peekadoo

monday

2012-01-23T18:30:00.001-08:00

Sometimes, in a moment of happiness, even her nose smiled.

So excited to be mentioned in this post about the LA Art Fair.

tuesday

2012-01-17T13:47:00.000-08:00

A few one hour drawings I did before the residency. Came home Sunday, ready to work. Now the late nights begin, filled with writing and breaks of drawing. I am trying to look forward to my thesis. Of course it is easier knowing that seventeen other people that I happen to adore will be working in the wee hours too. I will be in good company. Here goes.

wednesday

2012-01-04T17:09:00.000-08:00

I am off to Boston tomorrow for my fourth residency. Only one more after this. Looking forward to being immersed and seeing great work, having great conversations and staying with two of my favorite women and artists. And what a nice surprise tonight, when all of the jitters are starting, to be featured on The Jealous Curator! If you have not yet seen her blog take a peek, but I must warn you you'll get hooked and find yourself there each day for more great work described and presented by the very sharp and witty Danielle. Thank you JC.
Ps these are few snippets for an animation I wish I knew how to make.

monday

2011-12-05T17:27:00.000-08:00

sunday

2011-12-04T18:47:00.000-08:00

tuesday

2011-11-29T16:47:00.000-08:00

Another book.

2011-11-29T15:32:00.000-08:00

A series/ book I am toying with. August and Owen helped. Just the beginning! The head shape reminds me of my earlier animal people, I kind of miss them.

monday

2011-11-21T19:25:00.000-08:00

2011-11-18T07:07:00.000-08:00

Heading to NYC this weekend with my good friend Diane. Looking forward to seeing many shows.

tuesday

2011-11-14T22:50:00.000-08:00

thursday

2011-11-09T13:34:00.000-08:00

monday

2011-11-07T18:25:00.000-08:00

2011-11-06T17:10:00.000-08:00

2011-11-06T15:38:00.000-08:00

A few sketchbook pages. In the last image I am liking how she appears a little trapped inside her hair and her dress. I will work with that.

monday

2011-10-31T12:30:00.000-07:00

Something is going to happen soon...............

wednesday

2011-10-19T19:07:00.000-07:00

"all the single ladies"

thursday

2011-10-06T13:19:00.000-07:00

Small parts of some of the people I have been spending time with lately. They have witnessed me in a funk and alas I feel like I am on the other side of it. I must work madly until it returns again! Hopefully I will have some post-funk work to show soon!

2011-10-03T17:38:00.000-07:00

Ten minute portraits. Working to find my line, I lost it. August did one too, I put hers first. She has the best line.

friday

2011-09-30T13:22:00.000-07:00

A few drawings I am working on. I keep thinking about trying to get messier, to reference drawing more, but I am still too controlling............ the more I think about it the more controlled I become. Referencing magazine hair has definitely made them seem more like they could exist now, a little less nostalgic. My students see them and laugh especially when they ask who it is and I say, faking seriousness, that it is my sister.(sorry Lisa!) They pause uncomfortable, realize I am joking and laugh and tell me how strange I am. "You should give them a chin Mrs. Moore, where is her neck?" and "She needs more hair" Yes indeed, they know just what they would need to be pretty. Middle school girls are experts on pretty.

wednesday

2011-09-28T15:13:00.000-07:00

A couple of sketchbook pages and little snippets of larger drawings.

only thursday

2011-09-22T13:08:00.000-07:00

My mentor asked me what interactions I have with popular culture, " Do you watch TV?" "Do you read magazines?" Truth is I don't do either. I read books, I watch movies on occasion but truthfully I know very little about what is in for fall or how Brad and Angelina are doing. So per his suggestion the last time I was at the grocery store I bought Star magazine. As I flipped through the pages what really stood out to me was the hair. It seems alive. I keep thinking what it might be capable of and this excites me. I am just starting to investigate and it may just be a silly whim, but I am enjoying thinking about it. My characters have had very well behaved hair for a long time now and perhaps it is not only time that I become acquainted with pop culture but perhaps they should too. These are photographed with my cell so the colors are off and they are blurry on the close up.

only wednesday

2011-09-14T17:40:00.000-07:00

I am trying to be quicker, messier, more agressive and let the drawings retain their "drawingness." per suggestion of my mentor. It sounds good to me, I am really needing a shift in my work. IT is also good because I have so many papers hanging over me and not too much interruppted time to work at the moment.
These last posts are snippets of larger drawings.

monday

2011-09-12T17:54:00.000-07:00

I just had my first meeting with my mentor, Kanishka Raja and I want to spend every moment in the studio. So perfect how a conversation can take you out of a funk and help you to see beyond it.

monday

2011-08-29T16:14:00.001-07:00

Up to no good.

sunday

2011-08-28T15:14:00.001-07:00

I am altering and working over black and white photographic images. It has helped me to be more conscious of what I distort and I like the shading underneath. I intend to try to achieve that in larger drawings by creating a black and white image to work over. It is really enjoyable to alter real people, cut off their hair,add teeth, widen their necks and turn up their noses. It reminds me of what I used to do to TV guides when I was younger. I also think it would be fun to take one image, print it many times and distort it many different ways to see how it would evolve. Would it become a family or a sequence of the possibilities and behavior of a single person?

2011-08-21T06:30:00.000-07:00

These remind me of a yearbook. A collection of random people gathered in a book that one looks through and reduces each person to one sentence: She was so strange, remember how she used to circle her scabs in pen? She never married and works at the mini mart. She has five kids and is trapped in a miserable marriage. I saw her a year ago at the grocery store and she got really fat. Isn't she gay now? She died in that strange accident a couple months after graduation. What ever happened to her?

sunday

2011-08-21T05:52:00.000-07:00

thursday

2011-08-10T10:57:00.000-07:00

wednesday

2011-08-10T10:15:00.000-07:00

Experimenting. I like the suggestion of the string pulling up the nose and I like interrupting the face. Needing to shake things up at the moment. I am waiting for large paper to arrive to see what happens when I go life size, full figure. Meanwhile I am getting lost in fiction and working on several small book projects.

thursday

2011-08-04T05:55:00.001-07:00

It was then he realized that though he was a talented salesman, his own daughter wasn't buying it.

saturday

2011-07-30T07:01:00.000-07:00

These are a few drawings that I have been working on lately. It is always hard to get back into the groove after a residency. I think too much, I am too critical and I am filled and overwhelmed with too many ideas. I worry that they are getting too close to human, I prefer them when they hang out in a funny space between human and non-human and when their expressions reveal possibilities. I also have a couple of papers hanging over my head which always makes me feel guilty while I am drawing.
On a brighter note my work was mentioned in the Boston Globe a couple of days ago in a review for the Boston Young Contemporaries show and I was really happy with what was said.

friday

2011-07-22T07:51:00.000-07:00

It is so hot here. I've set up studio under a black walnut in my in laws yard. While I work I hear the kids splashing in the pool and every so often I join them. The wind picked up yesterday and took this lady smiling all over the yard as I tried to catch her. I think she enjoyed floating around and thought it funny that I couldn't catch her. Don't know quite what to think of her but she is surely full of mischief. Today I will sit in the shade of the tree again and see what happens.

monday evening

2011-07-04T15:09:00.000-07:00

I am back from my residency. Filled with generous observations and ideas from my colleagues and professors. Ready to hit it. The hardest part of being away is being excited constantly and not being able to work. Now I can let all of the excitement seep out and after giving my studio a fresh clean, my late nights can begin once again. I will also try to take photographs of my portraits, they are getting larger and are cropped by the scanner. I am going to try to write more this term as I begin thinking about my eventual thesis....... I write this so that I will actually do it not because my writing will be terribly interesting.

thursday morning

2011-06-16T03:04:00.000-07:00

I'm off to Boston for another residency. Here goes!!!!!!

sunday

2011-06-05T11:19:00.000-07:00

2011-06-01T18:08:00.000-07:00

These are studies for larger drawings. I wish I could work on them now, but I leave for my next grad school residency two weeks from tomorrow. I have so muh reading to do and a birthday party plan, my loves are turning six! I had my last meeting with my mentor this past weekend and it left me excited and full of ideas. It will be good for me to have to carry that excitement in words and small sketches to the residency. Then when I come home I will be beyond eager to get started.
I am also pretty excited that two of my drawings have been accepted into the Boston Young Contemporaries Show this summer.

LaLaLaLaLaLa

2011-05-26T19:36:00.000-07:00

wednesday

2011-05-25T18:27:00.000-07:00

2011-05-19T16:22:00.000-07:00

tuesday

2011-05-17T15:23:00.000-07:00

tuesday

2011-05-10T17:35:00.000-07:00

sunday

2011-05-08T11:27:00.000-07:00

monday

2011-05-02T16:51:00.000-07:00

I am starting to notice my pattern... A good drawing day comes after a finished paper, the endless possibilities last for a few days and then inevitably the empty days return. Of course I only realize this now after finishing my last paper for the semester. How I love good drawing days and how much I appreciate them knowing that they are fleeting.

tuesday

2011-04-26T16:38:00.000-07:00

monday

2011-04-25T17:00:00.000-07:00

Had a great meeting with my mentor. She is so thoughtful, so giving and her take is so spot on.

These are part of a new series. I am working on incorporating text. These are actually a bit larger but were cropped by my scanner. It's funny writing feels so exposed like singing, where drawing feels much more safe. I think it will be a good test for me to expose a few drawings with text. I have been avoiding it, thought it has been encouraged. I felt like it would lock the images into one meaning. Seeing the Edward Gorey show made me rethink that, of course he is the master of text, image and wit. While I am in school I don't want to say no to trying anything. I am trying to avoid everything that feels too comfortable, trying to surprise myself. I am waiting for a moment when I look at something I have made and it's wonderfully unfamiliar and yet exactly what I wanted.

monday

2011-04-18T15:26:00.000-07:00

A week off. Lots of time to spend in the studio. Going to Boston to finally see the Edward Gorey exhibit and finishing up the week with a meeting with my mentor. I looked through the work that I have done so far this semester and I have a lot of processing to do. I've just been working obsessively, that's how I roll, and now I need to think, process and write. Spending time in a quiet house should help.

sunday

2011-04-10T18:21:00.000-07:00

I have been busy researching and paper writing and now I can draw without guilt, for at least a couple of weeks until the next is due. I have two new (to me) links to share: Escape into Art and Art Found Out . I am so excited to be featured on them and just to know of them, they are both wonderful sites that I could spend hours exploring.

friday

2011-04-01T13:53:00.000-07:00

having fun.

thursday

2011-03-31T17:20:00.000-07:00

thursday

2011-03-31T15:41:00.000-07:00

Wednesday

2011-03-23T13:20:00.000-07:00

Today is one of those days with endless possibilities. I am excited about the structures that are coming in. I like the mess and the empty space. Its funny in one of my critiques a while ago a very smart woman said to me, "there are so many characters, I suspect that it comes down to a mere few", and I was thinking I suspect not. Lately it seems that it often comes down to these two. I'll have to change that.

I love the warmth of my sketchbook paper, this cold white paper is hard for me to deal with. These last two drawings are also very large, for me, 18 x 24.

tuesday

2011-03-22T14:21:00.000-07:00

monday

2011-03-21T12:56:00.000-07:00

2011-03-20T09:43:00.000-07:00

tuesday

2011-03-15T14:53:00.000-07:00

Small bits again. There are always small parts that I like, but hardly ever the whole. I am at a place where I really don't have a preconceived idea of what I want my work to look like. Its a good place I suppose, full of possibility. I do know that I am a little starved for color. I'll have to work on that. I seem to travel between clean and dirty. Right now it all feels dirty.

sunday

2011-03-13T16:50:00.000-07:00

trying to play myself out of a funk.

2011-03-10T17:28:00.000-08:00

small sections of larger drawings in process.

sunday

2011-03-06T12:26:00.000-08:00

two new drawings.

no words.

the words are coming.

friday

2011-03-04T18:42:00.000-08:00

little bits of drawings.

wednesday night

2011-03-02T18:50:00.000-08:00

just playing

2011-02-28T18:47:00.000-08:00

New York was great.

Had an inspirational first meeting with my mentor.

Playing with perspective.

Still trying to scare myself.

2011-02-22T14:09:00.000-08:00

A silly painting.

Diane and I are off to NYC tomorrow to see some art. Looking forward to a long drive, great conversation, great art, good food and wine, leaving the city inspired and at the end, on the way home, my first meeting with my new mentor.

saturday

2011-02-19T10:11:00.000-08:00

tuesday

2011-02-15T15:08:00.000-08:00

Sunday

2011-02-13T14:33:00.000-08:00

My advisor suggested that I work with a collage as a means of taking a break from my characters and using found imagery to expand my vocabulary. Collage, because it is (supposed to be) a quick way to explore new ideas by simply placing found images together is a great way to develop ideas and, he suggested that using found imagery and things that exist in culture may make my characters less precious. While I think it is a great idea, it is one that I am struggling with. So here's my start, hopefully I will have an epiphany soon and things will start coming together. PS i realize that I am not really taking a break from my people, I'll work on that too, somehow.

sunday morning

2011-02-06T05:09:00.000-08:00

small bits of paintings I am working on.

friday

2011-02-04T14:00:00.000-08:00

It's friday and I'm all smiles.

2011-02-03T15:53:00.000-08:00

One of my suggestions for the semester was to scare myself more in the studio, to be a little less polite. I'm a little scared.

I'm also a little wondering why this is underlined??

sunday morning

2011-01-30T08:23:00.000-08:00

2011-01-26T18:10:00.000-08:00

saturday

2011-01-22T17:54:00.000-08:00

friday

2011-01-21T09:23:00.000-08:00

This semester I am going to try to post drawings regularly so that I can better understand my process and see my development over the course of the next five months.

2011-01-21T04:28:00.000-08:00

My first stop motion animation. I did this during my residency with the help of a very patient, and wonderful teacher who realized that the computer was not my thing and that working old school would suit me much better. I added the music and will work on perfecting that in time.

wednesday

2011-01-19T14:16:00.000-08:00

I am home from my second residency. Filled with ideas, inspiration and a long list of things to do. The basic theme of this past residency was that my work is cohesive, interesting, developed and that now I should experiment freely. I am excited to begin, to shake things up, to increase the tension and expand my language. I feel more excited this time, less weighed down with questions of why and excited to answer questions of what if.

tuesday

2010-12-28T14:58:00.000-08:00

Photographs of new sculptures. These are really small, in fact they could all fit in my pocket.(that small) In a little over a week I will be going back to Boston for nine days filled with critiques and lectures. I am excited about the changes and developments in my work and as I look back at all of the suggestions from my last residency I feel much more confident to argue that which I have kept and I feel is an important part of my work. Empty space. Subtlety. Small changes. Undefined space(it is paper why do I need to pretend it is something else?) I feel like I am in a better place,I have a better understanding of my work, why I do the things that I do and I now know what to protect and defend and how to do that.

friday!!!

2010-12-03T16:28:00.000-08:00

Moving things around, listening to the stories that they tell.

still tuesday

2010-11-16T11:59:00.000-08:00

playing around.

they were there.

tuesday

2010-11-16T11:55:00.000-08:00

more tiny sculptures

November 11,2010

2010-11-11T06:22:00.000-08:00

Had a great meeting with my mentor yesterday. Spoke a lot about putting things together. The distance between people and the connections that are made when these distances are explored. I have many characters. Now I am going to arrange them to tell their stories. I have always liked working small and been attracted to possibilities. Relationships of parts to a whole is exciting. I think the struggle that I have always had with painting, in the sense of a large final work, is the finality of it. It is what it is and it will hang on a wall equidistant from another painting. The figures will remain in their postions forever and though they will be interpreted in different ways they will be still contained inside of one space. They will speak together but they exist only that way and they feel self contained. I am attracted to that finality and its cleanness and wholeness, but I have a hard time thinking that way. Working small allows me to explore possibilities to represent time in a different way and to explore the relationships between separate parts without having them fixed or contained.

I am excited right now. I have so many things to play with to explore. Sculpting is very exciting for me. I can explore the same relationships in those forms that I am obsessed with in my characters. The two separate parts, figures and sculptures are informing each other in a nice way. I was thinking, if I can say what I want to say with these abstract shapes, then why do I need the figures. But I do need them. They have been with me for so long and there is a truth in them that I want to continue to explore. That being said I want to paint arrangements of the sculptures and explore where that leads. They can both exist. They are two languages.

I also am excited about an assignment that Evelyn, My mentor suggested: Represent something personal and emotional about familial relationships in a dry, straightforward way so that the emotion exists in the content rather than the execution. An interesting assignment that has opened my head to a whole new range of possibilities.

Well the kids are excited we all have the day off together, the pleasure of both being teachers, and we are off to enjoy the sunshine.

tuesday evening

2010-11-09T13:32:00.000-08:00

tiny sculptures.

It is getting dark so early. The retreat inside begins and along with it bad photographs. These little sculptures are actually very warm and would look much better in the sunlight. Everything looks better in the sunlight but it is a nice time of year for reading and family time. We all gather in the living room by the fire. Drawing on the floor feels just as good as it did when I was a kid though a little harder to get up afterwards.

2010-11-06T06:53:00.000-07:00

2010-11-06T06:48:00.000-07:00

new drawings.

2010-11-06T05:33:00.001-07:00

Thursday Night I went to Boston to hear Laylah Ali speak at Boston University. I relate so much to her process, to her relationship to drawing and painting. Also the simplicity of her work and the way she has developed her own language through her creation of various characters. With her characters she makes comments about identity, violence and perception. I like that they appear fun and whimsical at first and underneath their approachable exterior they are expressing and doing very real things. In my own work I look for that same quality. Characters that have ears and seem like a cross between people and stuffed animals. For me they recall childhood and though they feel like the safe whimsical characters that I created as a child they are more knowledgable and they behave the way I see things as an adult.

To learn more about Laylah Ali and her work check out Art 21. Though she said they presented her as a bit more obsessive compulsive than she really is, it gives really nice insight into her work and her process.

2010-10-27T18:24:00.000-07:00

2010-10-26T14:39:00.000-07:00

busy busy

2010-10-25T18:02:00.000-07:00

Painting. I'll post some pictures tomorrow. I'll be up painting late, the house is quiet. Listening to The Ghost of Tom Joad.

new painting

2010-10-19T14:15:00.000-07:00

A new painting. They are coming together, things are coming together.

2010-10-14T15:53:00.000-07:00

Here are the two paintings I spoke of in my last post.

Arshille Gorky The Artist and His Mother and

Henri Matisse The Piano Lesson

2010-10-14T14:31:00.000-07:00

Today the drawings just came. I like how loose they are and how quick they came. When they come quick they feel true. Now I am thinking of them in color. I did a painting a couple of weeks ago that I keep looking at and I still like it. That is rare for me. I like that the pencil lines are still there and the painting was quick, not labored over. I have a hard time liking a painting that I have struggled with. Usually I struggle because I am making it to tight and to much about shapes. I like my paintings much better when the line retains the importance. I find myself always thinking of two paintings, Arshille Gorky's portait of him and his mother and The Piano Lesson by Matisse. I am always thinking of these two paintings. For years. It is funny how paintings can get stuck in your head like a song.

2010-10-14T14:28:00.000-07:00

tuesday Night

2010-10-12T18:42:00.000-07:00

yes dear.

2010-10-07T12:58:00.000-07:00

late nights.

messy studio.

sunday morning

2010-09-26T05:26:00.000-07:00

just painting.

Avoiding writing a paper.

still wednesday

2010-09-22T15:05:00.000-07:00

I met with my advisor last week. Her name is Evelyn Rydz. She has a show at the ICA that I am really eager to see.

It is such a gift to have someone to talk about your work with you. It always leaves me inspired, excited and overwhelmed with ideas. She gives me lists of artists to research, things to think about and a long to do list. Right now I am doing these studies to develop four to six drawings that are to be hung together and have some sort of conversation although they may not be directly related or explicitly narrative. I am to only work in black and white. I will slow down and really compose the drawings. I love to draw small movements, simple gestures, and moments that seem relatively unmonumental. Now I am listening to the story that they tell. Why do I do what I do? What am I trying to say?

I was thinking back to my childhood drawings and they were often characters, one in particular with a funny shaped head, kind of monkey ears and a really strained smile. I drew them over and over again. They were usually alone. When I was a kid I thought of all of my figures as boys. When I grew up I hoped I would be a boy. Now most of my characters are women. Funny how things change, and how they don't.

wednesday

2010-09-22T14:55:00.000-07:00

she was always somewhere else

the decision

she was often described as intense

she knew it was just the dress

Drawing

2010-09-18T07:03:00.000-07:00

I like hands. The way they comfort and control. I also like family photographs and the way they are both real and pretend. I like smiles when someone is posing for a picture, they try to be real.

I have been thinking a lot lately about my childhood and I realize that there are so many different versions. The version in photographs, the version told to me, the version I remember (which is hard to separate from the first two). It is strange to look at your childhood as an adult because you can't help but see it through knowing eyes and that again is another variation. My favorite version was living it and the way I saw it then and that version is my core, and I try to protect it from the others. I don't want it to go away.

saturday morning

2010-09-18T06:25:00.000-07:00

I have been really bad about posting lately. These are some collages and drawings that have happened recently. There are so many more. I am working all of the time that I am not teaching or being a mom. When I rest my head on the pillow at night I'm still working, thinking. I can't shut it off and I don't want to. I want to get somewhere. I keep feeling like I am, in my head and in little bits of my work getting closer to some sort of clarity. I know, I know there is no rush but I need some resolve, for myself.

paintings

2010-09-12T05:16:00.000-07:00

I have a hard time with painting. It feels like it is always trying to be too finished and important. It feels deceptive to me. It feels strange to cover up and suffocate a nice piece of wood. That being said I really enjoy looking at the paintings of others and I do love the actual feel of painting. I also like the "objectness" of it and to contradict myself I like the "finishedness" of it. I just don't feel right when I do it, or really after I do it.

It is Sunday morning I have a paper hanging over my head, loads of laundry and a busy week ahead. and two kids that are fighting over a radio, one wants to listen to Michael Jackson the other to Guns N' Roses and me, well I'd prefer to listen to the birds.

sunday

2010-08-29T07:12:00.000-07:00

I have been busy reading, painting, putting things together, making families really, and getting August and Owen ready for school. They are starting kindergarten in a week. I start school tomorrow. It will be nice, I suppose(trying to make myself believe) to get back into a routine. So sad to see summer go but how can I not look forward to the fall?

tuesday morning

2010-08-17T07:57:00.000-07:00

I have been drawing in my book quite a bit lately. I have also been painting. Hopefully I will have something to show soon. My quiet people are getting a bit feisty.

Today I will sit by the pool and write a paper. I am hoping that if I post it, that I will actually do it. I have been putting it off for quite some time......