Studio Cat

Meet Max, as in Maxwell Storm. He’s only 8 weeks old.

He got his name because “Max” popped into my head when the girl who brought him to my door asking if I’d adopt her kitty handed him to me. Then I asked if she had named him yet. She said his name was Storm; that she’s been calling him Stormy. So I said okay, he can be Max Storm.

He is a storm, plays like a little whirlwind out in the main rooms, running and jumping and acting nuts. But, come in here and he’s like a totally different cat… calmly explores every nook and cranny, curls up on this foot stool, sits on top of storage bins under the work table, and he’s got a favorite spot to nap in the closet where he can hide for hours while I’m busy doing whatever.

Oh yeah… he’ll be a good studio cat.

I really, really REALLY like my new work space. It’s not quite ready for prime time show & tell, but the vibes in here are great. I haven’t had a dedicated work room that felt this good since… well, I don’t know when.  Bringing in the computer, swapping chairs out, and placing that curb find table in just the right spot made a huge difference. I can actually work in here, write in here, and do what I want in here.

Yes, I’m amazed. For a minute there, when my daughter was using this room as Santa’s Closet with her online purchases being shipped to this house, I began to wonder if my so-called work room would end up becoming just another storage room. That’s what happened every time before.  I’ve set up rooms when I lived in Warren, Salem, and Struthers, but there was always something off. It didn’t feel right. Try as I might, I just couldn’t make myself do much of anything inside the designated room.

Maybe it’s because I’m older now… maybe it’s THIS space.

Maybe because I’ve taken my time setting it up, repainted the walls and everything, after packing up the vet’s stuff back in July. This was “our” bedroom and I couldn’t sleep in here anymore, woke up crying, bawling buckets every day. Now all those vibes are gone.

I’m down to organizing supplies, putting things away, and all those bins tucked under tables need sorted out. No rush… it will slowly get done.

I’ve started doing a “Weekly Pour” with liner notes on my other blog (ybworks.com) as I’m just learning how to do acrylic pours. I like abstracts, so it’s fun… I’m up to five practice pours on paper. The first was a total disaster, chopped the second one up, and the last three are still drying. Suppose I could post them here, too… maybe just the ones that turn out okay.

Like here’s Pour #2. I can’t tell if the photo is fuzzy or that’s just my eyes. This being half blind sucks, but I’m thinking acrylic pours is something I can do… tried painting something delicate with tiny brushes and most of my strokes landed in the air.  It gets frustrating but, oh well… try something new.

And, here’s how I chopped it up as 4 ACEO’s, one 5×5, a bookmark, and a cover.

Of course, I had to make a little 28 page book for that cover (shown on far right in above photo). It’s the perfect size for passwords, birth dates, phone numbers, and notes for old ladies like me who can never remember. I like to write on paper that feels good so I used 7 folios of 50 lb sketch paper pamphlet stitched to the blue card stock liner.

Yeah, I know… you are supposed to pour onto gallery stretched canvases, but I’m just learning how to control this flow stuff. Practicing on 140 lb cotton paper yielded a nice surprise…  it feels good dry, almost like a leather. I’m very happy with my little book. It makes me want to make more.

Well, ornery got up where he’s not supposed to be… thank goodness that mat is dry. Guess I should get busy and get my mess cleaned up.  Sooner or later, it will all be neatly organized, too.

Thanks for reading!

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Art of B.D. Fiant

 

Under the Mulberry Tree

Artistic Drain

Spin Cycle

Bridal Bridle Bitch

Fire Me

B.D. Fiant is an ultra ego created while working under duress in 2006. It was not a good year. The last six months were hell. My stress level was so jacked that I felt like I was shaking uncontrollably when sliding my card to enter the door, but a glance at my steady hands told me that I was only shaking on the inside.

The delusional ropes in poem Ropes  were in that place.

The art attributed to B.D. Fiant are computer generated modifications of my own photographs and paintings. They speak of a world spinning out of control, of being caught in the bull, with life as I knew it going down the drain, and my utter inability to stop it. I pulled the meme and photos off my old laptop. There are more, but I’m only sharing my favorites.

It has taken years to recover. In some ways, I am permanently scathed, to use an Old English word. I’ve been heat treated, hardened… the dear sweet little girl raised to be a gentle lady has a core of defiance, an inability to put up with much of anything. I am B.D. Fiant.

Thanks for reading!

Hopscotch Revisited

Hopscotch is one of my favorite paintings… the original hangs in my living room. I’ve painted it twice, that first one in 1998 and then I painted an identical Hopscotch inside another painting, so that one is a smaller partial painting of Hopscotch over a chest of drawers in a flat kind of still life scene. I used to hang both in the same room as it was always a conversation starter when someone noticed that this painting has that painting in it.

The inevitable follow-up question was always the same, before or after they read the quote by Jane Welsh Carlyle from 1845, which I had adhered a printed copy to look framed on top of the chest of drawers. Who is the man in the locket? The woman obviously me… awe, that is my muse… was my muse. Sigh. I don’t hang it anymore.

The quote? Should I pull it out… look it up, or dare a misquote? A paraphrase? I know the ending as it was my post-divorce (my another life) motto: “If I have to lead another life in any of the planets, I shall take precious good care not to hang myself round any man’s neck, either as a locket or a millstone.”

I tried to take precious good care, not let myself go there… oh well.

For some odd reason, I decided to revisit Hopscotch for the 5×5 donation… paint it again, in miniature, but not exactly the same as the original Hopscotch. It is geometric, overlapping circles, so draw it first, then paint it in, like a coloring book technique, simple as can be, just color in each section with paint.

Alas, artistic ideas ignore physical limitations.

My spacial relationships have been somewhat “off” since that little stroke stole my right eye last year. Quick count… broken glass and coffee cups?  If I can’t trust my eyes to set a beverage far enough onto a stand so it does not fall off with I let go of the handle, how can I land the tip of a micro-brush exactly where I want it to go? I tried… dab, line, woops! Okay… well, keep going, clean it up, try again.

I finally gave up. Here it is, after I painted white over everything.

And here it is… the colored pencil version, ready to pop into the mail.

Hopscotch Revisited, 5 x 5 inches

It looks different than the original Hopscotch, more like a quilt by repeating the same colors. I do have much better control over the pencils, maybe because it is a dry medium. Pencils requires more than a light touch to lay down color. Still, I’m not really to give up the paints.

Thanks for looking!