Shell Games: 2016

Shell Games

This blog is about the creative process that I engage in while painting. My goal is to clarify my thinking, explore some philosophic questions and get feedback (be gentle!) on my work. I may pose some specific questions from time to time, for example: “Do you think the background would look better in blue or green?” or “I’ve been adding and deleting details for three weeks, is it time to stop?”

The title of the blog, “Shell Games” is the name of a series of large scale oil paintings that I’ve been doing (you guessed it!) of sea shells. I’ve been motivated to explore a range of meanings within meanings, metaphors, and how people view the world and reality or non-reality issues that come up. The paintings are meant to be DEEP, not just cute or pretty, with varying levels of success. You can choose to interpret them as purely decorative, but I’m hoping they have more internal essence than that.

The name “Shell Games” is a double entendre. It comes from old time carnival illusionists and hawkers who would hide a pebble under a shell (or cup, or hat or whatever) and then move the shells around. At the outset, the viewer would lay bets on whether he could follow the action well enough to say where the pebble was when the illusionist was finished. Sometimes, a sly carnie would, through sleight of hand, remove the pebble altogether, thereby cheating the watcher out of any chance of recouping his bets.

In terms of painting, it’s about how you follow the action, what is seen or not seen, what is inside, what is outside, what the distractions are, where you are going or not going. With shells you’ve got that inside, outside and relationship to context that is so interesting. And it has to be playful in some way, too – hence the “game” part of “Shell Games”. It’s not clear if I can get to “edgy”, but edgy would an advancement for me.

Life is a carnival, the Persian poet Rumi would say a Tavern, but the drinking metaphor is too dry for me. I like carnival better. We enter by a gate, there are all kinds of amusements and ways to lose your way or your money, and at some point it is time to go home.

If you would like to see more of my work please visit my website at VictoriaHaskell.com.

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Blue On Blue, Or Not

It feels really good to be excited about painting again. This is a picture that I did a while ago and I have a mind to re-work it some. There is an opportunity for me to put a painting in a competition and the subject was "blue" and this is my only true blue painting. I got it out I looked at it carefully. It had always been the poor sad step sister of the original version (below).

I worked a lot in series when I did watercolors and had applied this technique to this subject. Its a way of exploring the subject matter further. Alas, I was never quite content with the results of the blue version (top photo). Tonight when I took it out and looked at it, it seemed clearer what was needed. Though the color schema is blue, the monochrome, oddly, is not really center stage. Contrarily, it needs a little more of other colors in it to make the blue stand out. So I'm going to glaze/rework the band box so that the wood tones are yellower. Yellow and blue play well together. I'm also going to work the background a little more (yellow/blues?) so that the corners have a little more color to them and the box sits better in its space. Then I'm going to tweak the blue shells so they are more dynamic, perhaps work in other hues of blue. Right now they seem like all one note. It doesn't look bad that way, but it is confusing in an odd way I haven't quite put my finger on. I was taught that if you get the urge to work and re-work a particular area, don't. Work on the areas next to it instead. So, my starting point will be adding some yellows, redefining the bandbox and the background and then see how it looks. Maybe the shells won't need any re-working. Maybe the added yellow will do the painting for me.

Sunday, February 14, 2016

Here I am AGAIN working on the same picture. That's a good thing, by the way. It shows energy and motivation, something that's not always there. I've been watching inspirational U-tube videos - Wayne Dyer to be exact and it is interesting how well that gets me reved up to work again. I think his point is that spirit leads us. Another point that he mentions but doesn't stress is that we don't always know where we are going or how we are going to get there. As an artist it is easy to lose heart, to give up. You need faith to keep going. It's not a “go to church on Sunday” kind of faith. It's a deep connection to the subject matter and trust in the Universe that what you are doing as an artist is intrinsically meaningful, whether anyone else ever sees it hanging in a museum or not.