November 2015 – My Muse Calls

I’ve been trying to buy local lately, and buy things made in America. I sometimes find what I need isn’t available, or if available, visible. The go to place used to be Etsy but that has grown from a community of local artists and craft people, to re-sellers, and too many items to effectively sort though to find things. I often even find what they are offering is shipping from China.

So what to do? The solution I believe is to become a maker. Make something, scarves, candles, soap, dishcloths, accessories for painters, knitters, cooks or whatever your heart desires. As much as you can, buy things from local sources. I’m not talking about the big box craft stores either. Then find an outlet to get it to market, local holiday craft shows, farmer’s markets, or another local storefront.

I decided to make beeswax candles and sell them via my local Putnam Arts Council Holiday Craft show. The truth of the matter is that even if I sell them all I won’t make a lot of money. But I will have circulated a few of my dollars through beekeepers (and we all know how important bees are to our food supply). The Arts Council will get a cut and people who I know and like will get something beautiful. Beeswax is a healthier wax to burn in your home as well. So this supports good things in my community.

So this season, let’s put beautiful things out there for the eye and the soul, and interact with those groups we want to support. And let’s not buy things that are made that pollute the environment, and ignore the rights of creatures great and small.

Recently I’ve been working in two styles, one is the egg tempera based one I’ve discussed in previous posts and also a more abstract one, that I’ve been working with in acrylic. I find it very hard to settle down and just do one style. So I’ve decided to try and focus on just two for a while (if I can). I’ve been playing with drawings that I draw to convey some sort of motion and then I add color. I find that these are best expressed in acrylic, that dries fast so I can keep my shapes clean and sharp. I greatly enlarge the small sketches and start playing with the images I see on the canvas. Some sort of magic happens when I make the initial images larger and I start seeing new shapes and images arise in the negative space. Here are two that I have finished in that style. So for the winter, let it flow and let it grow.

The top one is entitled “Reach for Peace” and the next one is “The Power of Nature” and both 36 x 48 inches in size, the third one is “The Mating Game” and is about 24 x 30 and the bottom one “Ride the Wild Seahorse” and is 18 x 24 inches in size.