New Art! (It's taking over my entire house)

I just thought I would share the reasons why I haven't made a lot of posts lately; this is about one third of what I've churned out over the last three weeks. The "Palimpsests" for my thesis show will likely be chosen from among these:

I started this one months ago; it's been languishing in a pile of rejects until last week. I love when a reject becomes a success!

This was another reject; it is the sibling of the one above.

 I don't know it I've mentioned that I do these in sets of 2, 3, or 4; I consider the sets "siblings" or "cousins." They share the same genetic background, artistically speaking. They often begin as prints of one another, made through a self-devised monoprinting process. Fun!

My first experiment with adding silver pigment to the ink. I was hesitant to try it, afraid that it would look like a gimmick, But I like it!

I don't think this one is done yet, but I'm not sure what the next mutation will be. I think it will need to languish in a pile of rejects for a while.

This one is the sibling of the one above it. Also not quite ready... I need to neglect it for a while.

More silver pigment; also, my first on a square instead of a rectangle.

Sibling of the one above it. I have since switched to square for my preferred format. Compositionally, it's a lot more challenging, but I like it anyway.

The zygote of this one is from last December. I love it's evolution.

This is the cousin of the one above it. They began together, but diverged too far apart to remain siblings.

Part coral reef, part diseased internal organ, part Hubble telescope image.

This is the sibling of the one above it. Diseased liver, anyone? Mmmm.

Jellyfish-skull-eruption thingy; I love the colors.

The unfinished cousin of the one above it.

This is the first of three juicy little paintings. I might cut them down into squares (from 9x12 to 9x9) and include them in my thesis show.

The one unfinished sibling of the three. I'm afraid to touch it right now.

My favorite of the three. The ink is so rich and glossy on the vellum, which the scanned images don't really convey.

 Below, I have a bit of an octo-mom situation. All 8 of these are siblings, begun and evolving concurrently. They are all 9x9, already perfect for my ideal layout for the thesis show.

Might be my least favorite of the family. Red-headed step-child?

Maybe my favorite of this family? Not sure yet

This one looks like an alien embryo grasping its over-sized skull.

So, here's a little verse I wrote for my thesis paper. I wrote it in the midst of complete exhaustion and frustration, at 2 in the morning, so forgive me if it seems a bit maudlin. I based part of my artist statement on it (see my last post), so hopefully it's not completely awful:

if my art is an expression of my inner somethings

if it is a reflection of my joys and pains

my anxieties and satisfactions

my angers and my wisdoms

my foolishness and my triumphs

if my art is to be all of this

then it will be unrecognizable

it will appear alien

it will be everything to me and nothing to everyone else

it will be empty and full

it will be tiny and vast

it will be thorns, it will be petals

it will be blood and bone:

parasitic little tumors

cancerous little beasts

anomalies, events, curiosities

malevolent and beautiful

resplendent and repulsive

both the crime and the witness

blossoming then blooming

melting but frozen

liquefying, solidifying

in flux

but petrified, suspended

a supernova in its own tiny universe

a cyst, a growth

neither plant, nor animal, nor mineral

but an amalgamation of the three

I used to write poetry a lot when I was a kid. It's hard to write a good poem; I think I stopped writing them because I was afraid of failure. For me, good wasn't enough- unless I felt I could achieve perfection, I didn't bother. I mean, my poems were good for an eighth grader, but not compared to what I was studying in school at the time. It's a strange combination of cowardice and vanity that stops us from trying something which will likely result in failure.

So, for me, the thesis verse represents re-gaining my courage, hopefully with the humility to recognize that I will most likely fail, most of the time. Speaking of which...

 I need to get back to work!