Party of One

Party Of One
Oil on Wood
(8x42)

Yep, It's been forever. Some paintings take forever because they just take hours and hours of work. Some because the outside world is an intrusion, a constant intrusion. 2012 has brought seemingly stable employment along with months and months of persistent, intense physical pain. A little good a little bad. All of which has made time at the easel quite the challenge. Sometimes you just gotta battle through. I had intended to post this with a written companion, but the written piece is a convoluted mess hampered by all the starts and stops of getting "Party of One" finished. I'll spare you the tragedy. 

So here it is: A victim of starts and stops and mistakes and mistakes while correcting mistakes, but I'm pleased with the final outcome. The best part is that my mind and easel are free to start something new. ©2012 Cindy K. Shaw All Rights Reserved

Changing Minds

The last several weeks...months have been a flurry. I had a significant step up in contract work that started in August of last year. Then juggling this with some part-time work at the local LGBT community center. All this juggling of various part-time work came with long hours and a crazy schedule. Lots of work. Some money. Now, full time engineering work. More money. Lots of engineering brain time. Not much rest. Not much easel time. Not much artist brain time. And yes, it is as difficult as you might think to shift from my engineering brain to my artist one, especially when stress starts to run amok. Changing minds is never easy. 

Anyway…I started a piece while working on Requiem. Steps 1 and 2 were great and had me excited about where it would go. Steps 3 and 4 basically fucked it up and left me stumped. I spent weeks staring…trying to find a pathway to rework the disaster zones until I finally resigned that I just needed to paint over the trouble. So I did, but that tub of white paint I grabbed wasn’t primer. It was bright enamel. A fuck up to correct a fuck up that took several layers of paint to get back to a workable…paintable surface. We won’t discuss the other two items that were improperly “primed”. Those await my attention for a later date. 

So, I promise a finished piece is coming soon. I’m down to the nitty gritty details and am happy with how things are progressing. The photo is a little tease…a proof of life if you will. 

©2012 Cindy K. Shaw All Rights Reserved

Where There's Smoke

"Where There's Smoke" Pastel on Paper (12x12)

My little fingers have been itching for a little grit and grime that is the joy of working with pastels.  

It's been months since my last piece...like since January.  This was in part because both of my easels were occupied with paintings and I felt like I had begun to repeat myself.  Sometimes a little break is a good thing. 

A little time, a little cleared space and a blank sheet of paper.  There you have it.  ©2011 Cindy K. Shaw All Rights Reserved

In My Lair

"DragonFire" Watercolor and Ink on Paper (9x6)

A sucky day full of sucky memories
So I hide in my lair...head down...hand on brush
Avoiding direct connection...to pain...my pain...your pain...our pain.
Pain of bewilderment...collective loss...grief
The school yard bully unleashed.
A decade of fear and hate has...unraveled us all.
I fucking hate this day.
©2011 Cindy K. Shaw All Rights Reserved

Requiem

"Requiem" Oil on Canvas (42x72)

Here it is.  This painting and I have been working together since the end of May. Really much longer, since early February when I had the dream that has become the subject. A dream I remembered, which I rarely do.  A dream that had me twisted about. A dream that needed to be studied and painted so I could release it.  

Nervous Energy

Cabinet Door 6 - "Breathe"
Acrylic and Spray Paint on Wood  (16x27)

Yesterday was an antsy pantsy kind of day.  Far too much nervous energy to be trusted on the large painting that is down to the nitty gritty fine details.  The angst energy evident in yesterday's post loomed from the very first waking moment and I was in a "must make art" state all day.

These are the days that I most like being in my metal workshop where I can bang away at some steel, be loud, aggressive and get absolutely sweaty stinky filthy in the process. Alas, I've been without a metal workshop since unloading my house last year so this is what I did. I had to do something. I had to. 

It all started with spray paint...a medium that I still pretty much suck at, but love. This is also done in acrylics which I generally hate using, but they are fast and allowed me to push and fight without a consideration to any patience whatsoever. I have a very limited array of colors of low quality paint and really crappy brushes. Who cares? Right? I'm the artist. Not the paint.  Not the brushes.

I "finished" things up today. Even still, it is a rough, thrown together painting frenzy and I fully intend to leave it that way. ©2011 Cindy K. Shaw All Rights Reserved

Art is Ugly

"Angry Bitch" Mixed Media on Board (12x12)

Not all art is good. Not all art is pretty. Sometimes it just is. You can let it live or you can toss it out.  Who knows what the fate of this piece will be.  I surely don't. 

If you're interested, click read more to see the text:

Nail Biter

Nail Biter - Watercolor & Pen on Paper (5x7)

I’ve been dancing on a threadbare tightrope...Center ring of a cliffhanger circus.  The abyss that lies beneath is hungry and I smell of a tasty meal.  

Sleeping in a bed of quicksand is dangerous business. Be still…you sink fastest when you squirm.  

I’ve chewed my nails bloody, gnawed back to the bone.  The handwringing worry a slight breeze will tumble my house cards. 

Homelessness looms.

Something’s gotta break soon.  Maybe...something is me. 

Maybe not…at least…not yet.

A final hour rescue…a job…even if only temporary…I’ll take it. 

My art needs a roof, my head needs a pillow, and my lungs a full breathe of air.  

Plop...Plop...Fizz...Fizz.  Oh what a relief it is. 

A job…even if only temporary…I’ll take it. 

©2011 Cindy K. Shaw All Rights Reserved

Sore Neck

"R" Stage 13 Oil on Canvas (72x42)

The large piece has made it past the halfway point and I'm pleased with the progress. My neck is sore from the 5+ hours yesterday very close to the canvas...head tilted back as I was in bifocal range most of the time. The pains of a middle aged artist. :)

The work from here is about details, depth, and refinement. Sounds like tedium, but it is really about bringing the core expression to the forefront. There are technical rules and procedure on how to do this, but I constantly violate rules of perspective. Allowing the violation was quite the growth experience for me as an artist. It required accepting and embracing this very spontaneous action as a quality of my own style. So now I will acknowledge the rule, nod my head and continue on my own path.

As my external world is rapidly crumbling, time at my easel is the only place of sanity for me.  Working on this piece is my freedom, my only time of true reality.  At this pace, I expect I will be FINISHED by the end of the month. I can't wait to share the final piece.  Oh the irony.   ©2011 Cindy K. Shaw All Rights Reserved

Shut the Fuck Up

Spiral Eye - Block Print and Watercolor on Paper (4x5)

Tricky Tricky…keeping it real without really being real. Sterile delivery when the truth just beneath is too ugly for a public meal. 

We have…

An unspoken agreement to...not to...speak.  

Silence is golden. So suck it up because there are no painkillers for this demise. A display of success covers the wall and sings loudly of relentless failure. I am too big for my britches and there is no turning back from here. 

Why did the chicken cross the road?  To get to the other fucking side. What happens in between is, well…none of your fucking business. Reality is a mess without a maid and only a broken broom held in a broken hand. We love the before and after, but the nasty middle is saved for…something else…the triumphant memoir…the movie of the week…the dirty little secret never told. You don’t really want to hear it, now do you? No one likes a scared angry bitch.

Claims of envy from a place of privilege rings sanctimonious bullshit of freedom.  Life under house arrest, a thousand hamsters on a thousand wheels cannot…do not…generate peace.  Please, Oh Please! Send rescue from the well meaning masses. Only a rare few will shovel the shit when the stench is neck high. Love measured by the grit under their fingernails. The rest…squirm in their squeaking chairs because too much has already been said. I am mid-scream with the volume turned way down. A motherly protection for sensitive ears. 

Not all art has meaning but the only breath I breathe streams from paintbrush to canvas, pencil to paper. A blissful denial from the failure of being and not being because I cannot fucking be. Some may be good. Some absolutely sucks. All of it is all of what matters and is better left unsaid…you kill the art by saying too much...and I have already said too much. 

©2011 Cindy K. Shaw All Rights Reserved