Above it All

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.