Skulls and Memories

This summer I have finished six pieces and am working on three more.  I finally finished a piece I started three years ago, and did a very personal and cathartic self-portrait.  Now I have started two different series, the Pin-up girls who are simultaneously sexy, nostalgic and a little frightening and a few dealing with the concept of macro/micro and timeless.

Betty The Beauty, Ravishing Rita and Lovely Lola

 I am finding it hard  to NOT paint. My mind wanders and I feel most at peace when creating.  I think about my youth and listen to music.  I can recall exactly what I was doing and how I felt when I first heard a song. Some memory or feeling a decade old will come flooding back.  I love music. I relate music to people a lot of the time. Metallica and The Scorpions remind me of Jon, my husband. Actually, a lot of music does. The summer we got together, now almost two decades ago. The Beatles remind me of middle school and my friends "Barney" and Jessica.  We used to listen to the LPs and try to find hidden messages. And then Celerah and existential conversations well into the wee hours.  James Brown makes me think of Derek and his huge JNCOs, we would drive around in his white cruiser he would talk about Arizona. I think about clubbing in Denver and listening to Fatboy Slim

Whirlpool Galaxy

These moments flood over me, like I am watching a movie of my life. "Paradise Circus" by Massive Attack makes me think of my friend Ben, and hanging out cooking.  I think of snippets and smells, what I was feeling and a something I shared with someone else. "Hotel California" brings back images of my twenty year friendship with Brynn, and how much we have grown up together. And, of course, Led Zeppelin is my mom.  Movies too. Edward Scissorhands, Clue, Ghostbusters, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Beetlejuice all take me back to my childhood and my sister and brother.
​  It is amazing to me how much of what is happening in popular culture shapes who you are.  I just watched Baz Luhrmann's Romeo And Juliet and I am instantly transported to 1996 and high school shenanigans.

Blue Whale, the largest creature ever to live on earth
​2"x 2"

Time is a strange thing, it is something that has puzzled humanity for centuries. We are constantly trying to stop it, reverse it, travel forwards and backwards. Leap and travel through some indescribable void. To see beyond ourselves or recapture a moment. That is what makes art so beautiful.  Art is time travel.  That feeling, that memory takes you back in time. Looking at a galaxy five hundred thousand lightyears away is looking back in time. I work to create a frozen moment, capture a feeling or a thought.
  I think that is why music, film, painting etc. are so important and wonderful. We can time travel in the comfort of our own homes, in our cars, museums and movie theaters.
​Shakespeare is timeless, by the way.