Live Your Life!

I meant them to be white...

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 21:11:59 -0800

I see the design in my head, think it through, and sketch it on paper. After stretching the silk, I apply the resist. After that step in the process, all bets are off. Once I touch the dye to the fabric, I never know what might happen.

Flexibility is key. When I started the painting above, I planned for the swans to be white. I added the background first this time, and within half an hour of starting the painting, the dye jumped the lines and I had blue swans. At first I was frustrated. I used water, alcohol, anything within reach to stop the flow of blue. No luck. I had to be flexible. Plans had to change. The swans would have to be black.

In the end, the final result was lovely, better even than my original design. I meant them to be white--and they surprised me.

It Drives the Imagination

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:57:59 -0800

The excuse we gave was that we needed to bring a car up from the Lower 48, and we were the only two Murrows who didn’t have set schedules. Our real motivation for making the long drive was the idea of being two women free on the road, with barely a schedule and lots to see.

My youngest daughter, Shea, and I did a 10-day road trip from Minneapolis to Anchorage via the Alcan (Alaska-Canada) Highway, bringing up a car for the family to have in Alaska. It was a trip we’ll never forget. I’m not sure which was best: the long days of deep talks, or the other long days of companionable silence. It definitely won’t be our last girl-trip together.

The other benefit that I hadn’t foreseen was the filling of my creative tank. Two months of frantic painting preparing for both the May show and the June show had taken it’s toll. I felt out of ideas. But for 10 days I couldn’t do much that is considered creative. I drove or rode, and I absorbed gorgeous scenery.

We saw a thunderstorm over the prairie as it made a deep purple covering over the golden grass. We saw crystal waterfalls, turquoise lakes & milky rivers. A corner of the Theodore Roosevelt Park made us ohh and ahhh over the rainbow-colored rocks, but it was the towering peaks in Banff & Jasper Parks in Alberta and British Columbia that really stirred our hearts. The country was starting to look like home.

People ask me why I would leave Alaska in the summertime. Why, indeed. We have so much beauty at every turn in this state, but sometimes you have to leave home to really appreciate where you live.

I came home energized (more or less) and ready to create again. Stay tuned to see what paintings spring out of our trip.

Living Large

Tue, 12 May 2009 05:34:46 -0800

My first try at large-scale silk painting required exercise and stamina. Just the step of stretching the silk over the painting frame looked like a solitary game of Duck, Duck, Goose, as I bent down, attached an edge, stood up and moved, and bent down again. I had to stretch the painting on the floor because it wouldn’t fit on my studio table. I eventually took over the dining table to finish the work.

Then came the actual painting. In our dry Alaska air, the silk dyes dry fast so I had to wet the silk, apply the paint and keep it moving or I’d get hard, ugly edges. A piece like “Final Approach” with its large, watery background, had to be painted all in one sitting. There was no time to stop--forget the phone, forget eating, forget bathroom breaks.

The rewards were huge as well. It was thrilling to finish a big piece, finally take my break, and come back to find it had dried beautifully.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter and Facebook know that there was a small crisis in the steaming of this big piece. The extra-tall steam pipe barely cleared my low kitchen ceiling in our cabin. It also blocked the microwave. The family was needing lunch before the steaming time was done, and I tilted the pipe back a little to get into the microwave. I wasn’t thinking. The moisture on the inside of the pipe touched the rolled silk inside and wet the silk. By the time we ate and I fished out the steamed silk, the damage was done. Big, round watermarks marred the left side of the painting.
I tried to put a positive spin on it -- “we can cut it down shorter”-- but the truth was, cutting the painting ruined its composition. I felt sick.

Fortunately, my friend and silk mentor, Joanne Noyles came by a few days later. She looked at the watermarks and declared it fixable. “Just take some more paint and add what you need to make it look like splashing water.”

And that’s what I did. In the end, the swan made his skipping splash down across the silk just like swans do in the lakes around Anchorage. “Touch Down” now had a perfect landing.

Experiments. . .

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 11:43:14 -0800

Art has an explorer’s edge -- you work hard to master a certain technique, then you find yourself restless, ready for a new challenge. Like explorers who push the limits of where they can travel, an artist comes to the edge of her knowledge, and has to jump to improve.

I hit the edge recently while painting scarves. So I jumped. I tried painting on silk satin instead of crepe de chine. The results were good, so encouraged, I jumped again.

I tried pastel painting. The first picture is the duckling above. Great! Success again! But my second try of an otter mother and pup looked more like an otter carrying a rabbit. I had to fight the urge to quit altogether! (You WON’T see a photo of that otter!)

I scrambled back to silk painting, but decided to go large. I built a four by eight foot frame for stretching silk yardage. The frame fell apart the first time I picked it up, but my husband rescued me and some longer screws fixed the problem. I was back in business.

Painting large is totally different than painting small. For one thing, I got a lot of physical exercise--moving around the painting, bending, leaning, stretching to paint all the area. Plus I had to work fairly fast or get hard, ugly edges in the wrong places. It took awhile, but I finished and loved the results.

The next day I steamed the piece. Being extra-large meant I needed a different stew pot, and a different pipe to hold the rolled piece upright. It barely cleared the low ceiling in my little mountain kitchen.

The steaming took more than 2 hours. The family was hungry before it was done, so I leaned the pipe back to put plates of leftovers in the microwave, which hangs above the stove. I wasn’t thinking. When I leaned the pipe, I was tilting the paper roll onto the condensation on the inside of the pipe. By the time I’d realized what I’d done, the damage was permanent.

As I unrolled the giant piece, I could see the water splotched end. My dream of an exotically large piece for the May 1 show shriveled. My family rallied around me and tried to cheer me up. Someone noted that the focal point of the piece was still in good shape; I could just shorten the piece and it would still be a quality painting. I had to fight discouragement.

I meet people all of the time who say, “I wish I could draw. I’m no good at art.” Believe me, sometimes I think the same thing. Perseverance is the key. Just like the explorers who push on even when their ship sinks or they get lost or they run out of money, we find a way and push on. I’m already planning another giant piece. And I might even haul out the pastel chalks and try those again. I won’t quit.

If you are one of those who wish you could do art, I have one piece of advice:

Jump!

Iditarod 2009

Thu, 5 Mar 2009 16:53:26 -0900

Saturday marks the ceremonial start of the annual Iditarod Dog Race in Anchorage, Alaska. A friend of mine, Ellie Claus, ran the Iditarod one year. At the time, she was the youngest person to ever run the race (She’d just turned 18 a few weeks earlier). Ellie says it was one of the hardest challenges she ever faced, but she made it to Nome, and in good time.

I got to know a lot of Ellie’s dog team during that year, and they are the inspiration for this wall hanging/scarf. There was Vanilla Bean, her brave lead dog, now happily retired in Chugiak; Romeo, who earned his name by “talking” with howls, especially around pretty girls; and a whole host of other four-legged athletes.

I got to drive a sled with some of Ellie’s dogs once. So much power! It was the half-mile of a lifetime. But I realized as much fun as that short ride was, I’d rather paint the dogs than mush them for 1,000 miles!

So my hat is off to all the athletes starting for Nome this weekend--both two-legged and four-legged. Mush well!

Dreaming of Spring

Fri, 2 Jan 2009 21:19:40 -0900

I love winter. I was raised in Alaska so it stands to reason that I’d come to terms with snow and cold at an early age. But sometimes I really miss the flowers of spring and summer.

It was my youngest daughter who suggested I paint roses on a white background to give me flowers in the wintertime. At first I resisted. Painting with a white background is difficult. The dye has an irritating ability to spatter at the wrong moment. On colored or busy backgrounds, the splashes can be incorporated, but when you are going for white, it’s all or nothing. But Shea’s ideas are usually terrific, so I gave it a try. This scarf was a success. The snow of the background pushed all of the focus on the bright roses. My mother-in-law claimed it as soon as she saw it. I considered that the highest of praise.

Inspiration

Fri, 2 Jan 2009 20:20:01 -0900

The idea for a peacock scarf actually came as a request from a client (thank you, Jackie!). It was so fun, I did another one, and I plan to make a third of a white peacock. The white peacock will be a challenge -- more negative space painting than anything else.

Where do my ideas come from? Prayer (God has lots of ideas), walks in the woods, explorations through city streets, and visits to art galleries. There are also people’s stray comments, poetry quotes, and friends wishes. When I hit a wall and can’t think of a new idea, I go exercise. My heart starts beating hard, and the ideas begin to flow. I’m not especially fond of exercise, but I AM fond of the deluge ideas that come with it, so I’m motivated -- not for the health of it. For the art of it.

White Christmas

Tue, 9 Dec 2008 00:43:45 -0900

The photo above was snapped in October, just as winter began to leave its beautiful white stamp on our little corner of the earth. Now the creek is in a total blanket of white. You can still hear the water running if you listen closely, but the creek itself is invisible. I like to think of it as a Christmas present, wrapped in bright wrappings, tied with raffia bows, only this present won’t unwrap until spring.

That gives me a new painting challenge--scenes that are mostly white! A white peacock, a snowy woods, a white owl. Stay tuned and you’ll see what new designs I get to unwrap.

And remember, from Luke chapter 2:

8And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ[a] the Lord. 12This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

13Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14"Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

15When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."

16So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

Merry Christmas to you all.

Flowers, flowers, everywhere!

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:27:27 -0800

We’re in Australia after a week’s touring in New Zealand. It’s spring here and there are flowers EVERYWHERE! I’ve taken bucket-loads of pictures for reference. Some of the flowers are familiar -- roses, tulips, irises. A lot of them are ones I’ve never seen. They look like they sprung from a Dr. Suess book. Already I’m making sketches to turn into scarves. What fun!

Harvesting Ideas

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:00:00 -0800

People ask, “Do you run out of ideas?”

I haven’t yet. Whenever I need to know what to paint next, I pray. Then I take a walk. The Master Creator is never short on ideas and He’s happy to share them.

Take a walk yourself. Look around you. Try to see things in new ways. Look for everything the color of red. Now look for aqua. How about yellow?

Make a tube out of one hand and peer through the opening. Move your “telescope” around and see only parts of bigger objects.

Try closing your eyes and honing in on one sound, then open your eyes and see the view that matches the sound.

Have fun!