Marlene Dumas : "The Image as Burden"

A friend of mine recently returned to California with the most thoughtful gift: the art book released with  Marlene Dumas' recent retrospective at the prestigious Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Chrissta is a special friend, a thoughtful friend, who saw the show and was reminded of me and the last time we visited the Stedelijk together when I visited her in 2012 :)
I AM OBSESSED WITH THIS BOOK!

D-rection, 1999.

Jesus Serene, 1994.

Magnetic Fields, 2008.

The First People, 1990.

The Jewish Girl, 1986.

I first encountered Marlene Dumas' paintings when I was in Chelsea in NYC 2006. I remember feeling as if I happened upon a gold mine. From far away her paintings are complex. Detailed. But when you get closer you realize that she works quickly with smudged, loose, watered down medium. Incredible :) 

Portraiture :)

Ive always been fascinated with drawing people, especially their portraits. Something about trying to grab a silly quirk, bloodshot eyes, crooked smile or hairy mole that makes me giggle, makes me feel more human, and connected to the people around me. We all have our flaws, our insecurities, our body parts that we aren't the most proud to show off as well as the ones that make us feel beautiful and special. I like to highlight this duality and smash it down on paper as quickly as possible.

Josie

GAGA

Danny 

Dani und Manny

Hedwig 

Someone once told me that artists are the recorders of history...and Im gonna be recording some history today with my $5.00 per portrait booth at the SKI RUN FARMER'S MARKET from 3-8 pm!! :) Sweet Haley Davis drew my portrait last week at her booth but shes tied up with all the celebs today at Edgewood so Im pickin up where she left off. Come see me yall!!

Lavender Regan

On a cool evening last November I walked down to the beach near my apartment to get some air and clear my mind. I had the beach to myself except for some curious geese. The air was still crisp and wet after the slush we'd gotten that morning. I sat there all bundled up for an hour, photographing and sketching the landscape as the sun set over the mountains. There really is no place like home :)

Lavender Regan

11" x 14"

Oil on Canvas 

2014

Sunset at Regan Beach During the Rim Fire

I havent made any prints since I graduated college in 2011, so when I was approached by a friend of mine to TA for her printmaking class at LTCC this quarter I jumped on the opportunity. Printmakers and painters are age old frenemies. Printmakers work and think backwards, always with the end result in mind. There are a myriad of steps to take to make a print that range from working the surface (in my case wood or MDF), choosing paper, ink, bases, press pressure...the list goes on. For a painter like me, who can easily change a painting in half an hour, to work in a medium that requires so much patience and attention to detail is a stretch. In college I often loathed the printing process until I learned a processes that worked for me, namely monotype, woodcut and dry-point/intaglio copper etching.

PIctured above is a monotyped woodblock print. First I hand-painted the woodblock with printmaking ink, making sure to press the ink into the cuts. I printed this woodblock multiple times without adding more ink to create a more subtle ghost image. Then I washed off the woodblock and rolled-up a deep purplish black, registered my paper, and printed that over my ghost. The result is a pale wash of color underneath with a darker pop on top. Im pretty pleased with the results :) Back to the printshop today to try my hand at some more color variation!

What do you think?

Heres a shot of the woodblock I am hand painting before I print it. 

A detail of the woodblock after I printed it. 

Cotton Candy Clouds

I love this painting. Its the first in my new series, "Feeling Blue". The clouds were this gorgeous shade of pink for about 10 minutes, before the sun went down and they changed to a slate grey. They remind me a bit of those psychedelic elephants from Dumbo, swirling and constantly changing. I just sold this painting to a friend I recently reconnected with. Glad to see it went to a good home ;)

Cotton Candy Clouds 

Oil on Canvas

36" x 48"

2014

Feeling Blue: Ferdinand Hodler

Being home in Tahoe has really mellowed me out since this summer. I work at The BoatHouse, a lakefront bar  and restaurant right on the Timber Cove pier. All day I gaze at the lake, mountains and sky. I love the calm, morning water that reflects Mt. Tallac in its bright blues and greens. I love pale pink and lavender sunsets on clear evenings and the neon oranges and fushia clouds of the sunsets after a storm. I love the full moon on cold, clear nights in winter.

Recently, I've begun a new landscape art series I'm calling "Feeling Blue" as a follow-up to my portraiture show, "Seeing Red". I am so inspired and impressed by swiss painter Ferdinand Hodler. I know I blogged about him before after I saw his M A S S I V E paintings in Zürich and now again, I cant get enough. Check him out:

Craig

This is a quick painting I did of my friend, Craig during finals week in one of our last semesters of college. We were both tired, over-worked and under-fed. We needed a break. I did this in about 2 hours, maybe less. I dont think Craig liked this painting very much, but I love it.  Usually he is so fab, bright and shiny with nary a hair out of place on his perfect head. Hes bouncy and fun and always has more energy and charisma than anyone else in the room. But not that night. That night he was human. Worn, sleepy and irritated.
I feel I caught the dark side in him...Coooll ;)

Amsterdam

Its been awhile since Ive updated my blog...Summer flew by, I got my painting studio together and moved back to Tahoe from Berlin. Only after all these months, with a day off, a slight cold, and an empty schedule have I taken some time to browse through my eurotrip photos again.

This duo at the train station made my morning. They were chatting away and giggling with their eyes closed. I was really happy I was already going in their direction or else I would have had no chance but to follow them like a puppy and take the next train. 

HAhHA Wax statue of Tiesto. Hilarious. 

I AMsterdam :)

Bitter Ballen and beer. So lovely. After an afternoon of walking, shopping and exploring, we checked out some art and then went over to the highest vista Chrissta knew of to have drinks and watch the sunset over the city. 

Beautiful Chrissta was an incredible host and guide. Thank you girlfriend!!

Utrecht

Off to the Netherlands to reconnect with Chrissta and Bas! I havent seen them since their spectacular, week-long, Caribbean wedding last April and Im pumped to finally see their home in Utrecht.  Bas took us to this beautiful restaurant called De Zakken Drager. Soft light from various chandeliers and candles twinkled off cast iron details and ornate mirrors. The back of the restaurant looks almost like a greenhouse with slanted glass windows and lush, hanging plants. Id love to come back in the summer and sit outside. 

Next we headed over to Bas and Chrissta's favorite watering hole, Oliver's to sip on some Le Chouffe. Its an old building that used to be a church and looks almost like an old apothecary store too. I loved the high ceilings and old organ on the second floor. On game days, there is a big screen projected onto the wall so all can enjoy the action. 

 Bas said good night after a beer (hes a working man!) and his cousin Theirry came to join Chrissta and I at her favorite jazz bar. There was a jam session that night and a SUPER BABE of a saxophone player was belting out a funky version of a Bob Marley song when we entered. Sweet.

We ate, drank and were merry. So good to be reunited :)

Keukenhof Holland

On the last day of my incredible weekend with Chrissta and Bas (I know, Im going backwards, just cant wait to bust out these gorgeous flower pics!) in the Netherlands, we visited the Keukenhof. Translated it means "kitchen garden" and is essentially an enormous park devoted to various types of bulb flowers and greenery. Bas explained to me that the Netherlands supplies the majority of world's flowers and bulbs! Amazing.

The air was still chilly and the sun was peeking in and out from behind the clouds. Most of the bulbs were still underground or just beginning to flower, so the majority of the action was inside the greenhouses. 

Fringe-y tulips. SO eighties ;)

These were HUGE.

These smelled SOOO goooood. Actually the soft fragrance from each greenhouse was different. So soothing. Next time Ill bring some blankets and just camp out in the flower beds for a nap...

Lovebirds: Bas and Chrissta

Doing my best "Japanese tourist" pose. 

These were so interesting. They looked like plastic.

TWINSIES!

Happy Easter xo