In an English Garden

A big project is finished and ready to deliver this week.  It is a companion piece to a peony and butterfly piece I did a number of years ago.  They are both 44" tall and In an English Garden will be a gorgeous mate.  The first piece is all rose reds and pinks with butterflies zipping through them in shades of yellows, blues, lilacs and whites, and perched on shades of green leaves and sunlit blooms.  This new piece is a rambling garden of a variety of blue and purple iris, peach and cream lilies, deep green hosta with delicate white blooms, some roses peeking out.  Dragonflies are here and there and a few other surprises as well.

I was asked to do this with the utmost trust that I would do something "just right", and I hope these lovely clients will be as pleased as I am.  That is always the thing, with commission work.  Will the expectations be fulfilled?  Will the artist understand the request?  Will the client be so nervous that the artist feels constrained and indecisive about the end design?  It really all is a delicate balance between them, and often hinges on how much each knows of the other.  The artist, being the artist after all, will have a strong vision of the work colored by her style.  If the client isn't very familiar with that style, or if the artist isn't solid in a particular style, the visions can be drastically different - sometimes not even in the same park.  The client may have a strong vision too - perhaps something he seen in a photograph or a place visited, a memory.  But if the client isn't able to tell the artist some particulars about that vision - something beyond a color palette or medium for example - then there's a good chance that a problem may arise.

How do we avoid such a mishap?  Artists need to be certain that the client understands her style and has seen several examples, preferably in the flesh as well as in the portfolio.  And I believe the artist should ask many questions - questions dealing with the more subtle aspects of the request - questions like, what is the angle from which you will view my work?  What other things are in the peripheral view?  What other artwork is near?  What is the overall "feel" you are wanting to create for that space?  Conversation that is more ephemeral perhaps, but the answers may get to a deeper place from which the client may clarify his expectations.  If we take a little extra time to distinguish these things, I think commission work can be exciting and very satisfying for both the artist and the client.

Then, every once in while, some wonderful people will say to you, "Do what you think is best - we love your work!"

Detail

In an English Garden

another view

another view

another view

and another

I can't decide which I like best!

From Start to Finish

Several weeks ago I posted an "in progress" group of pictures on my FB page.  I did finish the piece and here is the chronicle of the project - from start to finish.  It's a long process, doing a sculpted gourd using the natural direction of what nature gives me.  There isn't much sense in making drawings on paper because your plans will invariably go awry and your paper drawings will have been wasted.  I believe one has to "see" what the gourd wants to be, then help it become.

This tall snake gourd bent fairly gracefully in one direction,with a nice gentle swelling at the bottom.  The iris hiding there needed to be set free to blow in the garden breezes, leaves wanted to arch and droop as landing places for dragonflies and butterflies.  

After drawing the images onto the gourd and burning the line work in, the engineering begins - after all, when you cut a leaf or bloom from the center of the gourd, what will hold the remaining top to the bottom?  Leaves and stems must be rebuilt behind the flower which wants to lean outward.  After soaking the "free" parts of the design (blooms and leaves), the gourd walls are soaked in warm water and gradually bent, holding their positions with strings tied to weights or to the table, till the piece is completely dry.  If the parts are very narrow or the stem is all that holds the large bloom, support must be built onto the backside of the gourd wall.  But, careful, don't build so much support in that you can't reach the inside of the design where a butterfly might be resting.  The contraption in the pictures holds the gourd for me in any one of many positions.  I used to have to do the holding in my lap - very precarious!  All of the cut edges and the sculpture material added to make the design more 3-dimensional must be sanded, hence the mask.  The sander is loud - headphones help.  Sander makes talc-fine dust - so I hold the vacuum in my left hand while sanding with my right.  It's definitely a balancing act!

The painting is done in stages - basic colors applied in the beginning so that I don't mistake positive image for negative space.  Lots of layers of transparent acrylics build the nuanced color in each leaf and bloom.  Often something may start out life as magenta and end up as yellow!

Here are several views of the finished piece.  I miss gardening, but I love making one that lasts forever!  I'll be bringing this one to the Celebration of Fine Art, Scottsdale, opening Jan. 15.  Hope you'll get to see it!

A Small Vacation

Replenishing oneself, when what you do for a living is make art, market art, sell art, ship art, move art, is something which must usually be accomplished in a short period of time - substantially less time than the two or three week vacation from a straight job.  Last weekend we combined a bit of art biz with a bit of stress relief by meandering around rural southern VA and northern NC, followed by a "side" trip to St. Augustine, FL.  Riding through a sea of cotton playing against the firery reds of autumn forests in NC where we had no bars (those would be cell phone bars) to distract us, was taking a deep breath of sweet relaxation.

We delivered some paintings to Hilton Head - extensions of the season into the home - 

followed by a walk in the woods near Blufton, GA.....

 

and on to visit my brother who was on a hunt for great cigars (ugh!) in St. Augustine - and we found them - hand made by the family, using tools of the trade that looked like they should be in a great antique display somewhere.  Just a moment in the day, but one in which I learned something I knew nothing about!

   

And then, back to Salisbury, to work in the studio - Piedmont Craftsmen is coming up soon!  And Celebration of Fine Art, Scottsdale, is already gearing up for their 2011 show - gotta be ready!

            

                  

                                                                                 

Where's the Vision? or Back to Backwards

Still wandering down the Vision quest of my painting (see earlier posts), I worked on a piece in the Echo Series, Vision in mind.  Ooooops.  The Vision had grown into something too concrete.  What happens to me at that point is that I become imaginatively paralyzed - can't let go, let happen (riffing on those Step Programs). Nope.  Nothing. Worse. BAD.  Into the trash.  Now what?

I've been making art for 40 years - sometimes it feels like 40 Light Years - but long enough to know that with some time (and a brief stint doing something I hate - that would be cleaning house, working on the computer, nothing...) the muse that lives in my head will return, usually demonstrating selective memory (can muse have memory?) - memory that doesn't remember the mess I'd gotten myself into the day before.  And so it did. (Thank you, Muse.)

Now, it is my opinion that when Muse returns, one doesn't look the giftMuse in the mouth and try its patience with things like New Process or Practice Process or the Bag of Already Gone Before.  One simply dances blindfolded to the workspace and begins.  Some may call this intuition.  I call it knowing your Muse.

So.  What you see in the pic (look carefully now - that's why I put it in pretty high res) is my eye and hand doing instinctively what they do with color and texture.  Tomorrow I will return and peek into the dry surface to see what Muse has left, revealed, granted, gifted, or tossed to me.  I trust that it will be there.  I trust because....well, I trust, just because I trust.  See you tomorrow - for now I'm going to stretch some large canvases.

Poppies for Auction

Coming up this Saturday, Sept 25, Winston-Salem, NC - "Going Once, Going Twice" auction to benefit Piedmant Craftsmen. I can't be there - doing the Common Grounds Art Birmingham show in MI - but I'll be hoping they do well on my latest gardenscape, "Poppies". It's 24" x 30", acrylic on board, in simple clear ash frame.

Poppies for Piedmont

Gorgeous House in Savannah for Sale

OK, I'm not the real estate agent and have NO vested interest in this house, BUT I do know the house and it is to die for!  The owner is a friend of mine and her taste is impeccable, creative and she and her husband have made this home like stepping into an art film, and all with a pinch of Scandanavian flair - while still having a universal appeal.  The location is right next to a gorgeous old park, complete with the moss hung oaks and old iron fence!  If you have any interest in moving to Savannah, don't miss this opportunity to live in a dream!  You can call Gail Levites - Selling Real Estate with Keller Williams Downtown Savannah, 912-232-8580.

On other things....here in NC the days are still hot in the 90s, but the nights are wonderfully comfortable and we can sleep with all the windows open again.  I'm at work on a group of four 24" x 24" paintings called Echos.  I hope to get the pics up tomorrow - varnish drying today on two.

For those of you near Winston-Salem, I will also be posting the pic of the gardenscape painting I did for the  Going Once, Going Twice auction for the Piedmont Craftsmen to be held Sat, Sept 25 (coming right up). Check on this site tomorrow for the pic.

Gotta run for now...time's galloping by!

Updated websites

Must be fall...I updated my websites - this one and www.whitneypeckman-painter.com - and posted a picture album on my FB page - http://bit.ly/cFOj7r.  So, aren't I just feeling very proud of myself!  It's a brief moment in time to feel organized.  By this afternoon, I will be behind again.

My big news, in case you haven't heard me say so somewhere else, is that Syed and I are going to be grandparents in April!  My son and his lady are expecting, and we are ridiculously happy!  So, no question about whether or not we'll be headed to the San Juans next summer (notice the good timing?  Baby B-P will be 3 months old and surely sleeping through the night).

I am sorry to lose my great "guest blogger" -  she did such a great job, but back to school and life as a normal American kid...no more roti jala, nasi goreng, kari ayam, teh o'...just burgers now.  We had a wonderful time with her (our 13 year old granddaughter).  She was an extraordinary traveler, ate everything with enthusiasm, helped in the kitchen, carried her own gear, tolerated being stared at, and noticed her surroundings.  Hope she'll go with us again!

I have six 12" x 12" canvases with paint almost dry waiting for the next phase - it's a series on autumn for the Alexandria show in two weeks.  Back to work!

Carolina Wildflowers

Finished and delivered to the invitational exhibit, "Opening Acts", at the newly and fabulously rennovated Arts Council Building of Winston-Salem, NC - it's an honor to be invited to participate with these incredible artists in this gorgeous space.  The show opens Sept 9 and runs through Oct 24.

                                                             

 

The Seven Poppies Question

This piece has been in the entry area of the Celebration of Fine Art for a week or so.  It's an interesting exercise to put a work out of your daily vision for a while and then come back to it.  I have always loved this piece.  It is so close to a perfect interpretation of what was in my head!  To see it afresh amazed me, and with humility, I say that it is still among the best three pieces I have ever done.

That raises the question of value.  Sure, it has a price tag on it.  But it is a piece that may well remain in my personal collection.  I don't believe in keeping much of my own work.  I think it can be too self-congratulatory and often acts like a kind of glue, sticking you to an idea, an image, an interpretation, when what I want to do is to keep experimenting, move onward, test new ground, push the limits of this humble material, and, of course, the boundaries of my imagination.

So.  Keep it?  Sell it?

The Process - piece by piece...

Sometimes these things are pretty awkward!  And when it's cold it takes a lot longer because the tool cools off
quickly.

The Process

 What is a clear picture in my head passes through many states of being before completion - currently this newest project (a large commission piece of an Iris garden) is in what I refer to as THE CHINESE NIGHTMARE phase.  Now, this is not meant to be a cultural insult of any kind, so I hope none of you are taking offense.  Rather it is simply what a nightmare dreamt by a single-language American girl might look like in Chinese........but in another couple of weeks it will be quite another story.  Till then, enjoy the pictures of the process....and, btw, the finished work will be on display for the opening weekend of The Celebration of Fine Art, Scottsdale, AZ, Jan 16-18.

ACC/Charlotte

It was delightful meeting so many new people this past weekend at the ACC/Charlotte show! It was the first time that I've shown in Charlotte and it was a beautiful and succesful show - and fun to know that many of you will visit our studio/gallery just 40 miles up the road in Salisbury. To those of you who recognized my work from other NC shows in Asheville, Blowing Rock, Piedmont and Cabbarus County, thanks for the compliment! Achieving that "voice" in one's work is something we all strive for. Three days is a long show and I'm glad to be drinking my coffee this morning in my own home. On Wednesday, after the election, I'll be back at work preparing for the Piedmont Craftsmen and Carolina Designer Craftsmen shows. Hope to see you there.