I've been blog absent for too long. Primarily because I spent the last two years working on my MFA in visual art through Wilson College. For the first year and a half, I was teaching art full-time in a Pennsylvania public school. I took a sabbatical leave of absence to finish my thesis exhibit from January 15th until the end of the school year in June. I am now back to teaching full time and painting part time.
During my sabbatical leave I completed approximately 28 paintings. I started nine or ten others that are still in process. I exhibited 25 paintings at my thesis exhibit in York, Pennsylvania. I worked with five mentors, local artists, who critiqued my work, inspired me and shared occasionally shared their "trade" secrets.
I intend to post and write about the paintings I created during this amazing time of creative growth and transformation. The paintings will not likely be posted in chronological order. Instead I will choose a painting that I want to write about when it suits me.
I noticed a transformation in my work as I moved from purely representational painting to more non-objective painting. I still do some representational work but it is more abstract. I will discuss this and some of the other surprises I've found along the way.
The first piece I'm sharing is entitled, "Above it All". It is large, 48x36. I used both acrylic and oil. The painting started as a forest from memory. I began to add spirals. I liked the painting in its early stages but felt it incomplete. After leaving it alone for a while, I came in and added the winged looking shape. I painted to music and began thinking more about harmony and balance and composition. I was making marks. It was a very joyful experience. Here is the painting in the earlier phase, I liked that phase, but it sat, unresolved for many weeks. Perhaps I will revisit this on another occasion.
