Handmade Pottery & Snow Giant Peach

Midwest potter Karen Brinson, whom I found on Etsy, made this lovely blue vase custom for me. I wanted a vivid cobalt blue vase with a shiny finish that would reflect subjects set next to it. She nailed it. Karen and her husband Ken own KK Brinson Studio and work in a barn they built in their backyard. Visit KK Brinson Studio on Etsy here.

I purchased the luscious snow giant peach at the Boise Farmer's Market.Half the fun of painting fresh produce subjects is getting to consume them after I apply the last brush stroke. This peach really delivered, not to mention that I paired it with a bowl of vanilla bean ice cream. Good food fuels the soul.

I will show this painting at my upcoming BOSCO open studio tour event October 9-11. I hope you Southern Idahoans can make it.

Elevating Small Things

I started reading about mindfulness and honoring the power of the present this past year (thank you His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Eckhart Tolle and Anthony De Mello). Painting still life offers me a valuable lesson in the power of presence--it's a rigorous practice in staying focused on the thing immediately before me. Painting also makes me mindful of the significance of small things.

This summer, I decided to partake in life coaching sessions with Marisa Weppner, owner of Sage Yoga & Wellness (learn about her integrative life style therapy here), to solidify my goals as a painter and business owner. I wanted to write a mantra for my business that captured my intentions as an artist. After a deep discussion about why I paint, why I paint what I paint and what I hope to share,  I honed my art business mantra to "elevating small things."

Small objects act like anthropomorphic symbols of our lives. Look around your office, your kitchen, your bedroom, your bathroom--what do you see? Some of my most treasured items are physically little--my grandmother's handkerchief, sewing shears of my mother's, a baseball, a Lego figurine, a Euro coin from travels abroad, handmade Mala beads. They feel like treasures because they represent a meaningful piece of my identity or conjure a happy memory.

I often find this kind of joy in small food items. My neighbor grows the lovely plums depicted in the painting in this post. She takes the time to cut a large bowl of plums for my family every year around early September and allows me to pick more whenever I wish. These plums have a beautiful frosty blue coating that reveals a vivid deep blue-purple beneath when rubbed. The golden marbled blue cheese came from the Boise Co-op, one of my favorite places to buy socially-conscious food for still life paintings.

#lovewins

I walked into Whole Foods to see what fruits or vegetables were in season for a still life painting and found figs, hard to come by in Boise. On my drive home, I saw a business billboard with the message "#lovewins" in plain view from a busy downtown connector to the freeway. I knew immediately what to paint with those figs.

Look at the reflection in the silver cup and you will see a sort of self portrait. Although I don't consider myself gay (no worries, Rob Richardson), I have many dear friends who do, and for whom I have deeply desired an equal chance to enjoy marriage the way I can. We are all equal as humans--all of us seek love, compassion and shelter. This painting symbolizes a reflection of my deep seeded support of social equality.

I want to turn traditional still life on its head to convey contemporary themes. I hope to first excite the visual senses with a beautifully rendered painting, an homage to the masters of the Dutch Golden Age. Then I want to startle, excite, provoke, or humor the viewer with the content. Whether or not you agree with my stance, I hope we can start a dialogue. 

A Subject Revisited 10 Years Later

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"It isn't going to be easy; it's going to be worth it" | 14"x11" | oil on Gessobord panel | 2015

I declared visual art as a major at the University of Washington as a freshman so I could take a few collegiate level art classes and then drop the major and maintain focus on my journalism degree. Or so I thought. The amazing teacher of my figure drawing class, Helen O'Toole, pleaded with me to finish my art degree. She took me on a tour of her painting students' studios and inspired me to graduate with a double-major. The last course I took before graduating was intro to oil painting, and guess what? I fell in love with the medium. Alas, with a diploma in hand, I filed that love of painting into the recesses of my conditioned brain.

You see, my conditioned brain told me art was impractical as an academic study and would not result in a "successful" career, save for the very lucky few. I also heard this feedback from others. I had never met a working artist. And now I am one, not one of the lucky few, but one of many who eek out a humble living. I spent seven years working good-paying jobs primarily for software companies after college. One day, the suit of skin i zipped up every morning before heading to work felt too heavy to don.

When people are pushed to exchange their passion and their effort for the false solace of giving up and lowering their expectations, we all lose. --Seth Godin

I realized I was working someone else's job. The pain of neglecting my favorite talent--visual art--ran deep. It negatively affected my relationships and my confidence and compassion for myself. So I figured out how to return to the easel while working a steady part-time job for my father as a project manager (a fortunate experience in itself).

I posted these two paintings because they represent a milestone for me. The 2005 version of a bowl of oranges with one on the loose took place in the UW art building, my last painting as an undergraduate. I revisited the subject this year after returning to my studio from a leave to care for my first child, Olive.

Doubt kept rearing its ugly head causing me to again question art as a career choice. A funny thing happened. in the vein of finding inspiration in the oddest of places, I forced myself to take a spin class at the gym (the post-baby attempt to return to fitness), and the instructor said something that stuck with me: "I'm not telling you it's going to be easy; I'm telling you it's going to be worth it."

A vision of a bowl of oranges appeared clearly in my otherwise sweaty head. One orange sat on the edge of a table, outside the bowl, outside its comfort zone, debating a leap of courage or a return to safety. I returned home, showered, zipped over to Whole Foods to buy a bag of oranges and then made this vision a reality in paint. (Okay, it took a few days and help from a nanny.)

Whenever doubt clouds my thoughts, I remind myself pursuing art as a career was never going to be easy. And then I think, wow, it is so very worth it.