Friday, March 6, 2009

Looking down again

My mind is wandering here and there and I can't seem to focus on the two concurrent bodies of work that are spread all over the studio. This happens to me quite a bit. I am not one of those artists who works consistently day in and day out. I certainly have the time to do that, but it doesn't happen that way for me. I have come to honour my need to be away from the production of work and to accept that even when I'm not physically producing, I'm still being an artist.

Today it must be the melting snow and the imminent approach of spring. I seem to want warm weather and vacation which are all a long way off yet. These longings led me to my digital trip folder. Anything to keep me from focusing on the task at hand. I'm a pro at side tracking. Who else do you know would write four articles on art critique to avoid painting? That accounts for the past six days.

I've posted several other photos from my Looking down folder before. I know I want to work on this subject, but up to this point, I have no idea what this idea can/will/should look like. I hope if I look at my reference images enough times, inspiration will hit. These attracted my attention today.
Rome, I think. I was attracted to the green grate first and then the image was sealed when I saw the leaf.

I obviously need to start keeping tack of my photos better. I leave it too long to sort them and then if I've been away for any length of time, everything blends together. Any good tips on how to solve this problem would be appreciated.






Dublin, thanks to the date (which is there because I had a new camera and couldn't figure how to get the date off). Isn't there a wonderful range of colours in these images which many would call gray ? Gray happens to be one of my favourite colours. Yep, that's my gray foot sticking our in the second one. Obviously these are reference photographs not masterpieces!

6 comments:

p said...

i keep forgetting to say how much i like your (by now not so new) new header photo. its wonderful!
like these photos, very industrial and interesting.

M said...

Thanks Paula.
The header photo is just a snippet of one of my Garden series paintings. The inspiration came from the wildflower meadow on the Birr Castle property. It is where I felt the most at home because it reminded me of the meadow where I played as a child. There's an interesting combination of techniques going on in this piece.

As for the photos, I love grids of any kind so there is my inspiration for these pieces. I've been thinking about grids quite a bit lately. I love the order of it all.

Leslie Avon Miller said...

Great photos! Shapes abound.

Patrice said...

Your photographs are wonderful. Quite as finished in appearance as any collage one might have labored over.

And the colors !! So subtle and lovely.

Mary Buek said...

Margaret: Gray, yippee. Love the photos. I like grids, too. These should inspire art, don't you think?

Jo Reimer said...

Love the photos, Margaret. Sorting them is such a bother, especially when I put it off too long. There are lots of ways to sort. I dump my photos into a file called Unprocessed where they sit sorted by date until I have time to name them and put them into their respective folders. There's Family and then there's Art folders. Under art is Inspiration. And because of this post of yours I'm adding a folder called Looking Down and changing the sky one to Looking Up.