Details

Here are some details of Untamed Life Force which can be seen in my other blog in full size.  The details still don't show all the texture of the papers and paint  but it does give a better sense of the surface of the painting.

More Fire

Not sure where this one is headed yet but more red underpainting, maybe it's the bleak november weather that is inspiring this inner heat. Lots of new adjustments to my new life in the
city. Big full moon last night, so bright and beautiful over the city but oh how I miss the silhouetted woods beneath that moon. I love being able to focus fully on my paints but I am so lonely at times
it breaks my heart. Last night I painted all day, left the studio late and went shopping for food in the world largest Loblaw's where the florescent lighting set off a migraine that was like a freight train barreling through my head. Hurt all night, not much sleep but woke up
and it was gone, so grateful for pain free moments in life.

Workng with Red

Having trouble getting started in the studio the other day, felt so stuck and sticky and clogged up.
Best solution for this is red, cadmium red, lots of it, seems to get the fire in me stoked up. I just love the result of this glowing red underpainting. Still a long way to go but the red warms me up just like a wood stove in winter.

Montreal Artexpo

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Montreal Artexpo

Participated in the Montreal Art Expo this past week-end. Huge expenditure of money, time and energy for very little return. However, I think I am learning more about where and how I want to present my artwork. After having spent the summer painting in the earthy surroundings of the barn the artexpo was the exact opposite. Art as commodity and a full on business practice. I have always struggled with reconciling these two forces. On the one hand I want people to see my work and have the chance to respond or not to it but to turn it into a blatant commercial enterprise just turns my stomach, it's like putting your children up for sale. At the same time, the event allowed me to interact with other artists and meet several people who were drawn into my paintings and left with a part of them in their soul. The people who were drawn to my work almost always commented on the energy they connected with in the painting. This is more the direction I want to go, I want the viewer to feel what I am feeling deep down inside my own soul. The urgent lament of our earth. I realize that most of the people living in an urban setting don't connect to the landscape visually anymore because it is so foreign to them. I am starting to understand how important it is to me where the paintings are placed because the environment around them allows them to breath and speak or not. The barn was sacred space as such and now in the city, I must find a similar home for them or begin to work in a different manner...not sure where this art journey will lead me from here.

Posted by Holly at 5:35 AM

Rocks

                                   Rocks Listening to Thunder
                                     Rocks Reflecting Lightning

Two of my latest paintings, both have already sold, which is a bit overwhelming since

I am usually attached to work until I have moved on to newer pieces.  Still it is great to have people purchasing the work, it seems to instill a dynamic energy into the whole painting process.  Having viewers who respond with genuine emotion and then wanting to live with the painting is a moving experience for me and one I would miss out on if I was working through a gallery.  I feel the painting is incomplete until a viewer completes the cycle and resonates with something he/she feels or sees.  This

recognition is often on the nonverbal level but leaves one with a sense that something meaningful has transpired between the artist and the viewer.

Tiny flame within is fed with oxygen

and bursts into a roaring blaze

Suddenly all is made clear in the 

burst of light.

Open Heart

Here is the "mariposa" (butterflywoman) that Luis Paniagua sculpted and I collaged, painted and constructed the rest of the piece.  I feel as though she is announcing

the end of a long period of inner turmoil.  My heart is open and I stand naked and free,

ready to take flight.  Learning to love life in all it's "anxious beauty".  I still have unresolved questions in my heart perhaps I always will, it is the questions themselves that I am learning to love.

I am learning to love.

To love myself and others

in all their struggles

to be human.