Informal Analogy, 48 x 48 inches, acrylic on panel, ©2011 Deidre Adams

Before I say anything else, in case people don’t care to read all the way through this, I would just like to point out that I’ve added a lot of new work to my website. Please take a look and let me know what you think. Now, on to the story.

While working on a 12×12 series (see here and here), I got the idea that it would be fun to work even smaller, so I bought a dozen 8×8 panels. So far, this hasn’t turned out as expected; it’s been a struggle trying to get these tiny paintings to a satisfying state. I don’t know why this is, but it’s the same with textile works. (At least a painting on a wood panel doesn’t have the placemat problem.) But I can’t force it, and so those have been placed aside for the moment.

So when small doesn’t work, what’s the answer? Go big, of course!

Now, I must work within certain limitations, the most obvious of which is that since my studio is a room in my house, working large is a challenge. The largest possible painting I can do is 48 inches (the width of my work table). Since it was the dead of winter and we were having a series of frigid days at 10° F and below, that was the determining factor.

I had 3 panels made at this size – the most I could afford at the time. And since my studio room isn’t big enough to accommodate working on these flat all at once, the obvious solution is to take over the entire house. My mostly unused living room became the site of panel prep. Here’s the first stage, after a complete dust removal with a vacuum cleaner and a damp rag, a filling of teeny-tiny nail holes, and two coats of Golden GAC100. Right now it looks so beautiful, I would almost rather make a nice table out of it than use it to paint on.

I’ve found a great local source of panels: Space Gallery in Denver. These are beautifully made, furniture quality. Much better than anything I could do myself, and reasonably priced. They also seem to have a source for the raw materials that’s far superior to what I was able to get from Home Depot. So, if it’s within the budget, why not pay for a professional-quality product and use the time and energy saved for what you really want to do, which is make art? And yes, if I never have to see that scary table saw in action again, it won’t bother me too much.

Bonus: I get a chance to check out the latest show at Space Gallery, one of my favorites, and experience the unexpectedly wry humor of the director, artist Michael Burnett. Michael also gave me a great tip the last time I was there, which is to give the back of your panels a coating of your prep medium. This helps to equalize the stress between front and back and hopefully eliminate the chance of warping.

Well, since I needed painting substrates more urgently than I needed furniture, I eventually went on to the next phase of prep, gesso.

I like to put it on in thin coats with a roller, and I do three coats, letting each dry completely before going on to the next. This gives me a very nice even surface. I’m not completely sure why that’s important, since I will henceforth do a lot of things that will make it very UNeven, but that is now my ritual, for what it’s worth. To do three at a time, I also need to use the front entryway.

Now that warmer weather is on the way, I’m excited at the prospect of being able to work outside. I have a fantastic deck on the back of my house, and I just need to get set up out there. I plan to do some larger works out there when I figure out all the logistics.

More from the Cerescapes series.

Cerescape No. 4, 12 x 12 inches, acrylic on canvas, ©2011 Deidre Adams

Cerescape No. 5, 12 x 12 inches, acrylic on canvas, ©2011 Deidre Adams

Cerescape No. 6, 12 x 12 inches, acrylic on canvas, ©2011 Deidre Adams

Cerescape No. 1, 12 x 12 inches, acrylic on canvas, ©2011 Deidre Adams

Here are a couple of my latest 12×12 paintings. I’ve decided to call them “Cerescapes.” Because it’s exhausting to keep coming up with new names, I like to give the smaller ones the same name with a series number. My last series of small paintings was called “Fragments.” I’d originally meant for them to be modular, to work together when placed side by side, so that each would be a fragment of a larger whole. It didn’t work out that way, as each takes on a life of its own during the painting process. But I kept the name because I didn’t have time or energy to come up with something new before they were to be shown (last May).

Fast forward to now. I started putting new Fragment numbers on the latest paintings, when it dawned on me that the name wasn’t so appropriate for reasons described above. After the usual amount of mental anguish, I settled on Cerescape because each of these works is the product of my own mind and its machinations, or a landscape of the cerebrum, so to speak. I also discovered, during my searching, that Ceres was the ancient Roman goddess of grain, fertility, and motherly relationships, and that’s where the word “cereal” comes from. I’m sure that’s relevant to my own work in some way.

Cerescape No. 2, 12 x 12 inches, acrylic on canvas, ©2011 Deidre Adams

Cerescape No. 1, 12 x 12 inches, acrylic on canvas, ©2011 Deidre Adams

Divergence of Gesture, 20 x 20 inches, acrylic on panel, ©2011 Deidre Adams

A few days ago while perusing the shelves at my local library, my eye was caught by a small book called Art and Soul by Thomas McConeghey. I was immediately hooked by the first paragraph of the Foreword, written by Thomas Moore:

“We have not yet rediscovered the place of art in human life. We still marginalize artists, treat works of art as financial commodities and objects of moral scrutiny, and fail to support art in our schools. I say rediscover because once, before our infatuation with technology and science, we understood the role of art in religion, public life, and individual psychology. We knew that compared to endless studies and research programs, art was a more precise and effective way of conjuring the mysteries that define our lives. But in a relatively short time, we have been seduced away from art by the cool devotees of the machine, and this neglect of art not insignificantly has gone on hand in hand with a cultural loss of soul.”

There is much that can be said about the many ideas in this single rich paragraph, but one thing that really struck me was his expression of something I see as an ongoing problem in our society. No matter what else happens or how many times it’s pointed out, there always seems to be an ever-increasing emphasis on acquisition and consumption, to the detriment of our planet. I’m no less susceptible than anyone else. I got a new smartphone last December and am still completely enthralled with the thing. Has it made my life better? Doubtful. Although I don’t get lost going to a new place or forget things on my calendar like I used to, I’m pretty sure that having the ability to constantly check my email while away from home is a net loss for my cognitive facilities.

Art, on the other hand, is a calming influence. Any amount of time, great or small, spent painting or stitching or just organizing things in my studio, is my therapy and lets me recover my balance. I’m grateful to have this in my life.

So-Called Vital Activity, 24 x 24 inches, acrylic and mixed media on panel, ©2011 Deidre Adams

One of the dilemmas faced by artists is the multitude of available ways in which we might wish to express ourselves. Am I a fiber/textile artist? Am I a painter? Photographer? Printmaker? It’s so vexing to have to choose. But it’s so wonderful to have choices. Right now I have three textile pieces pinned up on my wall that I’ve been working on in rotation for many months. One of them is a very large piece that I entered into Quilt National. I was, frankly, relieved when it wasn’t selected for the show, because I have had that experience – enter multiple pieces, and the jurors will pass over your fabulous masterpiece and select the one you thought was the weakest and just included so you could have a body of work to submit. Since the work in question was rejected, I’ve changed it substantially several times. But it’s just not working for me, and I haven’t figured out what to do yet.

So in the meantime, I’m having a blast just painting. There is a lot of new work to show, and I’ll be posting new paintings on a regular basis for a while. Does this mean I’m not going to do textiles any more? In the short term, quite possibly. But since I seem to crave variety, I’m sure I’ll go back to it when my current love affair for squishy, swirly, drippy paint on a smooth, resistant surface subsides.

So-Called Vital Activity (detail), ©2011 Deidre Adams