i think everyone feels like this sometimes.

natural scent

acrylic on canvas

2005

more paintings of the past.

ink blot

acrylic on canvas

2007

julie, 1973

acrylic on canvas

2006

goddess

acrylic on canvas

2004

simian and sauce

acrylic on canvas

2005

white and red

acrylic on canvas

2007

lady orleans.

ah, to be painting again. i don't know how i let so much time lapse. 

lady orleans

watercolor, gouache and ink

2010

it's my first completed piece of 2010... and it feels bittersweet. this is the beginning of a series i've had in mind for years. 

in december of 2005, i visited new orleans for the first time since katrina hit--about three months post. my aunt's house was in the lakeview neighborhood, where there was a major levee breach. Though the building still stood, it was gutted. my heart wrenched, yet the sights were strangely beautiful, grotesquely magnetic. a generations-old player piano lay on its back, the refrigerator was dropped gently in the entry by the receding water, and the most amazing mold patterns kissed the walls. it was those spores, like wallpaper, that stuck with me. and so was born the idea for this painting. more to come. 

schopenhauer.

ah, arthur schopenhauer. 

wrinkles, flesh, feathery hair... all my favorite things. 

there are many portraits of schopenhauer out there, but this pose was the only one i wanted to paint. he was a request from another german philosopher, so the pressure was on--i had to get him right. hopefully, i succeeded. 

i could paint old wrinkly men and women all day, honestly. babies? gimme a break. innocence and purity in that sense are not things i'm drawn to. weathered wisdom, however, is something i can get behind.

i shall die in the rosebush.

i shall die in the rosebush

acrylic on canvas

2006

this painting was inspired by a poem:

"inside the garden

i shall surely die.

inside the rosebush

they will kill me.

mother, mother, i went out

gathering roses.

but surely death will find me

in the garden.

mother, mother, i went out

cutting roses,

but surely death will find me

in the rosebush.

inside the garden 

i shall surely die.

in the rosebush

they will kill me."

-federico garcia lorca

there's a bit of a story, but... it revolves around a dream. maybe i'll share that dream one day, but not today.

i was introduced to this poem when i worked on the set of a play inspired by the work of the poet. it was an interesting experience, and i quite enjoyed the work i did. in a future post, i'll share the drawings i did for the play. 

dead.

this was one of those happy accident paintings.

dead

(zombie girl)

acrylic on canvas

2005

it began as something completely different. it's all a bit of a blur now, but i vaguely remember applying several layers of gesso, adding a bit of texture and loosely painting in some winged creature. when i hadn't even finished the underpainting, i scratched the whole thing and just started smothering the surface with a dark indigo color. it mixed with the wet gesso in such a way that i saw a face. so, i went with it.  about an hour later, i had her. completely just for fun. 

sure, i've always liked things a bit on the darker side, so painting a zombie girl is like another bowl of fruit for others. it is just one of those subject matters that i don't think about much, i just have fun with the paint. sometimes, you've just got to do something mindless to bring you elsewhere. simply doing is an important part of the creative process, especially if you're in a rut. 

plus, when zombies attack, i'm hoping i can win them over with a few portraits. genius.