Welcome

This series was difficult to name. Other names it had before the one that stuck were the Journal series, the faces, the women and the heads (the latter less than original I’m afraid). Like many artistic endeavors, the birth of this series was a process of many steps over quite a bit of time. 

I was terrified to approach the human face freehand. After a few years of study I’d gotten relatively comfortable with the skeletal and muscular systems- so I’d consider free handing anatomy to be in my wheelhouse. I’m comfortable with nature, as it is all organic line and allows a lot of flexibility: if you get a tree branch an inch off, the composition typically still works. The human face is another proposition entirely. I had tried a handful of times to render the face and still fewer times the faces of specific people with results much to my chagrin before undertaking this series. So facing (pun intended) into that issue was one of the key tenants of this series. 

Another was the backgrounds of the pieces. I felt that I had been hedging in my work. I’d felt that many of the artists that make history and that I find myself most inspired by were more fearless than I was. I felt that I was still afraid of making mistakes, still afraid of having certain thoughts of mine known, still afraid of disappointing others. I was in a frustrated maybe even angsty space about my work at this time. I hadn’t been in fine art full time very long. I found the decision oddly difficult to make. I’ve known that I wanted to be in fine art full time for years, so you’d think it would have been easier. However, I didn’t and still don’t have a clear cut path to a successful art business based on creating the work that I think matters right in front of me yet. So for someone that does value taking care of herself, there’s a large leap of faith built in making that decision. I spent too much time hedging my decision with other things as my bread and butter: headshot photography, a fashion blog concept, illustration, fashion photography… I have spent a lot of time considering things that I had no burning desire to be doing, but thought that a responsible person would have a reliable income source running before pursuing any experimental art pipe dream. I found that every time I started down one of these roads to having a “day job” and making art when I could, I experienced a deep seated dissonance. It felt wrong. So I’d try another “day job” concept. Same thing. I also found that my psyche is a momentum driven thing- I am far more productive the less I have to change directions or headspace; making multiple jobs difficult. Painting as is- for a one-woman-show- requires thinking about more than the art itself: you have to consider marketing, inventory, photographing and presenting the work, web presence, SEO… SO many things I am not an expert in, and don’t excel at. But I want to be making art. I have the audacity to think I can make culturally relevant art that might shape taste one day. It’s a sort of vision I can’t shake. Would’ve been simpler if I’d been meant to be a photographer I’m sure. So the backgrounds of these pieces were born from these frustrations and desire for vulnerability: they’re my confessions. They’re messages in bottles. Sometimes they’re all based in a related idea; sometimes they’re not. They’re things that cry out inside my head. Things I would probably rather not say. Things I would probably rather you not know. 

Then the painting of a woman’s face is built atop these “confessions.” Many and sometimes all of them are obscured by the final piece. But isn’t that getting to know a woman? We all see her face, but few see behind it to her secrets, her fears, her hopes, her thoughts, all the best and worst names she calls herself. 

The “Can You See Her Face” series is really a vulnerability and intimacy challenge for the artist and the viewer. The challenge to the viewer is to think about the secret thoughts the pieces are built on and think of the women in their lives and around the world that wish to be known well. 

Color is also an important motif in my work- not only in this series. I rarely use realistic color even when I use realistic shape. I can’t seem to help it. Why is that do you suppose? Color has always been emotional for me. I think that I was afraid of it at first. When I began to paint, I used very neutral, safe colors. I wanted to “succeed.” I wanted my work to be marketable, accepted, praised. But art is a funny thing. What happens to you when you really begin to express yourself is truly something that no one can explain to you until it happens to you. The more art I made, the more I realized that there is so much more at stake in an art object than a typical business, good or service. Art is something else to mankind entirely. There is a reason that traumatized children are given art therapy, and that the easiest way to get them to confess what has happened to them is with art. I was unaware of the profound need of the human spirit to tell the truth and come to know itself through art. I remember who I was went I went to art school; the girl I was then would have mocked such psycho-analytic, philosophical hogwash. I didn’t believe in therapy, in art, in philosophy, in poetry… I believe in sense, business, tradition, honor, and capitalism. It’s humorous to me now how my priorities have changed. 

God save my art professors. I had to be a tough nut to crack for all of them I’d imagine. I fought of them- because they’re ideas were too open. They entertained absolutely disrespectful ideas and encouraged the expression of ANY thought. I believed at the time in being very careful what one speaks into existence; I carefully and fearfully curated my own head. I was under the impression this was the path to success. The idea of totally free speech as a means of fact-finding and just joyful exchange between minds was new to me. The idea of a world in which there might well be more than one right answer was new to me. A world in color instead of black and white? Yeah- that took me a moment to digest.

But guarded as I was- an angry, conservative, combative little crustacean inside my ideological shell- I was still painting. Painting, painting, and painting. During this time, I also started having difficult experiences in my life. Then I found that when my brush hit the canvas, those things came out of it. I began expressing to relieve pain. I began talking to fact-find. After that, I began listening. I began listening to others that differed from me. I began studying and conversing with openness rather than judgment. Then I began listening to myself. At that miraculous moment, the real power and purpose of art made sense. 

The color in this series is freedom. It is a reflection of emotion that we can’t usually see on the outside. It’s the freedom to be any color we choose. Are you blue today? Be blue today. Are you purple and orange? Be purple and orange. Our world sometimes only sees us by our gender, our race, our socio-economic strata… That is not what we are. That is not the value we provide in relationship. The culture of the world only thinks that because so many haven’t taken their art journey. 

This series is India ink on canvas followed by an acrylic paint wash, charcoal drawing of the portrait filled in with oil and acrylic paints. All paintings are 4' by 5', gallery thickness canvas, frames not required. This series. is a work in progress, much like yours truly.