"Hometown"

Here's the new kid in the studio, another "little" piece (24"x80") titled "Hometown."  It combines images from my hometown, though it could be practically anywhere in the United States.  I'm thinking more and more about work that addresses the repetition in our lives, the efforts of living day-to-day and still trying to achieve what is meaningful to us.  Trying to remember the big goals while stuck in our routines of paying bills, mowing the lawn, going to work, coming home from work. 

It's also a piece about urban sprawl and that fact that it could be almost anywhere, any suburb in America.  We've lost something critical in the need to throw up buildings at break-neck speed without paying attention to what is being lost.  Prime farm land, open space, wildlife habitat--all might be in the recent history of our own subdivision, our own backyard.

Here are a few process pieces for you--this one took quite a bit of math to achieve mostly because it is painted on an old interior door.  That means it isn't exactly 24"x80", but 23 5/8" by 79 3/8".  I have a pretty mathematical mind and I like the craftsmanship of these kinds of pieces, so it took me a bit to set up.

 

"Hometown" image 1: playing with pics and grids

"Hometown" image 2: contour lines (I actually really liked it at this stage and might try to do more work that uses these sketchy lines exclusively)

"Hometown" image 3: blocking in the values and rearranging some houses (Ah, the power of art, to be able to move a house on a map for the sheer whimsy of it)

As always I welcome your feedback.  I'm hoping to turn this into the first of a series, stay tuned.

Dawn

Horseriders on the Beach

Just outside Bandon, Oregon, a little promontory of land juts out into the Pacific, creating two unique views of the coast, north and south.  Unusually shaped rocks and islands, amazing tidal pools, and a wealth of bird life make this a stunning place to explore.  We were just coming back from the beach one evening, pausing to take one last look at the ocean for the day, when about twenty horseback riders came around the bend to the south.  I had just realized that the lens on my poor camera was completely covered in salt spray from spending a day at the beach with me.  Now to get down to the beach from our hotel involved a loooong staircase.  That sucker was huge (and I do work out.)  I made a tactical decision, and started to run back to the hotel room, realizing along the way that of course I had opted for the third story room as it had a better view, adding even more stairs to the ridiculousness.   I hauled my sorry butt back up those stairs, into the hotel room, found the lens cleaner, back down the stairs, leaping over a toddler, (just kidding, but I did call out that I was coming up on the left of this kid with his mom so they wouldn't be too alarmed), racing by them to the landing over the beach.  Amazingly, the horses were just passing by, and were perfectly back lit against those strange islands in the last rays of the western sun.  They moved almost ghost-like on the beach, the salt spray in the air adding to the ethereal feeling of spirit and wonder of that place.

This pastel is a composite of the photos I took that evening, and captures for me that sense of other-worldliness, of other timeliness, and the beauty of Coquille Point. 

It's an 18x24, pastel on sanded paper.  I may have to kill the horse and rider on the far left-hand side of the image as I think the tension between it and the rider in front are a little too symmetrical.  It's a point of discussion in my house, let me know if you have an opinion.

Back to the studio to work on my other project (it's big, I'll post more when it's ready for an audience.)

Keep painting!
Dawn