Kitchen artwork

Our kitchen, with the travertine tile and stainless appliances - could easily look a little sterile.  This week, I've been adding all kinds of personal touches with artworks that we've collected.  Yesterday, I took everything down and finally painted the ceiling a fresh coat, and the walls got the final coat of green.  Other than a few major details -- like soapstone counter tops and replacing a window and door, the kitchen is close to finished.  All the colorful artwork makes it a cheerful and happy place:

First of all, I got the seat cushion covered.  I am about 90 percent happy with it - I might take it off, put a layer of batting over the foam (I bought it but thought I wouldn't need it).  

Wow, the table looks like it's skewed in this picture - it's perfectly straight.



























On this wall, where there was previously a door, I hung some of my many many many Chinese checkerboards.  Above them is a mosaic snake that I made for my classroom when I still lived and taught in Indiana.  He's a fun art piece and I enjoy seeing him here!

On the window wall, I have one of two masks (the other one is on the other side of the window) that I made while teaching a unit on masks. I like making art with my students.   Below that is a great cat collage I bought while at a conference in Florida.






The color is a bit off in this picture -- but this is the other mask to the right of the window.  I also hung my awesome little kit-kat clock, and beside it are two of my small paintings from my dear friend Doris who passed about 8 or 9 years ago. 



Below the mask is an image from Lynda Barry's work - I printed it on transparency and then hand colored it in from the back.  It's in a vintage frame I found at a garage sale.







Above the ugly air-conditioner window, I hung three lizards.  The one on the left is a Mexcian carving I bought while at a conference in New Orleans, where Dale and I went to a street sale.  The one on the right was a gift from a student while I was teaching in Indiana.  The one in the center is one I bought in Pismo Beach.




Over the kitchen door, we hung a set of cow horns that were mounted by a friend who has a ranch in Colorado.  We were glad to find a place for these, they're fun but not the kind of thing you can just put anywhere! 


I hung a curtain I made from fabric strips over the window.  I made this for the first house we rented here in California - it was in the bathroom there, but I love how fun it is.


Under the clock are the small portraits of Persephone.  Don't worry, I'm working on a set of Mercury paintings, too.

Over the greenhouse window is a ceramic replica I made of one of my very favorite pieces of Medieval art -- the Magi Asleep by Giselbertus. 

The angel is waking the three magi (who are all sleeping in the same bed!), and pointing out the star.  Her single finger waking the king at the top, whose eyes have popped open -- I love this piece and am glad to have it in a place I can see it all the time. 

So - we are still waiting to find the perfect door (at the perfect price), order a window and buy countertops, but the kitchen is very liveable and lively.

In the meantime, while I was painting and hanging artwork, Dale was skim coating the fireplace --

We started off by putting a board that will act as a bit of a "mini-mantel" - a divider between the wall and the fireplace below.

We bought a hilti-gun (actually, the cheaper, hammer activated piece) that uses a .22 caliber shell to shoot nails into mortar.  We got sick of drilling anchors, and this tool works super well (and super loudly).  

Then Dale coated the part above with a bonding agent, then mixed up a mixture of plaster and cement.  He did one coat, and it dried faster than he had expected, and had time to put another coat on yesterday.  This morning, he's doing a finish coat and cleaning up the corner.  It looks really dark right now, but as it dries, it'll lighten then we'll see if we need to add a skim coat of plaster, although the way it's looking right now, it might just be fine as it with primer and paint.

Eventually, we want to retile the brick below - a nice ledger stone perhaps, but for now I am just going to paint it with the same paint I've used on the cabinets, so it will all blend together. I need to get a new fireplace cover that fits, and it will look super nice.  This has been one of those problem spots in the room - it was from the first minute we saw the house, but I think between all the cabinets, and smooth-coating the top, we might have actually managed to minimize this space so it works for us.

Here kitty, kitty

I was at the art supply store a couple of months ago, and I saw these little canvases for under a dollar each -- they are 4 x 4 inches, and I bought six of them.  I decided I wanted to paint a little series of portraits of Persephone for the kitchen - because she's black and white and she matches the tile!

 

When I lived in Indianapolis, I had a few favorite works at the IMA (the Indianapolis Museum of Art), and some of those were a couple of small portraits done by Cornielle de Lyon, a Dutch portrait  painter who worked in the 1500's.  This reproduction from the IMA's website is a bit dark:

But what I love about these -- apart from the size, they're fairly small -- is the lovely green background and finely painted details.  So that's my inspiration.  I captured the face of Miss Persephone in different views, and decided to do four of them.  Another thing I loved about the Cornielle deLyon portraits is the varnish, it makes the colors glow, so I put several coats of spar varnish on these, which will also help protect them since they're close to the stove.

 

The green is much more vivid than the walls, but goes wellwith them.  And I decided to make simple lath frames, nailed to the wooden stretchers.  That way they go well with the hanging wooden spoons.

I came home from class one night and just worked on them until I finished around midnight.  Varnished them and the next morning made frames.  They are really great, and I think they're the perfect addition.  However, Mercury is a little sulky, so it looks like I've got a portrait of him to paint in my future.

Visiting New York

I've just gotten back from a whirlwind of travel for various reasons: the first of them being a conference I presented a paper at in New York City at the School of Visual Art's annual conference on the Humanities and the teaching of artists.  I was on a great panel, we had great audience feedback and discussion, AND I got to go to visit my favorite museum, The Cloisters.

The Cloisters is a medieval reconstruction of several buildings from 12th-15th century.  It houses a medieval art collection, and two of my favorite artworks reside there - the whole of the Unicorn Tapestry series:

All seven tapestries hang in this room (sorry the picture is so dark and blurred).  Here's a decent shot of the most well-known of the seven, the Unicorn in Captivity:

Besides the Unicorn Tapestries, the Cloisters also is home to the Merode Altarpiece - also known as The Virgin and the Mousetrap by Robert Campin, the Master of Flemalle.

Several reasons to love this -- the carpenter Joseph in his workshop making the most mundane of household objects, a mousetrap,and the central panel of Mary reading a book, which is one of my favorite activities, too!

What's not to love about her chubby neck, seen as a sign of beauty in that era?
What I was really looking forward to was seeing the gardens - I wish I could visit in summer, but it was a lovely weekend in New York, it was 75 degrees in October, and although it rained in the morning, it was nice for me to step into the gardens.

This is the Bonnefont Garden, where kitchen plants and a variety of interesting plants of lore live.

I loved the set branches all dark and gnarled.

 

The woven wattling as fence.

 The view of the river beyond.

There are a number of plants in the "Magic Plants" garden - you can read about them here.

I believe this is a pear - espaliered.  

I love the building - lots of wonderful vistas, corners to peek around, and lots of  beautiful medieval works of art.  

 

 Illuminated manuscripts, statuary, jewelry and funerary pieces.  I love the raw emotive power of the medieval period, often called "the dark ages", but to me, it's a real bright jewel.

One of these days, I'd love to visit on a sunny, warm day so I can visit the enclosed garden - closed off during the winter.

 

In home-related news, yesterday we picked up 8 sago palm pups free off Craigslist.  We trimmed the fronts that were already grown, and are giving them a week to harden off before getting them potted and rooted.  Dale's been wanting one of these for ages, so he's pleased to have so many to get started.

Visual Journal

It's been really hot these past few days - it was around 100 today, so I am just staying inside (thank goodness we have a couple of window ACs!), and one of the things I am working on is my visual journal. 

Sketchbooks and visual journals are my research area as well as my own personal preferred media.  I've been working on my research with it for so long that I have been putting all my journaling energy into my research books, and nothing really just for fun.  So I'm trying to get back into the groove.

I enjoy experimenting with different media - on this page, I was using some water-soluble colored pencils, shading in with a combination of colors, and then going over with a wet brush.  These are chairs from the Restoration Hardware catalog --

Last week I went to a couple of shops in LA looking for some binding and art supplies, including some washi tape that I used on this page.

Sometimes just creating a collage with magazine images or photocopies tinted with colored pencils is relaxing.  On this page, I first did a wash with acrylic paint and glued some dictionary scraps across the exposed binding stitches.

Everyone I know knows that I never throw anything away, I just file it in my supply drawers.  These are ticket stubs from our summer visits to Disneyland, the zoo and the aquarium.

One of the things I've been doing is a lot of pinning of lesson plans.  My students are using Pinterest as a way to collect ideas, and I wanted to do a few experiments with lesson ideas I'd pinned.  These are stamps I carved and printed with acrylic paint.

This is a grade-school lesson idea using both perspective and some basic color theory, using markers and colored pencils.

I've been looking at a lot of Zentangles lately - I'm thinking of taking a class....

Today I finished this alphabet page.  I drew the letters with sharpie, and then used watercolors to fill them in.  This was fun.

I also did a watercolor of an agave, but it's still drying and I've got some writing to add.  This is a nice way for me to sit down and reflect on things I've been doing.  It's also a way for me to model sketchbook behavior for my students, because they are also keeping sketchbooks.  Sharing my own artwork with them lets them know that I enjoy the sketchbook process and that it is a lifelong habit.

If you want to see additional sketchbook pages, I have more of them on my NAEA website.

My friend Doris

The two paintings over the bed are by a fabulous artist and dear friend named Doris Vlasek-Hails.  Doris passed away in 2004, and I am so glad that I own several pieces of her work.  The two over the bed are abstractions, and were gifted to me by another dear friend Eric!

I also have a pair of small paintings hanging in my kitchen:

And a gorgeous vase in my living room:





 It's nice to have these reminders of a wonderful friendship!






Doris
Vlasek
Hails
1938-2004

Studio

I am going to get this studio whipped into shape today.  This morning, I put together my IKEA desks - I really like the broad wall of desk space!

I've got to move my computer and printer in - I've saved some space on the left.  I also have a ton of artwork - one of the benefits of being an art teacher for years!  Although students often offer to give me artwork for free, I always insist on paying for it (unless it's a gift; one of my high school students gave me a painting as a graduation/leaving gift).  It's part of learning to be a professional artist, charging for your work!




Here's a wall of student work.  The large piece on the left is a current piece by a student I had way back in the 90s when I first started teaching, the one on the lower right is one of my very favorite pieces, and the top right is an abstract that was gifted to me.




I have lots more artwork to hang!  But this was a good start.