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Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Don't fence me in.


About a month ago, I went with a photographer friend of mine to her dads farm to take some pictures, get inspired. She noticed my intrigue with tangled things, vines, bramble, etc, and kept telling me about her dads crazy fence. She has been describing it to me for a while, and we finally decided to take the time to check it out.
She spoke of her fathers attempts to keep the bulls in the pasture by constantly repairing the barbed wire around it. Every time a bull would get loose, he’d have to repair another section. 
The fascinating thing here, is that he never removed the old fencing, just added new. Because of this, there was at least 40 years of barbed wire , new and old intertwined , each piece telling the story of another days work.
It was like looking at a physical manifestation of his autobiography. His story. One twisted piece of jagged rusty metal at a time.

Friday, October 4, 2013

Exploring the dark side.

An actor loves a juicy role, playing a villain, or some other dark character. An artist also likes to delve into the intense and the darker parts of the psyche. In my case, I've recently been exploring my more intense reactions to the world around me through painting. I find it therapeutic to purge my anger, anxiety, frustration, and pain onto the canvas. I also like the results. It's the energy in that moment that I'm after.
 Pretty paintings are nice, but frankly, they can get boring. I'd much rather find  beauty in the unexpected. I'm no longer going to worry about what people will think when I paint this way. It's one of the perks of getting older, realizing that you should do what excites you, and it will in turn, excite the viewer. Whenever you paint to the market, or to what you think people will buy ( yawn, match the drapes artwork ) there is something missing.

 What's missing is what sets you aside as an artist.....

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Life gets in the way.

   It seems like every time I start to move forward, or make progress, something gets in my way and I take a few steps back. I had taken time off from solo exhibits in order to focus more on my painting. I wanted to try and explore different techniques and ideas and get my work to a point where I'd be really proud to share it.
  Not only did I want new work to show, I wanted it to be good, really good. Call it pride, or maybe vanity, but I was not feeling like I was doing my best work. There have been  prolific spurts, where I really get in the zone and feel as if I'm making progress, and then there are the days when I have all these ideas and no time to implement them.
 I didn't set out to be this busy, or to have all these distractions,  life just kind of snowballs. Weddings, funerals, emergency surgery (not mine), you get the idea. My website hasn't been updated for two years, and my blog has been dormant for a while too.
  I guess I just have to take those moments "in the zone" and make the most out of them.

My daughter is really making me proud.

http://artsake.massculturalcouncil.org/blog/artsake/index.php/2013/09/04/studio-views-elizabeth-alexander/

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

My first time having my work published!

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Incite-dreams-realised-the-best-Of-mixed-media?store=allproducts&keyword=Incite%2C+dreams+realised+the+best+Of+mixed+media