Velvet Goldmine

______One day, I decided I wanted to get rid of aaaaaaaaaall my undergrad paintings which were stored in my parents' basement.

______This decision was made after Spring cleaning my room for the second time and deciding something somewhere didn't feel clean enough, that I had to get rid of more things, that there were still cobwebs that needed to be cleared. This decision was also made because I felt I needed a new start with my art (*snaps for unintentional rhymes) as I near the start of... dun-dun-dun... grad school; thus, I put them all up on Facebook for sale. I kind of laughed in my head; I wasn't expecting anyone to really bite at them because to me most of them were fairly old, needed some help here or there, or seemed like paintings where I learned something rather than came to a conclusion of sorts.



______But we are our own worst critic, and they all sold. I spent the next week delivering them with help from my dad's Yukon and many blankets so the paintings would be snug as a bug in a rug on their way to their new homes.




______In my humble bumblebee option, it's more beneficial to have you paintings hanging in someone's home rather than collecting dust, long-legged spiders, and unfriendly ghost spirits in a basement. I've got a photo archive of all my work, so what more do I need with the physical object taking up space? Plus there's that whole thing about money. I have yet to truly become attached to anything I've made.

______After selling everything on Facebook, I received a solid amount of painting commissions, so now I'm looking at getting about four more done before the end of the summer. Here are two (thankfully the largest I'll have to be painting) that I've gotten out of the way this past month.

______Have a fabulous start to your week, my fair feathered friends.

Sensory Tables, 2016

oil on panel, 4'x4'

Untitled, 2016

oil on panel, 3'x3'

Ow, My Bodily Insides

Florescent Pink Paint Was On Sale That Day

oils on masonite, September 2014

______As I typed this, I was voraciously consuming grilled chicken and lettuce in one of our campus's dining halls and simultaneously spilling meaty juices on my keyboard. Which was gross, but I've fully assimilated all elements of grossness and busyness into my jam-packed life this semester, and the proof of that is present in my surroundings: sketches and sketchbooks lay scattered across my bedroom floor like the carcasses of small rodents, my oversized painting shirt has officially stiffened and transformed from white to a hauntingly prismatic display of grey and yellow, and my backpack is stuffed with ziploc bags from hauling grapes and carrots and whatever else is portable-slash-edible to campus.



______Oh. So art. Here is my first painting of the semester on a 4-foot by 4-foot masonite panel. It's very pink and its title a very true story--hot pink paint was indeed on sale that day. It's also sort of always on sale since it's so bright and belligerent to the eyes. I believe that the addition of florescent pink blinded my professor, but sometimes you've just gotta push those limits and risk your professor's eyesight. He said that as it's been sitting in the back of the painting studio, he's grown to appreciate it a little more whenever he walks into the room. Excellent.

______I have much much more to show you in the future, but my goodness, I have been busier than a colony of ants after a stick of butter. Do ants favor butter? We're going to pretend they do, strictly for the metaphor. I've been more ambitious for many reasons this semester: lusting after a fellowship for which I was nominated, wanting to participate again in the end-of-the-year BFA exhibition, preparing my own solo exhibition, wanting to use my final year of undergrad studies to its fullest so I can evolve into an even better artist, and finally, desiring sweet, sweet revenge on the strange, chirping squirrels in the quad...

______Well, that last one didn't quite fit. But I still do want that revenge. Those chirping squirrels that sit in trees and mimic bird cries have gotta go down.

______Carry on, my buttery little ants.


Yellow
oils on masonite, October 2014

Dreamscenes I

______Man, I've been slower than a fat Santa through a chimney on keeping up with my artwork this semester, but I feel like that's because I've been experimenting and learning new ways of approaching art opposed to actively working at producing end products. Which I am totally fine with. You can always make stuff on your own, but sometimes you need a little teacher coercion to tug you out of your comfort zone.

______I did come out with a few snapshot-worthy works, though, and I'll be posting those throughout the winter break (if I make it through exam week... insert frightening organ pipe music here). This was my figure drawing final, in which we were to create whatever we desired using anything at all.  I mean anything. One guy used butter, mustard, and vaseline to finalize his, and curiously enough, it was effective.

______I didn't add perishable food products in mine, but rather opted to scan through my Word document full of dreams I've scribbled down and use acrylic. I decided to base mine on an uber weird dream I had that involved a mushroom-cloud-like tree, two figures contemplating said mystical mushroom tree, and multiple crows delivering cobs of corn to the tree (which I chose to left out, because naaaaah). 

______There are lots of things I've learned through making this: 

______a) working on such a large scale is quite refreshing! 

______b) I need to paint more and more, for I've only produced a single-digit number of paintings and I know I could have done better than this. Painting should be second nature to me by now! 

______c) dreams are a rich source material, and having a fashion blog and a brother who is overtly willing to pose for you makes finding decent models easy peasy!

Dreamscenes I, acrylic on Rives BFK (60"x44")

Figure Drawing, Fall 2013