that yellow car will also be used for the art walk.

entryway to the space

the space

i feel like i'm always behind since moving here. never sure what i'm doing...i feel like i can barely keep up with myself even though i kind of have nothing going on. no job to go to, no demands. its a little bizzare. i'm lucky if i can remember to pay some bills and find my grocery list. i attribute this to how i'm living, the lack of a real home environment, but i have a feeling it is more just me giving in and letting art take over everything. all i know is i am pretty much living in the now most of the time and doing whatever comes up as it comes up. i like it. its sometimes a little disorientating, but seems more organic to just do whatever comes up instead of planning everything.

having said that, there is a plan for late feb/early march. the photos above are a space my landlord is offering up for an upcoming art walk just a block over from where we live. he has a few buildings in the downtown area that have been empty and pretty uninhabitable and he figures why not clean them up a little, toss out the junk and open them up for artists to use. pretty cool. very generous and sure to be unpredictable. my neighbor jared, tod and myself will share this space. it will be a first for jared and tod to show their work.

tod has been working on 'daddy dolls' (we call them that as he is the little daddy or the big daddy depending on his temperament). the 'dolls' are my old green mountain coffee bags turned inside out. the heads are usually stuffed with styrofoam and then he adorns them with minute found objects. no glues...no adhesives other than tying or winding things, sticking them in with pins or other 'natural' ways. i love these things. he is also getting into making found art sculpture.

jared is making mixed media pieces with a political bent. conceptual...intelligent...with a big dose of 'street' to them. i think his work, coupled with me and tods, will prove to NOT BE BORING :)

i still haven't decided what i'm showing. not sure i want to go into storage and open up boxes and boxes to dig for art. i have my furniture art here in the loft and my clocks. i have my new redwood assemblages but i'm not sure i see them up anywhere yet....they are still a work in progress. who knows what i'm going to do. i like the ease of this coming 'show'. with a gallery exhibit it is usually stressful and down to the wire. and i have no control over any of it. this is going to be us cleaning up the space, fixing it the way we want and just having some fun with it. no clue if anyone will actually show up.... who knows. who cares. its what is next!

#37

Redwood Assemblage #37

give me a testamint

today i went to the space i will get to share an art walk night with tod and our neighbor, jared. i went over to take a few pictures so i can see the before and after of whatever it is we will do to this space. probably not much. the landlord cleared out everything, left us a table or two and we will paint the back wall and clean up the floor. the big sink stays. probably the hole in the wall too but hey who cares. might be a good space to hang something. i walked around to survey things and saw these on the table. they look very old. i've never seen these type of mints....hmmmm...

anyhow. blog post showing more pictures soon. i'm off to read and off to bed. worked most of the day on new redwood assemblages and found a groove. MORE FUN if we can stand it.

#29

#29
Redwood Assemblage

i've been posting a few of these on facebook and a friend there asked me if i were interested in collaborating: i take pictures of them all together and send him the file and he go nuts with printmaking experiments. should he come up with something we agree upon, perhaps a very small edition of 20 or 40 be made and we split that to do whatever we wish. we split the costs of the paper and ink and who knows, maybe we have fun ...maybe something more happens. who knows. it was really cool that he even suggest this!

i'm up for it. as i say i'm challenged with finding a good photo setup...lighting isn't great in this loft, my space is a mess and i have no 'real background' to place these on. perhaps i take these fellas out for some fresh air and find a place in town. who knows. i'm up for it. i have a few more in the queue and then if the sun stays out i'm game. in the meantime, enjoy #29. little charred pieces all joined together...they are like toast slabs. i love this redwood too, it is weathered and silver gray like a beautiful horse.

Friend having a blog giveaway

I can never quite believe the wonderful people I've met on etsy from all over the world no less! While I normally post etsy shops on my etsy blog, I wanted to post this here as I know I have actual readers and I wanted you all to be aware of a blog giveaway Teo is having.

Teo lives in Portugal and is a bookbinder. She travels all around, finding just the right materials such as leather, fabric and misc. but necessary supplies that vary from spools to keys! Go visit and leave a comment for your chance to win one of her beautiful handmade miniature journals!

Bracket Candle Holders

Found Object Candle Holders, 2010

the brackets i found last week! combined with washer and rusty nuts, makes for a dramatic table accessory, candles aflame or no. i love these, they are just chunks of goodness. i'm having fun making candle holders out of found objects. still looking for ways to be creative and make functional art that is more affordable and good to put on etsy.

still fighting about what to do with art. do i find new gallery rep out in texas? do i really want to drive all over this huge state and lug art around? knowing the photo assemblages are a thing of the past right now no gallery will want my older works (me thinks) knowing i haven't enough of anything else to submit makes me wonder what the hell i'm doing. hence the making of smaller works that i hope to keep selling online. my clocks have been keeping me alive since moving, i need to keep focusing i guess on e-commerce. i need purpose. need to feel i'm working towards more independence as an artist. more control over my destiny. it's difficult to imagine ever having financial independence again, but so far i've lasted. when i left arizona i had saved some money and that is completely gone. my art has kept me alive but i want more than surviving. i want thriving. still have no clue how that is going to happen. stick a candle in this and walk forward into the dark unknown.....

my definition of hell

my definition of hell is just down the street. the state prison. across from the guard towers/prison....just 2 blocks away from where i live. isn't this lovely (sarcasm noted since i dont want to spend 1.99 for the new sarcasm symbol). sometimes when i walk by it at dusk, i think i hear cries and echoes from what i can only imagine was a horrible existence for those who lived there. i find this to be a rare instance of an abandoned building i have no desire whatsoever to ever enter were i given the chance.

the energy is strange near this building. i took this picture across the street right next to the functioning prison and above me from end to end are guard towers. i feel too intimidated to even take many pictures of this building, let alone the towers. paranoid by defacto. dark faceless blobs of humans are in those towers...walking around in their little cube. always looking down at me when i walk by, making me tourrettically want to do something untowards.

misc metal....and of course wood

you knew it was just a matter of time right? metal and wood. hinge on wood, with drilled holes through the center where those four holes are. i had a good discussion with tod about this as i'm still paranoid about this body of work. he likened this to doing what pictures frames once did (but in our opinion is now defunct/antiquated). i'm framing the found object. its there, look at it and see it and appreciate it. it isn't all dolled up with busy. it is a daring thing for me and to some that might sound ridiculous, maybe even pompous. my take is, i could make this into something more...but that isn't what the materials are asking of me. until you hold this in your hands, or place it on a ledge and just look at it perhaps you wont ever get it. i got it. i don't understand it but i got it.

the top two pictures are some found metal from a denuded lot on a semi busy intersection. felt a little strange picking all this up in a less than desirable neighborhood with cars and people streaming by, but someone had to take those washers and weird bracket thingies right? the strange artist and her sidekick walking around with a plastic baggie bending over as they walk, picking up ridiculous things. a trio of raunchy looking dogs stared at us from across the street, were it not for the traffic i felt certain we were gonna get chased. tod ignored them and we hurriedly picked up the goods and fled.

three nuts and then some

some of you may remember a few years ago tod and i had a chance to go scrounging in a dilapidated building in st johnsbury. the owner had filled it with rr scale forms which were at one time used for casting rr scale parts as well as other industrial forms, which i assume also had to do with the railroad. i didn't know the owner, it was a friend of the owner who contacted me when he saw my work in a local gallery and thought i might appreciate these things as the building was slated to be demolished. yes, i lugged all this stuff to texas and bit by bit i'm digging through it; when i found this hunk of steel i thought PERFECT! i'm going to use this for a candle holder base.

as you can see in the above picture, i've used the long steel base for just that. i found it in the entryway of the building along with a handful of other strange steel pieces. never dawned on me until now what to use them for. its a solid piece, three nuts cold welded to the base and three found washers (from texas) topping off each nut. honestly my candle holders look perfect just as they are, tight brown red rusty characters just standing there doing duty. blunt objects that have a feisty dare ya thing going on. at least that is how they speak to me.

if it speaks to you...you know where you can get it instantly.

wood on rug paula on etsy

for now this is the best i can do....pictures on the floor. and i call myself an artist...good lord. what can i say i no longer live in paradise (vermont). i no longer live in a beautiful home as a caretaker. i'm in an industrial building in huntsville, texas which serves as a place to eat/sleep and work on art. bad lighting and on and on. i just wanted to see all my pieces together, background be damned.

i think i need a small break from these. i pushed the envelope and went into a new direction, which by the way, didn't work out but tweaked my brain just enough that right now i can't go back to these nor do i want to go forward. cease and desist. are these for sale? yes. i think i will sell a few as diptychs and triptychs. you can put them on the wall you can put them on a table, you can put things on them. you could use them as meditation blocks....soon i should get them on my website or etsy.

puzzle stuff. clocks. they have been whispering to me and become louder as lately i've gotten feedback from new eyes that my puzzle work intrigues and pleases people, and more interest in my rr clocks means i should consider closing in on finishing my limited edition of 100. being at #88 means i'm closer to that goal; i havent wanted to rush through and finish them because i'm in transition with my life and art and would hope that that plays out in how the last dozen look.

more changes...etsy is changing. the whole treasury thing and front page thing...disappearing as we know it. i would write about that on my etsy blog but we all know that blog is dusty and full of cobwebs. no one visits that blog and i'm alright with that. that too might be changing. i've been invited to join a juried etsy team that is being created. if you haven't looked at etsy lately go to it. on the front page their categories have become more diverse and the art? the art...it is becoming IMPRESSIVE. i've been meeting some amazing artists on etsy lately, their work supersedes most 'gallery' work. in fact they are real gallery artists. it's exciting the possibilities. all this because of a new CEO and new vision.

what else. the phoenix commotion. i've not been there much. the floor work kind of did my body in, its been too cold to go back kneeling on floors putting in bottle cap flooring and besides, other people need to work on it too. i'm mostly concentrating on my own art ~ marketing myself and exploring ways to exhibit and subsist. the clock is ticking...our lease is up before i know it and all i can think about is how to make it so i can keep working on art, derive income and not have to move into a studio apartment and climb the walls. paralyzing sometimes but recent feedback from people has shaken me back to life and i know i can do this if i just keep moving forward.

journey

unless you are an artist, you have no idea how vulnerable you can feel making new art and showing it to anyone. sometimes there is eagerness, a childlike awe in what you just put together and you run to show someone. you dont care if they like it or get it. sometimes you do care. sometimes if they dont care it just spurs you on. other times it can paralyze you.

unless you are an artist, you have no idea how scary it can be to go further and further into your work. i'm still learning. each time i work with a new medium or make a new body of work i experience something different.

when i worked on my puzzle media, my rr plates, and even my mixed media photography, i was pretty much making it up as i went along as i wasn't looking too hard to see if this medium had been touched upon by others. now that i'm working with wood and making sculptures? assemblages?...whatever these are...i can't claim ignorance because it is dead obvious this medium has been done to death. and i'm feeling like i'm going back in time not forward. so while i am having the time of my life for the most part exploring this, i'm also painfully aware that it could be a waste of time and energy if ultimately no one is interested in showing or buying this. i know it isn't a complete waste of time...i know everything builds upon everything else. but when this is all i have to show for myself and want to keep an income flowing, its hard not to question and ruffle the flow.

in the last two weeks i have made nearly 30 of these little assemblages. they started off very simple and have slowly begun their ascent into more complex. i'm still delighted with the nuances of the wood and just as happy to have a 'simple' clump of three pieces as the piece above shows, as i am with a more complicated piece like the one in the post below. it is fascinating to work with a fairly limited source of materials. limited in how much i can get my hands on and limited in the actual 'being' of it. this is just redwood and glue. thats it. its up to me to see how far i can go with it. how far i can allow myself to play.

its like traveling on smooth ground, you pick up speed and then suddenly there is a sharp turn or crevice in the road that makes you swerve or put on the brakes suddenly. you loose your momentum and have to re orientate yourself. the flow gets choked. seemingly you have to start all over but you can't deny the miles behind you. you are not where you started. even if you feel like you are starting all over again.

#22 Redwood Assemblage

most of these average four inches long, this one is nine and a half inches long. its like braided bread. better because it will last forever.

#15

can you see through that? there is a portal.....i've almost given up trying to find where to shoot good pictures of these so tonight i just grabbed it and held it up to the ugly light. its a shame really, artist can't even come up with a creative way to make the work look good.

some of these i call my georgia okeffee's. if you can't figure out why then i'm not gonna explain it.

a few are made by lovely default. my fault. and i like it. when i hold the center pieces to drill them a bit to help with the staying/gluing power, a few break here and there which cause happy accidents. one such piece became a diptych today as this was one of the burnt pieces from the bone house fire last year. when i drilled it, it immediately broke in the burnt part, clean, perfect, curved...beautiful. my first instinct was to glue it back together before placing it in the center of the two triangles but then i realized i liked it broken, and i liked that the assemblage would be two pieces instead of one.

you'd like it too if i could find a good source of light and background.

#13 Redwood Assemblage

i must be getting obsessed with these new redwood assemblages i've been making. i try to imagine someone seeing this for the first time and instantly seeing the profundity that i see in it and i come up short. this is number 13. not sure if you've been able to check out the first 11 on my facebook fan page or on flickr, i've been remiss in posting them one at a time (still not happy with the picture quality and its too damn cold to take them outside). just finished this one. this is three pieces of cut, joined redwood scraps. i think its profound ....i've made the one triangle piece slim to fit flush with the low side of the center piece. there is a wave and depth to this that just pleases me to no end.

i spent most of the morning cutting more pieces with my dwindling supply of redwood. its a complete mind immersion. making sure i dont cut my fingers off, measuring things, finding just the right pieces to go together. i'm totally absorbed with these pieces and still no clue what to do with them. doesn't seem right to have them up for sale just yet. they need to cling together and gain power.

Reclaimed Redwood Tray #2

This is another tray, this one is 100% Redwood. I love the chunkiness and subtle terrain of texture and color. Redwood is valuable, and actually very hearty as it repels bugs, water and fungus. While you don't want to leave this out in the soaking rain, if it is used as an outdoor tray it can withstand some abuse, as it resists shrinking and warping. I have used wood glue and brad nails to connect the slats so obviously you don't want to throw this in the swimming pool with your margarita balanced on it as you float around in a delirium. If you must have it, it can be yours.

Reclaimed Redwood, Cedar, Pine

finally got my tray up on etsy. i'm quite happy with how this turned out, it was weeks in the making as i needed to think about how i wanted to do this. i had a few designs in mind and really wanted this to marinate before i decided the outcome.

from the bone house job site there is the wood they don't really need ~ it is probably useless save for their compost heap out back. they have a chest of redwood that is full of cut offs from actual cabinetry/door making or otherwise useless wood that is flawed even too severely for house making. there are some cast off pine posts that were up for grabs too. i cut the pine posts into little 'tile' slabs. i love the center two pieces, they remind me of a dusty moth that has fluttered into a window and left its ghost. the base of this tray is one slab of cedar, which the pine is affixed to. the thick wedges on each side were found that way, i assume they were cut incorrectly or the ends of a large used piece. i love them, they are placed slightly off of the cedar base so you can put your fingers under the wedges and lift the tray easily. the sides are two narrow pieces of redwood that i angle cut to give the piece an edgy, asian feel. it excites me to keep working with scraps of wood for now, i might be limited in how much and what kind i can get but that makes it all the more valuable and precious!

new works

finally got around to taking pictures of the 11 wood assemblages i made. more are in the works. the triangles were originally begotten at the bone house build site, scrap pieces of redwood that wasn't good enough to use. cast offs. scrappy bits. since then i have made more of the triangle pieces from larger unwanted pieces of redwood from the same pile. the center is also redwood, slivers and slabs...cut pieces, found pieces. i am loving these and have no desire to stop. nor a clue what i'm doing with them. i've not made them to hang as i find both front and back are wonderful to ponder. the sides, the top and bottom...all of it is rich and feels just right in your hand.

i've linked the picture to my paulaart facebook fan page, which anyone can access i think...unless you aren't even signed up on facebook? at any rate, i'm sure i will post these on my website soon in case you can't view all of them.

i also have two trays that are going up on etsy soon. more editing, snapping of pictures....not tonight.

*uploaded to flickr for those who don't have a facebook account.

bottle cap floor

as usual, the lighting SUCKS and i brought my small camera so the quality also sucks. but here ya go. the bottle cap floor being put down in one of the first floor bedrooms at the bone house. so far it has just been me putting the actual floor down, tod and i have gone through and sorted a good chunk by color and as you can see in #4 i played with two design possibilities, as did i also try some at home with sample caps. i liked the zig zag pattern but realized it wasn't relaxing and not good for a floor. these caps remind me of when i was on the road, having left arizona to go find myself and thinking i would be an artist. i remember drawing a lot of little designs for tile ideas and it all came back to me when i started working on this floor.

there are limitations...mostly because it is a small room and it isn't my house. i would do it completely different i think, as there would be more space and time to make a real design. i didn't feel i could do that here, which is fine, as i'm probably NOT going to be the only one working on this floor. i've basically just made little blobs of same caps intertwined with others. no big deal but it looks nice enough, almost quilt like to me. i would love to do something in the center, a big spiral that splashes off into all of this but again, its a small confined space and i dont have the luxury of doing it all myself. ultimately this floor, as will the wine cork floor, be grouted and then resin put over it.

i dont know why i numbered those pictures....not thinking today. i'm a bit distracted. seems life is chaotic and noisy and crazy right now. i'm also obsessed with working on my little wood things and still wondering what i'm doing with all that. many directions i want to go and having little time for any one thing. discombobulation.

work

art is funny. art is weird. art is whatever you want it to be

and what about me? what have i been making? well, if i can find a decent photo opportunity i would show you. right now this loft we live in doesn't have much in the way of settings to display art, let alone good lighting. i've gotten away with putting things out on our porch but my new works dont look so good there.

and what are my new works? well, strange blocks of scrap wood from the bone house. they have made some gorgeous doors and cabinet slats out of redwood and some of my pieces are cast offs from that. some of the wood i've cut myself from their scrap bin. most if not all of these pieces are redwood. i'm enjoying going on this journey of looking at the wood and as i did with scrap, finding the beauty in the thing itself without adding to it. when cut, the redwood has subtle yet interesting veins, psychedelic little wobbly bubbles, as well as other personality quirks that you find once you cut the wood in different directions.

i am being particularly neurotic and insecure about these when showing tod and our neighbor jared. i'm judging and comparing...in other words, in my damn head when finished with them. while working on them i'm in my heart. happy and carefree. its like building blocks. i really do feel like a 3 year old playing with chunky wooden blocks. i know i'm not doing anything new, amazing or innovative but to me it IS new and it is extremely satisfying. i hope you get to see them one day....i might end up dragging them all over town just to find a spot to shoot them.

snapshots of life

tod spotted this right across the street from the post office; to tell the truth i'm not so sure i would have noticed it for another few weeks. my head usually aims at the ground, looking for little things to pick up. i've seen this but never really looked. its fantastic dont you think?

i was out grocery shopping the other day and saw a fairly old woman wearing these...shuffling along slowly. i had to ask if i could take a picture of her rubber boots. she was so proud of them, that they only cost $39.99. her husband made sure to let me know she had a furry pair too. i would never dream of asking someone if i could take a picture of them in a grocery store, but somehow in huntsville, it works. it still amuses me all the winter wear and boots people adorn themselves with in a place that really doesn't get below 30° at night, forget about the days even being colder than 45°! on any given day you would swear you were up north given the bundledness of people.