Dispirited Restoration

Dispirited Restoration was made at the beginning of 2016. I was struggling to keep positive. It was all about feeling destroyed and I needed to focus on rebuilding. I came home from a particularly bad day at work. I went to my studio and just started cutting canvas. The first stroke with the razor blade and I drew blood on my thumb. That was a sign to continue...just cutting and tearing. Then I stitched it back together and dipped the whole canvas into Potassium Permanganate to antique the fabric. Once dry I added a layer of plaster, oil paint, ink, encaustic wax etc...until done.

This piece is very special to me. It helped me heal...

Detail picture of the stitching and skeletal bones.

Fiber Optics 24/7

I presented the Group of Eight challenge for the quarterly due date of November 2015. This challenge was to be art that could be viewed 24/7. It had to have built in lighting into the piece or be glow in dark...whatever it takes so that the art could be viewed day and night without exterior lighting. I had been dreaming of this challenge for years waiting for my turn and I was really excited about it. Not sure the group felt the same way but the results of this challenge were phenomenal.

I created this piece knowing that I wanted my 24/7 to incorporate fiber optics. This is the first piece I made with this technique and I will hopefully do more in the future. I started out with a machine embroidered tree that I made many many years ago in a workshop hosted by Sheree Schlote. I then created the cloth from a distressed canvas base, layering and painting as I went.  The fiber optics were hand stitched into place. It was then mounted on a wood art board and my husband cut the holes and he wired the fiber optics up to a battery. This piece lights up when switched on. The tree trunk bleeds yellow light and the tree tips and leaves light up red and yellow. I have not successfully been able to take a night shot of it.

Rocks & Rain

In 2014 my husband & I went on a trip to Ireland with friends. This was the first time we had ever been to Ireland as well as it being the first time we've ever taken holidays with friends. What a fantastic trip we had. Ireland is the place to go for "R & R"...rocks and rain. I've never seen so many rocks in all my life. Newfoundland doesn't even come close. I've also never seen so much rain. It rained every day. It didn't bother us at all, we just kept going & it just added to the wonderful ambience of the landscape.

Along our travels I would do my normal collecting of anything I thought was interesting. This is better than any shop if you ask me. Beautiful, free and just sitting there offering up it's glory. The feather was actually collected on the first day we arrived. Guinness...what a fantastic facility inside Dublin. The feather was along side the road sitting in water with dirt & gravel stuck to it. Well...I just love that sort of thing.

 

The dried thistle was collected on the Aran Islands. Miles & miles of rock made into pens for grazing livestock & farmland. It was so windy that sometimes I just had to sit down to wait for the gust to pass so I could gain my footing. The dried thistle was so perfect in this landscape and I had Chris cut of one of the heads & I carried it in my hand until we got back to the bed and breakfast that evening. It was so delicate I was afraid that it would crush if I put it in my bag.
Chris saw the rust piece & instantly I just had to have it.

Rocks & Rain is rough and a perfect fitting for my Irish piece. Everything except the rust has been encased in encaustic wax. It was the first time I had been in the studio in about seven weeks. I was completely in a zone & afraid to leave even to eat for fear that the moment would end.

Nature's Offering 2

Nature's Offering 2 is now complete...

With solid background it's not as delicate as my first piece. I'm really loving the effect of the plaster over canvas and the encaustic medium lets all the natural beauty show through.

I've attached dried poppy heads, bark, birch bark, antler buttons, porcupine quills & a pressed kale leaf from my veggie patch last year. As stated previously, the metal strip is the cutting edge from a cellophane box that's been taken out of the ashes of the wood stove.

I don't think I'm done with the bark collected from the property and I really love how the encaustic medium strengthens it without changing it's texture. This may just be my very first series of work.