Today in the Studio

Painting on Monoprint 12″ x 12″ Holly Suzanne 2013

Painting on Monoprint 12″ x 12″ Holly Suzanne 2013

Painting on Monoprint 12″ x 12″ Holly Suzanne 2013

Today I painted upon three monoprints I made over the Christmas holiday using photos I had taken to bring in the New Year as inspiration.  These painting were completed in two phases.  For the colored background I applied paint using a roller onto a glass surface and then made a print with the paper.  After this dried, I used black india ink to draw and paint directly on the surface of the prints, washing away portions and then letting them dry before layering more ink on the surface.

Patterned Prints

 

Patterned Prints-  Holly Suzanne December 2012

 

Lovers Dictionary : Blemish

The first installation compiled for our larger project set to words in video format.   From Combinatory Art in Motion:   Lovers Dictionary : Blemish.

Moves for a New Year

It’s New Year’s Eve.  Nathan and I are at home, childless for the evening.  We’ve been working on a project I highlighted in a post on our Combinatory Art in Motion Blog.  I hope you’ll check it out.  I’ve included a few of the photos from the warm up of our photo shoot just for fun.  Dancing isn’t easy for me physically, but small moves go a long way in liberating my spirit.  So, Happy New Year and I wish you all time to dance in your own way:)!!!!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Contemplating Personal Power

Contemplating Personal Power

Meditating Realities # 3 Graphite on Paper 9″ x 12″ Holly Suzanne, 2012

Owning my own personal power is something I take very seriously.  Not only is this important in my work as a therapist, where equalizing the inherent power differential is a part of my theoretical lens, but it is important in other areas of my life as well and affects my marriage, my parenting, and my creative capacities.  Believing in myself, owning my strengths, my limitations, my growth edges, helps me face down fear, which so often paralyzes me, especially artistically.  I fear that I have nothing relevant to say and even less ability to execute it.  It’s easier with therapy, the stance of humility is beneficial to reducing other peoples anxieties.  With art, when I am planning or working on a piece I find that confidence and trust in myself are paramount.  These are important in therapy as well, but it is not really about me, it is about others.  Art brings me face to face with my self in a way that leaves me vulnerable.  When I am able to overcome my fear and allow myself freedom to make mistakes, the result is often gratifying.  It’s this personal power I hold onto when I begin to doubt.

This latest in the series of Meditating Possibilities seemed a fitting tribute to starting the new year.  Thanks to my step son whose Captain America helmet was loaned for the sitting:)

A New Series in The Making: Meditating Possibilities

Meditating Possibilities # 2
Graphite on Paper
9″ x 12″
Holly Suzanne , December 2012

Meditating Realities # 1
Graphite on Paper
9″ x 12″
Holly Suzanne, December  2012

Meditating Possibilities # 3

Holly Suzanne, 2012

As some of my readers have noted, I’ve been waiting for some kind of inspiration as of late, feeling bogged down and bound up with a long Christmas list of to-do”s. Typically,  when this happens I find myself day dreaming, gazing, reading, or honestly DOING anything that isn’t directly creative in a zombie like procrastinating state,  but thankfully,  this is lifting, thanks in part to my husband who just happened to place one of my hats atop a Buddha statue  that sits atop our built in buffet in the dining room.  Often over the past few days, I’ve  found myself gazing at it, captivated by the transformative reality the small hat claims,  and so it was that yesterday I decided to play dress up so to speak with various hats from our wardrobe.  In my dress series, I engaged the idea of identity via style and fashion particularly related to gender, but this dressing strikes me in another way.  The Buddha statue adorned with various hats is an odd juxtaposition of physical and spiritual dimensions.  It reminds me so of a phrase I read long ago as part of an essay on Liberation Theology that encouraged a spirituality where one’s “feet are planted in mid-air” (author unknown).  In an odd way these works remind me of that.  We are living after all,  bound to our bodies, our vulnerabilities, our lives, and yet to transcend these things, to meditate and find peace requires a meditative other wordly stance often referred to as meditation.  This is something I think of often, seeking to find balance in my life.  In this case it appears, at least for the time being in this new series.  

To see a book of the dress series with paintings by me and poetry by Nathan Filbert please visit:  Paper Dolls: A Dress Series in Paint and Poetry

Bound Up Inside

Fused Plastic Collage with Marker on Wax Paper
Holly Suzanne 2012

Sometimes I feel bound up inside as if there were no escape from my own self defined ideas.  Things like beauty and creativity find themselves cloaked or stifled and I struggle to bring forth what I’m trying to say, do or represent.  I move about and wrestle trying to free that thing that will change it all, that will finally release me from what’s holding me.  I feel inept, unable to execute my ideas or my desires.  I guess  we never really know what is hidden or what we hide from ourselves, the parts of our selves that sabotage.  I can feel their effects, but struggle today to get my bearings and push through to the other side.

Saltwater Play

I’m home and slowing moving back into a routine here  in Wichita.  As I prepare tomorrow for my first day back in the studio since my trip, I thought I’d share a few artifacts of my time in Mexico.   These simple paintings of water and sky were created by combining water from the Sea of Cortez and gouache paint from home.  It created a really interesting effect that still surprises me as I look at them more closely at home.

 

 

 

 

Painting as Rest and Relaxation

Thanks so much to all of you have rooted me on Friday evening for my Artist’s Reception at Mead’s Corner.  Although I was nervous, the group that attended were a welcoming audience with many thoughtful questions that helped me to articulate my philosophy, development, and vision as an artist.  My handy basket of props (materials I use to work in encaustic mixed media) was also very helpful for me).  Little tricks of the trade, suggested by my dear husband, Nathan! Thank you!  Really the night was very fun and the artwork well received and so good to see family and friends and to meet new people:)

I was able yesterday to get some paints out and spent some time working on a series of paintings in red:

Working was very refreshing for me and gives me such a sense of peace.  I’m very grateful for paint!

Morning Coffee and Watercolor Rain

This morning Nathan and I are sitting at Mead’s Corner having coffee (this is where my work is up this month).  We happen to be positioned in a sunny room right in front of this piece, “Watercolor Rain”, which is a mixed media collage on board.  It suites my mood this morning, so I share it here.  There’s something about the way she stands, turned away, head down.  I experience the piece as a  melancholy calm, with hints of passion and memory, nostalgia and wistful remembering,  Some of my pieces hit me this way.  So much of my experience and way of experiencing are worked out in the making, each artifact a part of an intricate tapestry of being.  So I let it ruminate,  and allow myself to feel.

 

Related articles

• Collaging Realities (lifeinrelationtoart.wordpress.com)
• Poetic Collage (lifeinrelationtoart.wordpress.com)
• Beautiful Mixed Media Artwork by Jose Romussi (kaylalaut.wordpress.com)

 

A Project in Motion

I’ve been working on completing a separate webpage that provides a working snapshot or photo album of my artistic work since the summer of 2009.  As I search for images cf my work that correspond to various time frames I’ve found it a curious way of building a working memory.  There is also development there, artistically in terms of maturation, but also in terms of body/mind/and emotion.

Please visit me there at www.hollysuzanne.net

I am not finished adding work to the site and I’ll be adding new work as it’s completed so check back often:)  You can always find me through Life In Relation To Art.

Cheers,

Holly Suzanne

 

In The Studio

 

Yesterday I posted a process work after cleaning my studio.  Today I’m posting one small area of my studio and a close up of one sculptural piece I completed about a year ago.  Sometimes it’s just nice to sit back and look, to see things with fresh eyes.  It’s gorgeous outside today, clear and about 70 degrees.  The sun is shining, I’m home between clients at my office.  A breather.  We all need it.

 

Liftaway

Liftaway
Oil, encaustic, ink, and paper mixed media
24″ x 28″

Poetic Collage

Standing Alone I
Mixed Media: For my latest show I added a layer of wax, shellac and wood glue to add a textural dimension to an existing ink and watercolor painting that I mounted on a 2″ gallery wrapped wooden board. I used a wet shellac burn to brown the wood glue to represent bark on the solitary trunk. The amber shellac added a lot to the piece, bringing out more of the autumnal colors.

 

Sometimes in my work, after a painting rests  awhile, it calls for something else and the result for me is a kind of visual poetry or collage.  There is a cadence to the work.  It feels otherworldly and seems to take on a life of it’s own.  Some people call this flow; some call it inspiration.  I’m not sure what I call it but it seems pregnant and full of possibility. I liked these paintings before; they felt fresh and alive.  Now they seem mature and full, as if they’ve the capacity to hold and embrace the weight of living.  Perhaps that’s what age does for some people.  It’s certainly something to think about.

Cycles of Life

Cycles of Life
Mixed Media on Board with Resin
18″ x 18″
2012

 

The title of this piece is perhaps self evident.  This piece, constructed with paper, plastic, shellac, wood glue, acrylic paint, and oil was made with the summer fires in Colorado in mind.  Often what we believe will scar the landscape or our own lives actually ends up bringing unexpected discoveries.  The overall topography is something to behold and hold in reverence.

 

This is one of the pieces I’ll be featuring in the show at Mead’s Corner in Wichita from October 31st to December 1, 2012.