I'm excited to be a part of a group show with the Alberta Oil Painters at Scotia Place in downtown Edmonton starting November 18th, 2013.
As I have watched "my" kids in the preschool do art, I've been inspired to just play! So I've worked with (played with) encaustic painting and collage. Both of these mediums have helped me to change the way I approach a subject both in technique and process. I used to have a goal in mind: what the painting should look like when it was finished; now I allow my paintings to evolve. Where once I was interested only in expressing my idea in oils, now I want to include diverse items, to "hide" things in the work for others to discover.
In the painting I've done for this show I began with the idea of a tree with a tire swing that had been moved from one side of the tree to another, a "re-tired" tree. I planned to use collage and then paint.
I began the collage process with the tree trunk. I found a book in a second hand store called "That Was Then, This is Now". I liked the yellowed pages for the color of the tree trunk and thought the print would add texture. Then I began to read the sentences as I tore them out. I decided that those bits and pieces of sentences, of dialogue between teenagers would represent youth and the promise of the future.
As I worked with the sentence strips, the story of the painting changed! It came to me that my life is very different from what I had envisioned for my future when I was young. The painting became about the nostalgia people have for a future that did not happen the way they thought it would.
I wonder how many people can relate to this feeling.
I enjoyed making this painting. Maybe someone will enjoy looking at it, too.
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| That Was Then, This Is Now 30"x 36 " Collage and oil on canvas PS. Since this photo was taken and posted,the chameleon on the branch to the left has changed color to match the background. So bizarre, right? |
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