My show, Turns of the Kaleidoscope, officially opened on Friday night, May 7, from 5-8 pm. It was part of Salem’s First Friday Art Walk and the weather was perfect. With more people vaccinated and things slowly opening, there was a steady stream of friends and art lovers throughout the evening.
The evening was magical and I’m sharing a smattering of photos that give a peek into the celebration of the opening of my show (which runs through May 29th).
On January 31st, I jumped into the #100dayproject. This project is facilitated by Lindsay Jean Thompson and you can learn more about the project by simply clicking right HERE. If you don’t feel like clicking, here is what the project is about:
Pick something you want to do every day for the 100 days of the project. You’ll post each instance of 100 on your Instagram account with the hashtag #The100DayProject. What can you do? Anything at all! Paint, draw, dance, knit, doodle, sing, brush your teeth. Once you have an idea, here are some practical tips: Make sure you can do it in 5-10 minutes a day. More time is nice if you have it, but if it’s a really time-consuming project you probably won’t do it every day. What are you curious about? What do you love to do just because? What do you want to get better at? Brainstorm with a friend or make a list of ideas. What have other people done that you find interesting? Or maybe your project is 100 days of figuring out what to do. That’s cool! Another good place to start is by thinking about what you want to get out of doing the project.
I decided I wanted to explore working on a non precious substrate and what is more non precious than brown paper bags. I carry my own reusable bags with me, but somehow I always seem to accumulate brown paper bags that I don’t throw away (or even recycle). It might be from when I order take out, or when I purchase something that doesn’t fit into the portable cloth bag I carry in my purse. For whatever reason, I decided to tear up an abundant resource and experiment with different kinds of art on a scrap of brown craft paper.
My first post on Instagram (you can find me at DaynaLovesArt) at the beginning of the project:
I’m jumping in to #the100dayproject and the challenge I’ve set up for my 100 day project is to paint a quick abstract painting or make paint marks on a scrap of a brown paper bag every day for 100 days. I needed something quick and easy, portable for my sometimes portable life, and a way to try out new ideas: colors, composition, marks…… and to create collage fodder for my stash…….and imagine the cool jumbo collage I can make with all of the brown paper bag painted scraps. #the100dayswithdayna 1/100
Now here it is 50 days later, the halfway point. Over the past 50 days I have created in my painting studio, in my basement studio, along the Oregon Coast, in Northern California, in Gig Harbor, and in Astoria. I get around. I have also used a multitude of materials, including (disclaimer: but not limited to): acrylic paint, Stabilo pencils, plaster, oil paint, cold wax, collage, black and white photos, book scraps, varnish, charcoal, Woody pencils, acrylic pens, and oil pastels.
I have already incorporated some of the pieces I have created in other projects, Salvage Collage on book boards, and in my 2021 journal.
In no particular order, here is a smattering of the pieces I have created on the lowly brown paper bag.
And only 50 more days to go!
Awhile back I purchased a large reddish metal star at a closeout sale with the intention of painting it and hanging it at our beach house in Astoria. I didn’t know what color I would paint it, but then inspiration struck. I would use ALL the colors. I had done splatter painting a year ago, when I embellished a concrete statue, and I liked how it turned out.
So I got out a tarp, all of my cheap craft paints, a water spray bottle, and put on my paint clothes. I put the star in the middle of the tarp . . . .
. . . and got started with flinging paint.
Somewhere early in the process, I remembered we had two chairs that we had spray painted last summer, but were in need of sprucing up, so I dragged out another tarp and got the two chairs out of storage. That’s when it really got fun (and very messy).
I spent the afternoon flinging paint, using up the little bottles of craft paint. Even our cat Sinatra was interested by the end of the afternoon.
Post Script: I had so much fun that afternoon, that I went upstairs and pulled out a partial painting of acrylic on a cradled wood panel and put it on the floor in my studio. Using my Nova paints in squirt bottles, and with more intention that my wild painting outside, I kind of carefully flung paint onto the painting.
When it was thoroughly dry, I took the painting to the basement and applied a layer of water-based varnish.
I must admit, I kind of love it a lot.
I don’t ever crave extraordinary moments anymore. Just small, gentle hums of beauty streaming from below, above, and beyond simply from paying attention. Sound. Light. Shadow. Art. Warmth. The night. The morning. Dreams that are not faraway but exist right here — already in my days, hands, and heart.
Victoria Erickson
One of the projects I’ve started working on is actually a resumption of something I started a year ago, a series of long, slender, wood cradled panels (4×48 inches). All five boards had been painted black with some bands of color already added, but today I pulled them out of the basement, hung them on my rolling wall, and while painting a large canvas on the opposite wall (another long abandoned project resurrected last week), I used the leftover paint from that painting on the tall, slender panels. Layer by layer, band by band. I know that the swaths of color I used to create my Emotional Alignments series influenced this current project. Bands and swaths again, but a bit wonkier and whimsical. At least for today. I’ll be working on these right on into the new year.
Some close-up peeks from different sections of the five panels:
For the past couple of months I have put my nose to the grindstone. Being in the middle of a pandemic, life outside my house has been meager, so in many ways this has been the ideal time to put myself into a self-imposed studio timeout. I had the opportunity for a show at RiverSea Gallery, a contemporary art gallery in Astoria on the Oregon Coast. I have had art there for several years, I’ve been in group shows, and two years ago I had a show with my friend Stephanie Brockway. I had been thinking about asking for a solo show, but had never approached the gallery owner, Jeannine. Until October. I met with Jeannine and because of the pandemic, she was juggling the rescheduling of shows from 2020 into 2021; then she said that an artist had just cancelled for January 2021 and I could have that slot. In the big gallery. Gulp. Yes, please. Let the madness begin.
I work in layers. Many layers. It goes something like this. Gathering boards and painting them with a layer of acrylic or house paint. Once dry, I slather on a layer of plaster, which needs to dry overnight. The plastered boards are then schlepped outside to be lightly sanded, brought back into the studio, and sealed with a layer of acrylic stain. I like to baptize my boards with words, so I usually scribble a quote or something about how I’m feeling. Then I’m ready to begin actually painting. Because words don’t quite capture the physicality of this process, here is my photo essay depicting the first round of layers.
Now the boards are ready for painting.
When I originally pitched my show to Jeannine, my idea was for a show about waterlines, something I have been passionate about exploring for years. But as I began applying the initial layers of oil and cold wax, I realized the show was no longer about waterlines. When I needed to send an image to Jeannine for her November newsletter, I sent her this message:
I have been consistently working since we met in October, moving forward with the theme of Waterlines. I prepped 15 boards (20×20 inches up to 40×40 inches) with acrylic, plaster, acrylic, and then one to two layers of oil paint mixed with cold wax. As I began the process of reconciling the under layers with a finished composition, it became apparent that my heart wasn’t in a strict interpretation of waterlines. My original vision for the show was bold swaths of color representing waterlines, but as I began applying paint in bright bands of color, I realized what I was experiencing was more than waterlines; it was an emotional response to 2020: the pandemic, politics, and wildfires (as well as a series of personal family hardships). Waterlines always find their way into my pieces as inspiration, but this show isn’t about waterlines, but my emotional response to 2020. So things have changed a bit. I have titled the show: EMOTIONAL ALIGNMENTS. Once I started making this shift last week, my painting took off. I start my days enthusiastic and excited to get into the studio.
In my next post, I’ll share about the evolution of my paintings (now at 20 works in various stages of completion) using oil paint mixed with cold wax medium . . . . and the many hours I spend in my studio.
In July, my Salem Art Group hosted a 31-day art challenge, inviting the community to join our group in doing something creative every day for a month and posting on Instagram. I joined the challenge and managed to create something for all 31 days. I wasn’t always on time with my work or my posts, but I completed the challenge. Some days I did a little painting in my journal, other days I painted on 12×12 wood panels. And a few times, I did scut work, like prepping a bunch of panels. Most days I wandered into my studio and did something, but this challenge insured that I would go in and at the very least, create a collage or a small painting in my visual journal.
In no particular order and not all of my posts, here is a sampling of what I did during July to participate in the Daily Art Challenge.
Frenzy might be an overstatement, but I have been spending more time in my studio and after a fairly long hiatus, I have returned to painting with oil and cold wax.
Since 2016, I have taught a four-day Abstracted Landscape class at Sitka for Art and Ecology on the Oregon Coast. Because of the pandemic, this year’s class, which was sold out and scheduled for August 21-24, was canceled (as were all classes at Sitka).
Somehow the idea of not teaching this year inspired me to jump back in to oil and cold wax after several months of painting with acrylics and working on a series of collages. It felt good to crack open the gallon of cold wax and whip up a satisfying mound of wax, begin choosing tubes of oil paint to mix, and dig out my R & F Pigment Sticks.
I had one deadline for a painting (so that was a BIG motivator to get into the studio and do some painting and I’ll share about that project when I can), but otherwise, I decided to pull out old boards that I had used for demos in my Sitka class last year. None of the pieces were completed, they just had fits and starts of paint and marks on them, all used to illustrate techniques and then set aside. It was nice to have something to respond to besides a plain, blank, board.
I also revamped a few boards that had been completed paintings, but something was niggling at me and those pieces got a light sanding to rough up the surface, and then I started over. It was nice to erase an old painting, but know that there was that sense of history lurking below the surface.
[ pen-tuh-men-toh ]
noun, plural pen·ti·men·ti [pen-tuh-men-tee] . Painting.
the presence or emergence of earlier images, forms, or strokes that have been changed and painted over.
What has emerged during my extended painting sessions is the reoccurring theme of circles. I have always loved polka dots and circles and they have shown up in my work for years, but lately I have tipped over into obsession.
[/əbˈseSHən/]
noun
the domination of one’s thoughts or feelings by a persistent idea, image, desire, etc.
I’m using circles to excess and eventually I’ll reign myself in. Or not. In the meantime, here are several pieces in various stages of completion. All are on cradled wood substrates and they all have either Venetian plaster or limestone clay (the fancy name for joint compound) as an under layer. Other than that, some of the paint is from an earlier completed piece, or is from a demo at Sitka. Almost all of these have circles somewhere as a layer – in the plaster, buried in the paint, added on top of the paint, or some of the paint removed using a stencil to reveal paint, the circles serving as a window into an earlier layer.
I did it! During 2019 I set a goal of painting in my visual journal every day. I sometimes fell behind if I was out of town, other times I took my paints and journal along with me and kept up. I fell waaaayyy behind in mid December and it took me until mid February to get completely caught up, but family medical emergencies are never convenient.
I filled 6-1/2 visual journals (I wrote about my process and the type of journals I used here) and created 366 pages of paintings (I accidentally painted two pages for the same day). Throughout the year I did blog posts sharing about my project and posting photos of my favorite pages; now I want to share some final photos of favorite pages created since my last post in early November.
It was a great year. Some of my takeaways:
Mission accomplished.
And now I’m doing something different for 2020. . . . . . .
I will soon complete journal #6 in my quest to do a daily painting in my visual journal throughout 2019. We’ve been revamping a house in Astoria on the Oregon coast, so I’m about a week behind two weeks behind in my daily paintings, and I plan to get caught up after Thanksgiving. Yesterday I cataloged the pages I have completed since early October, so I thought I would share some of my favorites.
It has been a long time since I painted with oil and cold wax. I’ve kept up with my daily acrylic painting in my visual journal and I have been steadfast in working on my Salvage Collages, but my oil paints and cold wax medium sat quietly on the shelves, waiting for my return. Deadlines are great motivators.
Guardino Gallery is hosting their 19th annual Little Things show and work is due this month. Earlier, I completed seven small abstract paintings, but I had hoped to have at least 12 for the show. Everything in the Little Things show needs to be 7×7 inches or smaller, so my pieces are all 5×5 inches, a fun size to paint and a size that keeps the price affordable.
Sunday turned out to be a quiet day and I had the house to myself, so I headed to my painting studio, quickly painted in my daily visual journal, then pulled out my gallon of cold wax and began choosing oil paint colors I wanted to work with. I lined up nine 5×5 boards; six of them had the beginnings of paintings and three I had deemed completed. All nine got a makeover. It felt great to work primarily in a limited palette of warm colors: pinks, magentas, reds, oranges . . . . with dabs, lines, and swaths of other colors to add contrast and variety.
These were three of the initial seven that made the cut:
Little Things 19 opens Friday, November 29, 6-9 pm, at Guardino Gallery in Portland on NE 30th and Alberta.