pigments and dyeing, dyeing and knitting... oh my!

i know i have already posted about my recent excitement over discovering the origins of some of the early natural pigments. this interest has lead me onto a side project involving dyeing. as it turns out, the history of dyes and (painting) pigments have quite a bit in common, and in many cases a pigment for paint can be made from a dye.

i also find it rather interesting that while dyers have retained much of the old knowledge of natural dyes, and the practice of making one's own natural dye is still rather popular... painters have not retained much of this knowledge at all. A good amount of it is documented, but i don't know any painters who actually know the stuff, and certainly none who have bothered to actually make their own paint. i think it's quite odd, considering how much the histories of dye and (painting) pigments have in common.

and i suppose it makes me a rather odd painter to be going so far out of my way to figure it out and try to do it. i am being safe about it - many of the painting pigments come from hazardous sources... orpiment, for example, is a lovely yellowish rock (which i can buy at my local rock shop), but the part of that rock that makes such a lovely shade of yellow paint is ARSENIC. needless to say, it's not going to be a wise project to start grinding up orpiment in my studio any time soon. (i have ordered a chunk of orpiment to place on a shelf in my studio and look at from time to time, though. why not? if i'm not going to lick it, i don't think there's much harm in it) ;)

but alas, my quest for the lost knowledge of how to make my own oil paint has lead me into the world of dyeing. it is perhaps the safest way i've read about to create my own paint. i have two, maybe three projects in mind for actually producing paint as a final product. i've purchase seeds for indigo tinctoria, the type of indigo plant most often used to produce indigo dye. it took me ages, but i did finally find all of the information i need to produce dye from the indigo plant, and then pigment from that dye, and then oil paint from the pigment. i'm also intending to produce madder rose paint. i ordered whole dried madder root, which is now sitting in my studio on a shelf just waiting for me to bust into it over winter break. (i bought rather than grew in this case, because it would take a minimum of 3 years of tending to the plant before the roots were ready for harvest - and lets face it, i can be impatient at times) ...it will take several days, but i do have complete instructions on going from madder root to dye, dye to pigment, and pigment to oil paint. the third project i have in mind will require a bit of research. I'm not sure just how practical it would be - but i'm interested in working with cochineal. i do currently have in my possession some concentrated natural cochineal dye powder. i have definite plans for using it to dye a wool scarf red. just not sure yet how practical it will be to turn it into paint. we'll see! either way the cochineal will all have to be purchased rather than produced on my own, because it comes from a parasitic insect that lives on cacti in Mexico. Although a trip to Mexico sounds AWESOME, i tend to doubt they would let me go and harvest enough of my own bugs to produce my own cochineal... nor would i really want to. i have a feeling it would start to feel rather cruel to crush so many of them. (grossed out yet? you very likely have your own experience eating cochineal red, since it is used commonly as a food coloring. check food labels for words like cochineal or carmine, or variants of those words - they're all the same thing i've been talking about: parasitic bugs from cacti. chances are good that you've eaten something that contains it)

at any rate, while i'm waiting for the right timing to work on my madder and indigo projects, i'm going to experiment with some dyeing projects. the madder and indigo projects (seen through to pigment and paint) will take some time to complete. the madder I can do over winter break, but the indigo will nave to wait until next fall most likely, since i'll need to wait until spring and summer to even grow the stuff... but the dyeing i can do immediately in my kitchen. a few trips to various local markets for simple supplies, and i'm ready to dye something over the course of a weekend. the only hitch in this plan is what to dye! i've read that natural fibers such as wool, silk, & cotton take the dye the best. i could just buy a bunch of cotton t-shirts, but come on, how cool is that? not very, considering i'm not a huge t-shirt fan. especially not a plain single color t-shirt. boring.

i do, however, own an obnoxious scarf collection (at last count i owned over 30 scarves)... so scarves were a natural choice for the dyeing project. the problem being that they're not readily and easily available in plain white 100% wool or cotton. silk maybe, but i haven't seen any recently.... so my side project of dyeing has taken me on another side project of learning to knit. if i can't buy it, i might as well make it. so i've bought cheap, plain, white, cotton yarn, and i've knit my first scarf. here's a picture:

next up, i'm dyeing it! it's currently sitting in a mordant bath of alum. (alum is aluminum sulfate, and mordant is just a dyeing term for preparing a particular fiber to absorb the dye better). i'm going to let it sit in the alum mordant until i can get to the actual dyeing business tomorrow evening. i'm going to do the actual dyeing with fresh beets. i've read (and heard from my new source at Fibers Etc in Tacoma, who has firsthand experience with it) that the beet dye is going to turn a gorgeous purplish red, but that it's going to quickly fade to a pinkish gray. despite the somewhat depressing fade to gray i'm going to end up with, i'm determined to go ahead with my beet project anyway. if nothing else, i don't think i own any gray scarves yet (if you can believe that with my 30+ scarves). i'll post photos of the initial beet red, and the resulting fade to gray as it happens.

stay tuned!

the knitting itself was quite fun. i've also purchased some wonderful 100% wool yarn at Fibers Etc. in Tacoma, and am looking forward to more scarves soon. i've also read (and heard from those with experience) that the wool will take the color more readily than the cotton will. i'm intending to dye a skein of it with the cochineal before knitting it into my next scarf. perhaps i'll also bother to learn a new knitting stitch for the next one. considering that i barely know what i'm doing when it comes to knitting - it would probably make a more interesting scarf if i take the time to learn more. i'll post photos of the cochineal project when i get to it, too. i'm very excited about that one in particular! the color should be much more colorfast than the beet red, too!

driven

once again - in my copious amounts of free time at work, i have been reading and thinking... remembering and contemplating... this time about what drives an artist.

you may remember that i have been reading COLOR by Victoria Finlay. A couple of days ago I read a section where she described a little bit about the practice and attitude of a particular painter: J. M. W. Turner. Turner worked in the early part of the 1800's, and painted landscapes. Given my general dislike for landscape painting, I never really gave a second thought to Turner or his work beyond making sure I knew enough to pass my art history exams. However, when I read Finlay's description of Turner's studio practices, I felt more of a kinship with Turner. Even though his subject matter was one that I have trouble appreciating... he was definitely one of my people.

It seems that Turner liked to experiment with a variety of different pigments... some of them new and exciting pigments, some of them proven unstable pigments that would fade or change over time (sometimes over a very short period of time)... and he didn't seem to mind much what happened to his paintings once he was finished painting them. All of this, I completely understand. I can imagine doing many of the same things (minus the landscape imagery, of course). I, too, would enjoy playing around with new and exciting pigments (should they happen to come up with something new and exciting)... although these days it's both more likely and perhaps more interesting to try to play around with old (now uncommon) pigments. I read yesterday, for example, that saffron was sometimes used as a yellow pigment. Yes, the spice. The spice which I currently have in my kitchen. I read a description of how to steep it in beaten egg white to create paint... I would say I'm highly likely to give that a try. When exposed to light, though, it's very prone to fading, but will that stop me? doubtful.

More than the experimentation, though, I also understand Turner's seemingly indifferent attitude about what happened to his canvases after he had finished painting them. While I don't quite share that particular quality, I know exactly where it stems from. It has to do with the artistic process, and I would bet that a good share of my people would know just exactly what I'm talking about here. The best, most important part of the process of painting is the time during which it is actively happening. And by actively happening, I don't necessarily mean only when the paint brush is moving. Much of the "actively happening" painting can happen while it looks like absolutely nothing is happening. In my studio, anyway, I can spend hours upon hours sitting and staring at a painting, meditating with it in curious frustration - trying to figure out just exactly what my canvas needs. Creating a relationship with a painting is like nurturing a relationship with a person. Sometimes it's like courting a lover - you tread carefully and cautiously, constantly checking to make sure you're making the right move at the right time. Sometimes it's a little more like a parent/child relationship. This type of relationship typically crops up for me when a painting is finished and moving out into the world. It happens for me because of the intimate relationship I've had with the painting up until that time, and the fact that it's time for the painting to effectively grow up and leave the studio. It's not a particularly important time in the process of the painting, I suppose - but it's the way I think about the "goodbye" part of the process. The reason I feel that way about the "goodbye" part is as follows: when I look at paintings after they are finished, they remind me of that fantastically frustrating part of the process when I was actually working on them. The important part is definitely the working part. the by-product may be aesthetically interesting to look at to most people, but for me it's a reminder of the process by which they were born.

For Turner, I suspect he felt much the same way - that the act of painting was the important part. I suspect he just didn't share the same tender feelings about the by-product that I do. I suspect he didn't give a damn about the record of the creative process. He refused to "fix" paintings that had changed or faded after they were sold. It seems that he just didn't care about that once they were gone. Finlay even described finished canvases sitting on the floor, in which he had cut slits to allow his cats to move past them by going through them. While I can understand it, I don't quite share that cavalier attitude toward my aesthetically interesting byproducts (not even toward the aesthetically uninteresting)!

Interestingly there are other artists who were at quite the opposite end of the spectrum than Turner. Both Frank Lloyd Wright and Clyfford Still come to mind - both of whom insisted on having control of how their creations were treated and exhibited after they were finished and sold. Wright to the point of building furniture straight into his buildings so the inhabitants couldn't move it, and Still to the point of trespassing to steal or alter his paintings after they were sold, if he was dissatisfied with how they looked where they were hung. I would say that in the grand scheme of things, I fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, with a slight bent toward the end where Wright and Still are situated, though certainly not to the level of their notoriously eccentric behavior. (I did, however, refuse to go to my own BFA show because I was highly dissatisfied with how my work was hung. I felt that the color of the wall behind them ruined the paintings, which disgusted me, and so I couldn't bear to go and see my work like that. Meanwhile I counted the days until the whole disgraceful event would end, and I greedily took my work back to my studio).

All of this reminded me of a conversation with my friend Roxie, during grad school. We were sitting in a bar sharing a beer at the time, which was very appropriate for memories of my friend Roxie. She compared the artistic process to the idea that the journey is the important part, not the destination. That in fact arriving at the destination isn't necessarily as exciting as it's cracked up to be. It's not a let down, necessarily - but it can be rather anticlimactic. The journey is the real meat of it - the real excitement. Roxie compared it to sex. feel free to let your mind chew on that one for a while.

My personal favorite part of the artistic process is always definitely the most frustrating part. It's the part where all of the contemplation and exploration happen. The more frustration a painting involves, typically the better the painting in the end, the more intimate a relationship between myself and the painting - and the more fondly I will remember that particular painting experience. It isn't about actually solving the puzzle, though... it's more about the journey along the way to solving the puzzle. The solving of the puzzle always eventually happens, and that's not the important part. It's what was learned and experienced during the process of it. it's why I paint.

I paint because I have to. Most of the people who know me well probably consider my biggest fear to be spiders. They're certainly high up there on the list, but at the very top of the list is losing the ability to see or use my hands - rendering me unable to paint. loss of sight would also mean i couldn't look at art anymore, nor experience my love for color... but worse would certainly be losing the ability to create art. I don't want to live in that world - I wouldn't see the point in it. I paint because I am a painter with every fiber of my being. I am a painter because I can't live and not be a painter. it's something that I am compelled to do. I once took the Birkman personality test, and the result was that I scored the highest possible score in art. The man who interpreted the test for me told me that was rather rare, but that when it happened, the person would not be satisfied or happy unless that particular element (whatever it may be) was a part of their life. That is certainly true for me.

This week is a good example of exactly that. I have paintings in progress upstairs in my studio, and I have wanted to go upstairs and work on them all week, however life has gotten in the way of that. I have had a number of other things planned after work every day this week, and have not had enough waking hours in the day to be able to go upstairs and paint. I feel like I'm going mad. I feel frustrated. I feel compelled to go upstairs and paint, yet I haven't been able to do so. I sit at work with nothing to do (yet unable to go home) for 8 hours a day... most of that time I spend dreaming about the colors I would mix, and which brushes I would use to pull that paint across the paper. I think about the smell of linseed oil and the different pigments in my boxes of paint while I'm driving to and from work. I begged one of the art teachers to give me something to do this morning, so I could handle the wait time before I could get to my paintings. (as it turned out I didn't have the time for that either - I got called away to sit in and sub for an extremely boring and dissatisfying health class this morning... where I also wound up standing around dreaming about dragging paint across my self portrait upstairs).

i would be painting this exact moment, except I'm exhausted. I don't think I would be terribly productive in the studio right now. I want to wait until I'm well rested and fresh. I doubt i can drag myself to bed without going into the studio to play with my paint, at least for a few minutes, though. I'd like to complete a quick and simple layer, to prepare for the painting that I expect to do tomorrow. Then maybe I can sleep well and dream about my pigments, and get the rest that I need. I don't think I've gone to bed at a decent hour all week long - which is why I'm so exhausted now.

I have found myself wondering this week whether other people feel quite so strongly about certain aspects of their lives as I feel about painting. For example, does my friend Kari feel so strongly about writing that it would be impossible for her to live in a world where she could no longer write? Would Alyssa go utterly mad if she wasn't able to cook anymore? Does my husband have some secret thing that he loves with every fiber of his being that I don't yet know about? He tells me that he does not, and I find myself utterly bewildered by the idea of living without such a compulsion. It's beyond my realm of experience, and therefore unimaginable for me.

integrity

exactly one week ago today, my friend Marilee said something to me that has stuck with me, and resurfaced in my mind over and over again, and helped me to reflect on my own artwork (as well as the artwork of others) in a variety of ways. I don't recall exactly how the conversation started, but it likely had something to do with some of the newest and freshest ideas that I have for exploring paint and space. Whatever it was, it sparked a conversation about one of my older pieces of work, from when we were both students, and a comparison to other contemporary works we've seen recently. The piece of mine in question was one where I had stacked two canvases together, and cut through the first to make the second visible. Among the other contemporary works that were mentioned were some belonging to Titus Kaphar, who is a promising young, Black artist, who makes intriguing pieces that question and re-shape ,or re-frame (so to speak) Black history. In some of his works, he borrows imagery from art history, then literally cuts into the canvas and (again, literally) re-arranges the elements to give the work different connotations. Some of the re-arrangements are subtle, while others are not - however I find that the shift in meaning and mood of the work is always great. What Marilee said to me that caught my attention was about the treatment and integrity of the surface of the canvas when those of us who are incline to do so, cut into the canvas.

For hundreds of years (perhaps more), artists have been searching for ways to merge painting and sculpture together. Some attempts have been more successful than others. The end result is usually that it looks like a sculpture with color on it, though this is not always the case. I think Marilee felt that some of us painters who cut into our canvas get a little carried away with turning it into a 3-dimensional sculpture, and lose sight of the fact that it is also a 2-dimensional surface with loaded potential for the illusion of space. She felt that mine still honored the integrity of the 2-dimensional plane. I suspect that fact had to do with how 2-dimensional my cut canvas was really treated. Though I did create real space, I still treated both canvases as the 2-dimensional canvas that they were. I am a painter, after all. it's what I do. I also happen to love color and texture; and I also happen to not be a sculptor.

Interestingly, I was first inspired to cut into my canvas by a sculptor. I spent my spring term of 2003 studying art history abroad in Rome. A few months before we left for the program, our professor, Jeffrey Collins, gave us projects to research. I had a villa, and a particular (modern) segment of a museum. The villa was easy enough to figure out how to research, but the museum was another story. I had to first look up what was in the collection of the museum. One of the few things I do remember unearthing and researching was a sculptor by the name of Lucio Fontana. Unfortunately he is not a well remembered artist from the 1930's, but he is far from forgotten. Every now and then I stumble across one of his works in a museum and always feel as though I'm greeting a good friend when I see one. There are two distinct types of works that I usually see by Fontana. Some of them are obvious sculptures that were probably first made out of clay, and then cast as bronze. They range in size, but are usually at least 3 ft tall, rather round, and tend to have large gouges clawed or dug out of them. The rest are on canvas or paper, and have slashes cut into them, or sometimes small holes that look like puncture marks. But don't be fooled by his use of the canvas and paper - though the materials come from a painter's toolbox, he treated them very much like a sculptor. It's not a concept that I fully understood until I tried a master study of one of them. He did use paint, but he treated even the paint as though it were clay. He didn't approach texture the way that I might, by layering and scraping, or splashing and dripping, or heavily brushing at the canvas. He laid on a thick layer of paint, and then sculpted that layer as though it were clay. The actual 3-D effect is fairly shallow (although Fontana played with it extensively - he went to the effort of dramatically lighting and video taping the canvases as he moved the light, to enhance and show off its sculptural quality).

Below are a collection of photos taken of Lucio Fontana by the photographer Ugo Mulas. The photos were staged, but meant to show how Fontana worked. The one in the middle, on the top is one of my all time favorite photos of an artist. Though Fontana is a sculptor at heart, I know that posture well. I've adopted it countless times myself, while facing a blank canvas. It's the posture of an artist preparing himself for the great task of giving birth to a piece of artwork.


Given my conversation with Marilee regarding the integrity of the 2-D surface, I find myself looking back to Lucio Fontana again - at first glance it may appear that he respected the two dimensionality of the canvas - but being a sculptor, I have a strong feeling that he didn't respect it in the way that Marilee and I would as painters. Though the canvas itself is even more intact than my piece is, his is far less about painting, and far more about sculpting than mine is.

I got the impression that the amount of 3-D sculpture that appears in Titus Kaphar's work bothered Marilee on some level. I, on the other hand, found it exciting. I find it to be one of the rare examples where a painter is including sculptural elements in an honest, and meaningful way, while still remaining at heart a painter. Without the two dimensional elements in Kaphar's work, the 3-D elements would not have held nearly the same meaning. Likewise, by cutting them, he was not only revising history, but making a point of doing so. In one large canvas in particular, an entire figure was cut out (sort of like a paper doll, still attached at his feet), and thrown on the floor. The figure himself had been painted as a strong looking fellow, clearly someone "important" from history (I don't recall at the moment who he was), but the canvas looked limp, flat, and flimsy. I felt it made a rather powerful statement about how Kaphar felt about that particular fellow.

In my copious amounts of paid free time, lately, I've wondered just exactly what constitutes a painting. Does a stretched canvas necessarily mean it's a painting? After my description of Lucio Fontana, I would hope that it's clear that my answer to that is no. But how exactly would I categorize someone like Titus Kaphar? Personally, I see him as an artist perhaps alone (or at least fairly lonely) in a small and elite group of artists who seem to have a strong hold in both the worlds of painting and sculpting at the same time. I can't say for sure which camp I would put him in. I think his work necessarily needs both, and wouldn't be nearly as powerful if one were omitted. I see that as a fantastic thing - and something which I think a lot of artists have striven for, but a place in art history that few have actually achieved. All of my musings on the topic make me wonder just where Titus Kaphar would categorize himself, or whether he would bother at all.

Inspired

People like to say that things happen for a reason. If that's true, I think I've found the cosmic reason behind my being in limbo at work. It's given me tons of time to focus on my own work as an artist.

I'm currently floating around a high school with next to no responsibilities. My only actual duty all day long is to go and assist the librarian for an hour and a half during the two lunch periods, so that she can have a lunch break while still keeping the library open for kids at lunch. As far as actual responsibility goes, it's pretty simple. I have more years under my belt working in libraries than I do teaching, so that experience makes it even more simple. And relaxing. Working in libraries has always been relaxing for me. Not satisfying as in the "this is what I want my life's work to be" sort of a way - but relaxing by way of being very low stress kind of work.

I've been wiling away the rest of my daily work day by spending time in two different art classes. One with the new art teacher at the school who is teaching painting and drawing. She teaches very differently than I do... it's nice sometimes to be able to share my subject matter with the kids in her class when they need help... but lets be honest - I spend most of my time in there reading and flipping through art history books, absorbing photo after photo of artwork important enough to have been published. The other classroom I visit is run by a guy who teachers with a style similar to my own. He's easily one of the best art teachers I've met in the public school arena. He's also very busy with his own projects. He is a clay artist, and we've had a number of interesting conversations that leave me reflecting on a variety of topics ranging from brand new ideas for my own work to thoughts about what drives an artist's process for making art.

A little over a week ago I picked up a book that has been sitting on my bookshelf waiting for me for some time. It's a book that Hillary gave me, called Color. It's about the history of pigments. It talks about where they come from, how they were first used by people, sometimes it talks about folklore surrounding a particular pigment, and sometimes just interesting little facts about particular materials that we use. (for example, our No. 2 pencils are yellow today because way back in history when Americans were first trying to market pencils, there was a well known excellent graphite mine in China. Although the graphite in American pencils at the time was likely not from China, the pencils were painted yellow to associate them with the Chinese mine anyway).

During these past weeks that I've been floating around with nothing to do, and through a number of conversations with another thoughtful and purposeful artist, I've been very inspired and prolific in my own work. I strongly suspect that my lack of actual work to do in the classroom has made a lot of extra space in my mind for me to think more purposefully about my own work. It's given me a number of fresh ideas to explore. My only problem in my own work lately is lack of actual time at home in my own studio to realize the ideas floating around in my mind all day at work.

My clay artist co-worker challenged me by giving me a slab of clay, and asking me to approach it as if it were a canvas. to approach it as a painter, rather than a sculptor. This act alone lead me to contemplate how much the materials we're using as artists drive our own creative process. As a painter, I can do nearly anything to the canvas at any point in time during the painting process. With clay it's a different story. Clay changes over time, making particular actions have very particular consequences at different times throughout the artistic process. For example, pressing something forcefully into the clay at the beginning of the project, when the clay is still fresh and wet will result in a well formed hole pressed into the clay. However the same action days later when the clay has dried out could result in cracking, potentially even breaking the entire project into pieces. Once it's fired, the action would simply be impossible. Working with clay involves thinking about time, and planning more adequately than an artist working with paint. It's no wonder that I prefer paint. It suits my practice very well. I'm the type of artist who likes the ability to make changes to the entire project at any given time. I like to be able to destroy the image and start over. I like sitting with a painting for a long period of time, getting to know it, building a relationship with it. I enjoy that intimacy with a piece. The rigid rules surrounding the stages of working with clay limit that kind of a relationship with clay. The clay did, however, allow me to explore texture and edges far more than I have ever been able to do in painting. I enjoyed the organic edges I was able to create. I have always been somewhat dissatisfied with the rigid rectangular (or occasionally some other shape, but always rigid and geometric) edges of paintings. Occasionally a build up of paint at the edges will provide a little irregularity in the edge, but nothing close to the organic edges to the piece I was able to achieve in clay. Cutting and gouging into the clay to create space was also instantly rewarding. Attempting to do the same with a painting has been challenging, and has certainly been more difficult to do, though not impossible.

My clay piece is currently drying, awaiting its impending bake in the kiln. I strongly suspect that the changes that happen in the kiln will completely change the look of the piece that I created. One of my frustrations with clay is that I create a piece to look a certain way, and then everything changes once it's been fired. Though the physical shape of the thing stays relatively the same, it does shrink a bit. Worse, the colors change. All of them change. Some of them change dramatically (as in sometimes yellow becomes red, or pink becomes green, or red becomes black). For a person who loves color the way that I do; loves all of the subtle and delicate differences between color, the sometimes uncertainty about what will happen in the kiln is enough to drive an artist crazy. Though changes can, of course, happen to paint over time, they are (usually) not as dramatic as those that happen in the world of clay.

An example of paint that does change as dramatically - which I've learned from experience as much as I've learned from the Color book I'm currently packing around - is with lead white paint. There are caves in China that were painted in the middle ages using lead white paint, and in some places that white paint has turned pitch black. It has to do with a chemical reaction, and depends on what other pigments the color was touching. Even in modern painting the pigment can be somewhat unstable. It's not a paint that is very popular in modern painting, though it is still available to American artists (it is actually banned or restricted in some countries). I've used it, and I do like the paint. Using it, I can easily understand why artists would continue to use it, even knowing the dangers of lead poisoning. I do have a tube of Flake White (lead) in my paintbox, and I do use it on occassion, but the way I more regularly use lead white is in a primer. There is no better way to start a painting than on linen primed with lead white oil ground. It's much like the difference in wearing polyester compared to silk, with lead white ground on linen being the silk, and acrylic titanium white ground on cotton canvas being the polyester. On occassion, though, the lead white will become yellow with age. I have read that you can place the canvas out in the sun to restore the original white, but I haven't tried it (yet). I was cleaning up and organizing my studio yesterday, and came upon my box of unused, folded canvas, one chunk of which had been primed years ago with lead white - and just as Ralph Mayer warns in the Artist's Handbook, it had become quite yellow with age. It was too late in the day yesterday to attempt placing it in the sun, but if we have another sunny day in the near future, I will certainly attempt it.

Before I got around to cleaning and organizing my studio yesterday, I did go upstairs to do some painting. I have been working at home on a self portrait lately. This is highly unusual for me. I have drawn them in college before, almost exclusively as an assignment, but to my recollection, I don't think I have ever painted one. It's very new territory for me, but one that is definitely holding my interest. So far I have begun the painting as a charcoal drawing of a self portrait, covered with two separate layers of paint, each being a different self portrait, one layered on top of the other. I have a feeling there will be several more layers of work, covering those that already exist, before it is finished.

As I completed my work for the day on the self portrait, it occurred to me that it was hanging on the wall, directly facing another piece that I haven't touched in several years. The one on the opposite wall began as a charcoal drawing that I was compelled to begin when I came dangerously close to losing my best friend several years ago. It has been sitting unfinished, waiting for me to discover the mystery of what steps come next, for years. I've kept it on the wall, looking at it occasionally, wondering what step should come next. And the realization that I was literally facing my best friend in my studio - in the form of two paintings probably cut from the same roll of paper, and approximately the same size (both about 4 ft tall by 3 ft wide), told me that it was time to work on that piece again. Though they were certainly both designed to work as pieces separate and able to stand on their own, I can't fight the feeling that they've become connected, even if that connection is only the friendship I share with my best friend. Though they're connected by our friendship, I do feel that the two paintings will likely develop in rather different ways. One is an exploration of myself, while the other is an exploration of my friendship and feelings of potential loss. To prepare for the next steps (finally) on the piece inspired by my best friend, I simply covered the charcoal with a layer of clear acrylic medium. It didn't disturb the charcoal much, but did make it entirely possible to paint over the charcoal without disturbing it or destroying the paper later. It's a small step, sure, but it is progress nonetheless. stay tuned for more, but to check out the juxtaposition I found in my studio yesterday, see the two paintings (though one isn't technically a painting yet) below:

Limbo

I'm stuck in limbo!

I was displaced from my school at the end of the last school year (it means that i still have a job in the district, but quite possibly at a different school in the district). This is pretty much the norm for me - I've been displaced at the end of every school year since i started teaching. I realized this was not only a possibility, but a probability when I started teaching. Finding and keeping a job as an art teacher is difficult business, and I tend to sigh with relief and thank Minerva when I escape another summer without being RIF'd (reduction in force).

This summer was a particularly difficult year with displacements not only in my own district, but nationwide. Teachers across the country are losing their jobs; and due in large part to our very good union, no one in my district was RIF'd this year. But that doesn't mean we got off easy - one of our middle schools closed, and several others were seriously shaken up staff-wise. That meant a LOT of displaced teacher - TONS more than the norm.

Usually I'm placed for fall by mid June. Late June at the very latest. This time around I got an automated call halfway through July letting me know that they were still working on placements, and not to worry - I would hear something "soon"... well, a week before school started I still hadn't heard where I would be placed. I went into HR around that time for something unrelated, and decided to start asking questions while I was there... I was told that I would get a "call back" real soon... i've heard that song and dance before!

Well, merely days before I was supposed to go back to work, I did get a call - someone in HR called to tell me I'd be going to Wilson HS to provide "general support" until "a position in the district opens up that I am endorsed in" (i'm only endorsed in visual art, and so i'm not holding my breath for that one to happen any time soon).... as for the "general support" bit - people keep asking what that means... including me.

So far "general support" has meant just hanging out around campus helping out much like a TA. I spend most of my day in another art teacher's classroom. She teaches what I taught last year at Mt. T, and this is her first year doing high school. (if you're wondering, she got the position instead of me because she has many more years seniority in the district than I do). She's used to middle school, and seems to enjoy having me hang around her classroom. I also spend a little over an hour hanging out in the library to give our librarian a break for lunch...

overall it's rather boring, but on the upside i've still got a job, and it's been a nice and relaxing start to the year. but needless to say i'm rather anxious to get back into my own classroom, with my own students, and my own curriculum. (The new art teacher I'm spending time with has a MUCH different teaching style and curriculum than I do).

Quite honestly, I'd like to get back specifically to my old classroom at Mt. T. I'm homesick for it. It occurred to me that I'm feeling this way because this is the first time I've left a school I liked so abruptly. I liked Hunt, but I was sort of eased out of that position (I was displaced after my first year at Hunt, then brought back half time at Hunt and half time at Bryant, and then finally displaced and sent to Mt. T full time the following year). I specifically requested to be displaced after my year at Bryant. I flat out told HR that I refused to go back there. (thankfully, they were willing to oblige).... I couldn't get away from that place fast enough!

The staff so far at Wilson has been wonderful (I particularly like the principal)... but I can't help feeling homesick for Mt. T. I love the diversity in student population over there, I loved teaching painting and drawing, I loved my classroom (mess from the previous teacher and all), and I loved my colleagues. It was just a great place, and I miss it!

feline drama

my cats don't go outside. i've just never let my cats go out... ever since i had my first cat, Nikko, in Pittsburgh, I haven't let them out. That was partly the result of living on the 3rd floor in an apartment building with no balcony or direct outdoor access... and partly the result of my personal feeling that there's less chance of accident and disease if they are strictly indoor.

My parents used to let their cats out, until they moved to Gig Harbor, and lost several to the local wildlife. At that point my parents' cats became indoor cats as well.

And, so Masaaki and Akira have never been allowed to go outside. I did have a balcony in my apartment in Tacoma, and even direct outdoor access through my front door. But I've always felt it was just easier and safer to keep them indoors and that's that. I got Masaaki when I was in Chicago. It was the same story at that apartment. I didn't have direct outdoor access, nor did I want him going outside. Masaaki was more than cool with that arrangement. In fact, every time the door opened, he would run and hide - so Masaaki and I have pretty much always been on the same page about that decision.

Akira, on the other hand, is not a big fat weenie like his buddy, Masaaki. I got Akira while living in my apartment in Tacoma, and that cat is a real sneak. I caught him several times trying to sneak out the front door in Tacoma. Since we moved to the house in Kent, he has actually made it out about 3 or 4 times. When we're lucky we catch him on his way out, scold him, and he runs immediately back in. At least twice he got out and hid under the deck, and it was a real nightmare to get him back in. Once he's stuck out there, he's really not as brave as he seems to think he is when he's on his way out the door.

About two days ago, Mike and I both discovered that our front door is not closing as well as it should be. We both thought sure we had closed it, and both times we found it open later. Mike says something about the door frame needs fixing, and he swears he's going to look at it tonight. The first time it happened, we found Akira still wandering around the living room... the second time he must have snuck out before we noticed.

Masaai threw a big fit yesterday. It's normal for him to howl and carry on... so we thought nothing of it... until this morning when he started following me around like a shadow, and i realized that i hadn't seen Akira recently. (usually the two of them make appearances first thing in the morning, so it's odd to just see one). Masaaki followed me downstairs (even braving walking right past the dog to howl at me). Poor little guy missed his feline friend. Masaaki always notices Akira's absences first.

I mentioned the whole disappearing act to Mike when he got up, and asked him to look for Akira if he had the time... well just as I was getting ready to leave for work, Mike opened the door, and there was Akira (terrified, wet, and kind of dusty looking) at the door. If we were happy to see him, Masaaki was doubly excited to see him. They exchanged the cutest kitty greeting, and then spent the rest of the morning following each other around. They are such polar opposites, but apparently they're also the best of friends. they're just so sweet.

the mike stories, pt. 9

Mike has been learning Spanish on his own for quite some time. (since even before I met him, I think). It's rather slow going compared to taking a class... but he's made a lot of progress. A few months ago he started watching Spanish kids' shows. Then he found some kind of flash card app for his iPod that helps him learn words. Most recently he's started reading a Spanish book and he's recording a Yoga workout show that airs in Spanish...

...all of this is very cool, but I've discovered that Spanish Mike is quite different than Regular Mike. Regular Mike doesn't watch much tv (Spanish Mike watches a lot of tv). Regular Mike refuses to go to yoga with me (Spanish Mike goes to the effort of recording a yoga workout show so he can do it whenever he feels like it!). Regular Mike never ever reads for pleasure (but Spanish Mike sure does!).

In light of all of this strange stuff that Spanish Mike does, I find myself sitting in my living room alone wondering which Mike is putting strange things in strange places lately. Two days ago I found a POT HOLDER in the freezer. Yesterday I found an orange in the upstairs bathroom. (I don't even want to know why you would need an orange in the bathroom). This morning I found Mike's cell phone left in the downstairs bathroom, and the cable remote is missing (again)... I have a feeling it will turn up in a bizarre location - i've already checked the freezer. not there.

Regular Mike does lose stuff on a regular basis... but these latest strangely placed items are just a little too weird for Regular Mike... I think Spanish Mike might hide things with a flair for the weird.