birches for dad

"ashes seek heaven"

A few months ago my dad passed away after a lengthy battle with Alzheimer's brought on by Parkinson's. During that time I was supposed to be getting ready for a show at PB&J Gallery in Atlanta. (I'd like to add that one of the owners, Bob Burkhardt, was kind enough to take and edit the photos of the finished pieces and I'd like to pay credit where credit is due.) Well, as you can imagine I put off the work, and put it off and put it off to the point that I had 10 days to complete 6 paintings for the show. This could have been a total disaster but instead, what ended up happening I was forced to work quickly without thinking. Just go with the intuitive process, balls to the wall, and make art without stopping to question what I was doing. 

The show came and went and I never took the time to talk about some of the process I used to create those paintings. But guess what? It's your lucky day because I'm currently avoiding another deadline as well as a mountain of laundry:~)

I started with a 4x8 sheet of plywood and some vintage wallpaper.

after gluing it all down i filled in the edges and around the papers with white and black gessos.

just checking to see if your paying attention. this is waldo when he was about 6 months old. yes, his paws are still HUGE!

i added red paint and drew over top of the pieces with my usual floral designs. then we cut the board into 16" wide strips and broke them in half by wedging them under the truck trailer and jumping on them. They all range between 48"-52" tall.

as I worked on the pieces I was imagining an old stone mansion that had fallen into disrepair, the roof caving in and trees growing up into the middle of the rooms-nature taking back the land. The finished pieces turned out better than I could have imagined. i incorporated some collage into the tree trunks as well and kept the color pallet much more subdued than I normally paint. After painting I sanded the heck out of them and really softened up the edges. 

Painting these pieces really helped me work through those first few weeks after dad's passing and it further illustrates how art can heal. 

"wheels wander outward"

"sparkle shines forever"

"she gathers rain"

"i'm coming home"

a view of all 6 pieces together

so what's the moral of the story, dear artist friends? sometimes it pays to just work without inhibition and without time to think about it. maybe that's why I'm avoiding working on this next project. Or maybe I'm just being lazy. I'll let the editors decide:~)

guess I'd better get to work.

color me crazy

~staci