My ArtFix residency challenge has begun with a re-organization of aspects of my studio. I found out that:
- I'm basically pretty organized and I don't collect a lot of found materials which is interesting because I love texture and layers in my work. I may need to think about this.
- I have way too many books in my studio and reading often keeps me from producing.
Perhaps there's something here about using up materials.... You see how you can easily get sidetracked into something safe like researching.
I am basically a self taught artist and books were my friends in the beginning of my art career. I rarely buy a how- to book now. I've been thinking about ways to "get rid of them".
- I have scads of paper of every variety; I kept finding more and more. It was rather startling when you attach a money value to it.
Who knows when you might want to add a bit of shredded paper to something! I've begun to save this to add it to encaustic - someday.
Then there's all the photocopies I've done - just in case. I use a variety of image transfer techniques in my mixed media work.
Every trip I take, I bring home at least one watercolour pad or pastel paper pad. Never mind that I rarely work in watercolour or pastel anymore.
The bane of my life is my obsessive attraction to pretty, graphic, textured, gilt , glossy, fibrous, silky or any other kind of paper you can think of. There are boxes of it now nicely organized thanks to this residency.
I've kept every failed painting I ever created -even the ones from my early explorations into art. You learn quickly that anything is fodder for a mixed media work.
- I've tried every medium throughout my short career, but drawing materials are scarce. While I'm attracted to graphic work, I rarely create it. Interesting and food for thought!
There's no shortage of things acrylic.
- For this residency I've decided to focus on paper and graphic mark making materials - what I have the most and least of .
Here's my first project using gilt papers, cadmium red encaustic and a gum arabic transfer(at the bottom). 6x6 inches. Keeping the scale small lets me get one completed in a day. I'm also going to be into speed in this residency. No obsessing about worthiness just creation.
