Come On Over...

Come on over to my new blog. We are having a good time over there! You will be glad you took the leap....

A Surprise For You and Me!

Yes, you have seen this one several times before, but it was a good choice for asking you to dance on the jewelry of life with me today. I have a surprise for us. Today, I am asking you to take a chance and trust me when I ask you to click on this link to see the special treat! I am excited and I hope it is exciting for you as well.

Okay, my friends...old and new...let's hold hands and jump! I will see you on the flip side!

New Beginnings

Hello Everyone!

I appreciate you giving me some time here to evaluate and get some thinking time about what I need and want to do. I have been working on quite a few projects...some in their infancy others slowly coming to their fullness. I will be letting you in on what is happening as they become ready to share. As for now, it is this blog I want to talk about.

As many of you know I have place a great deal of emphasis on my blog and love this part of my work. Blogging is a great way to share with other artist and those who love art. I have made some decisions about Creating Space, though. One thing is I am going to be pulling back a bit as far as the number of posts I create. I have started some new work which is very time consuming. I am loving the time I spend in the studio more and more with this, or maybe I should say these, project(s), so my time is limited. As many of you know because you are doing the same kinds of things, my online presence goes beyond blogging. You can find me on my web site (which should be featuring some of my new work soon), facebook, twitter, art bistro and several venues on ning. I have also been asked to do an interview with whohub and found that to be an excellent experience. I also have some other online projects in the works which I will let you know about when they are ready. Needless to say, the computer takes more time, already, than I would like it to take, but I am really enjoying meeting all of you.

So what does it mean for Creating Space? It means my actual paintings are going to be reserved for my web site, but you will be able to find some of my preliminary work and detail shots here from time to time. I am going to be using this venue to explore the work of other artist and other venues which are an important part of my day to day life. I will be talking about things like the books I am reading, writing, art of all kinds, travel, and all the parts of my life which help bring my paintings to their final form.

The photograph above was taken during a travel earlier this year. I thought it was a lovely representation of finding the subtleties this wonderful world has to share with us and trying to learn where to place the emphasis.

I hope you will join me as I begin this new adventure. It feels right for me right now. I am looking forward to hearing from each of you. For now, I plan on the first of many exciting posts to be up later this week!

Thank You All For Your Friendship and Your Patience!

Kim

Bear With Me

Since I have not posted for nearly a month you are probably wondering what in the world is happening here. I am taking a bit of a blogging break for now. A lot of personal things are going on...which are good...and I am making some changes with the presentation of my art. I promise you I will return to this blog with a lot to share in the future. Bear with me because I will also get around to visiting you as soon as I can.

I hope all is well and you are enjoying this lovely season!

Going to New York City - Meeting Andrea

What an exciting day. I hardly slept a wink in anticipation of this trip to New York City. I was not only going to meet Andrea who had become a wonderful cyber friend, but I was going to get to see my daughter who was coming from LA.

I am taking Amtrak's Acela train at 7 am from Washington, DC's Union Station. Oh my, that means I have to be on the Metro early, early, early!
If you have the chance, I highly recommend you visit Union Station in Washington, DC. It has been refurbished and is as grand as it was when it was first built. Do you see those double doors over there? Remember them, we will see those again.

Okay, so let me see...yes, my train is till on time (nothing to worry about with Acela). So from this vantage point, if I turn around...
...I find those double doors, I told you to remember. These are the front doors to the station and if you look hard...okay let's step through them.
Okay, so just beyond the flag pole and the monument...see it there just above the trees? Yes, that is the United States Capital. We are that close.

I am going to New York City, though...gotta run to catch my train!
I have taken many trips on Amtrak, but I have to say this is the first time I have ever taken the Acela, and I am glad I did. It is fast, it is comfortable and it is clean! What is this? An electronic message saying, 'Mind the Gap'! What? Am I in England? Oh, I wish... I spend time reading, writing.

I get to Penn Station in a very short time. Ohh, New York City! I have not been here for so long. The day is beautiful, so I decide to walk to my hotel since my luggage is minimal. Before I get to the corner at Madison Square Garden, my phone rings. "Hi Mom, I am just about ready to board at LAX. I will call you when I get there. I love you!"

"I love you, too, Honey! Have a safe flight."

I make my way up The Avenue of The Americas (6th avenue) to my hotel at 54th Street! I am early, but they have my room ready. I decide to give Andrea a call once I throw my things down. I take a deep breath and make the call feeling kind of nervous. What if we do not get along as well in person? Her beautiful voice soothed my worries right away. (If you are wondering, her English with slight German and French accents is more American than British. I know I wondered.) Andrea tells me she and her husband are walking toward a place where they can take a helicopter ride and she will phone me when they get back to their room. That works out great for me, too. I can relax a bit and get my bearings here. I decide I should be okay, since I am only a block off of 5th Ave.

While I am at it, I peer out the window...here is the view:

Did I say I wanted to relax? That did not last long. I realized I was only one block away from one of my favorite stores! I have to go all the way to Georgetown in DC to get to a Zara! So I am off...

I talk to my son and my husband. I touch almost everything in Zara :-), then I get a text. Andrea and her husband are back in their room. I can't call her from my cell as I do not have international service. So I head back to my room and call her at her hotel. We agree I will walk to meet her at the Edison. As I walk, I am so nervous, again! Whew, the butterflies are amazing. I walk into the hotel and pick up a phone.

"Hello, I am here. Yes! I am by the phone bank in the lobby. Mmm, I am round and not too tall. I am wearing a black skirt, a teal shirt, red sandals and have sunglasses on the top of my head. Yes, dark brown hair! See you in a few."

I recognize their loveliness as they step out of the elevator! Oh, how great it is to finally meet Sweet Andrea! Now for those of you who are wondering - she is even more delightful in person than on the blog. She has a beautiful smile, a friendly face so full of wonder and delight. She is truly a beautiful person in every way. With Andrea is her kind, handsome and very French husband! Within moments, I feel as though I have known them for years. Bye-bye butterflies!

We decide to find somewhere to go. Andrea decides the German girl is ready for a beer. I think a glass of wine sounds good. Our lovely French escort says he has to keep us both straight and has a Diet Coke...most likely he knows it isn't the beer or the wine which means he might need to keep us straight, but probably the fact we are not paying any attention to anything else at the moment. At Jake's we find a nice quiet table to talk and talk and talk and talk. I tell Andrea's husband she is a blog celebrity. He thinks she should be as she works all the time with some part of her art or the other. We talk away a few hours before my phone vibrates - a text!

My daughter has landed at JFK and will be making her way on the subway to our hotel. "I'll meet you at the hotel, Mom."

Andrea, her husband and I talk more on the walk towards our hotels. We go our separate ways on the street with kisses on each cheek saying we will connect tomorrow.

I arrive back in my room and five minutes later, my daughter knocks at the door. The sight of her brings tears to my eyes - five months is just too long and Los Angeles is so far! She used to live in the city, so her knowledge base is going to get me to places I have never been before.

First of all, we need to find dinner since neither of us have had a meal and only a small snack all day. Ohh, there are people waiting here...darn, it looks good, too. What? You can seat two? Great! We are so hungry, but take our time and enjoy a long meal together while we catch up on all things girly!

After dinner, we decide to walk. We are near Columbus Circle, so we head up there. We find an underground Whole Foods and think we might get a few snacks for the room. We change our mind, but before we left, we found this and I had to share it with you:
No, I don't like eggs at all, so we will not get these. Those are chicken eggs there beside them! Cool, uh? I guess they would make an omelet to feed a few!

The night is lovely, so we decide to walk down 5th Avenue to near where my daughter worked at Norton Publishing (beside the New York City Library). It is nice to walk.

On our way back towards the hotel, we decide to stop at Rockefeller Center. These tulips were beautiful:
Here is my lovely daughter who is so knowledgeable about the city.
Oh, I couldn't resist sharing this beauty, too.
Of course, I couldn't go to New York without grabbing a shot of a shop window, right? Who could resist Teuscher Chocolate...just for you. It seemed to be the perfect spring window.
This is the end of my first day in New York City. We were very tired so headed back to our hotel for a good night's rest. Tomorrow is going to be a busy and exciting day!

Unfurling Two Bits Today!

Unfurled
acrylic on 40 x 30 inch gallery wrapped canvas

I unfurl my life for you to see. I lay my soul open, you take what you want, then walk away. I still have more for you.

I want to share something with you about one of our fellow artist. Julianne Richards has had some health issues which have had her hospitalized for three months. As you can imagine this is a tough time for Julianne, and she will be dealing with this issue now. If you have a moment, she explains on her blog and maybe a quick comment would encourage her strengthening.

US readers, I wish you to have a very nice Memorial Day Weekend. Non-US readers, I also wish for you a wonderful weekend...even if it is a bit shorter.

Another Frottage Bit!

This is a frottage piece of acrylic on rice paper. I have found, if I do not use the plastic for the cover sheet, the rice paper makes a good alternative. Okay, so one of the reasons I like to use the rice paper is it is strong enough to be used again for something else or stand alone. What do you like to use when you do this technique?

I rather like the way this turned out with the swoops and swirls. I also like the balance of light and dark which is sometimes a challenge for me. Of course, it is one of those pieces I have no idea what I am going to do with it....so it will hang out with me a bit or for a long time trying to decide.

As I look at this piece, I like to think of it as a trail of playing in a pool. Several people are interacting, then swim away from each other only to come back together to talk or play again. It is about interactions.

Are you making time to create?

'Dancing With Pearls'

'Dancing with Pearls'
shares the truth of all pain which ultimately brings so much joy and beauty to life.

This work is acrylic on 20 x16 inches 300lb (640gsm) Fabriano Watercolor Paper. Recently, I have been forced into thinking about how challenging it can be to reach those pearls in life, and how important it is to have those challenges in order to appreciate the pearls when they arrive. It seems to me, if we dwell on the challenges they play a major roll in the day-to-day and we end up missing all of the good parts life hands us. With this series, I hope to reflect on how there is really so much more positive than negative in life and how reflecting on the good parts helps us to learn from the challenges. Now, have I completely confused everyone?

Here I am again doing some work on paper. I think I am attracted to the way the paper is interacting with the paint/inks. I know I am going to have to mount these pieces, and I think ultimately frame them, too. ARGH The issue is I cannot help myself! Well, it is a challenge, but I am focusing on it becoming something exceptionally good! :)

Happy Monday Everyone!

A Little Teaser

I returned from New York City just a few hours ago. It was truly a whirlwind trip which I completely enjoyed. Here is the thing...I am not talking about it until Andrea can get back to Paris! We decided we would post about our experiences on the same day.

Here is what I will tell you...Andrea is even more delightful than you can imagine and her husband is very dear and engaging. So until later... :)

I will make a few other non-NYC/non-Andrea posts next week. In the meantime, Have a Great Weekend!

Happy Mother's Day!

I wish everyone a Happy Mother's Day! That means if you are a mother, have been a mother, have a mother or have ever had a mother! You know, it means Everyone Have An Extra Beautiful Day!

It Is True!

Have you been to Andrea's blog today? She is sharing some amazing accomplishments achieved with her art over the last month or so. She is so deserving of kudos, so please pop over there and leave her yours, if you have not already.

One of the things she talks about is having one of her Metroheads (people she sketches as she travels to her safetyjob each day) published in the literary magazine The Truth About The Fact. The Metrohead was a perfect fit as the magazine was focusing on the urban environment. It was also perfect because Andrea is such a wonderful artist and really captures the spirit of those people riding the Paris Metro beside her each day.

Since she brought it up, I will also acknowledge she is correct in saying I also had a photograph accepted for publication in the same magazine. I am really excited to have this happen for me and excited to be sharing in the same magazine as Andrea. The magazine has two launch parties. One was in Los Angeles in April on the campus of Loyola Marymount University. The other party is in Manhattan next week at the publisher's offices. Now here is another Truth About A Fact, I am going to be meeting Andrea, face-to-face, along with her very kind husband next week in New York City. Isn't that exciting?
This is my photograph which was accepted for publication - A Peek at Prague. This was taken from the castle on the hill above Prague, CZ looking through one of those arrow slits where soldiers would defend the castle by shooting arrows at the enemy through one of these slits in the castle wall. Now in modern times, I used it to capture a glimpse of the city and get the photo published in a magazine. Not too bad for a slit in a stone wall, uh? All photos and images of artwork had to be in black and white for the publication, so I am showing it to you as it was sent for publication. We will be picking up our copies of the magazine next week, so I will share more later.

While I do not have as many art successes to share with you, I can assure you I have been keeping busy with lots of work and lots of prep time for hopeful, future successes.

Everyone have a beautiful and lovely day!

Breaking Glass

I want to thank those of you who left me a comment on Kim's Visions when I thought it may be taking a bit of a chance to post here after the spammer hit. At first I had problems getting blogger to function, so I was not sure what was going on. All seems fine now, so let me try this again. Of course, I have no problem with you going ahead and leaving me a comment on the post I did on 'Glacier Colors'. :)

I am sure any regular readers here remember this image:

and this one

which I posted recently to show you the bits and pieces I had used of dried acrylic ink. I have gotten some super suggestions about working with these bits and am now trying to work out those suggestions to pass along to you.

In the meantime, I thought you might like to see the piece I took these crops from:

'Breaking Glass' is when the beauty crumbles and cuts you and when life seems as though it cannot exist in this struggle for much longer. You understand the beauty of the shards and how important it was for the glass to renew itself in a different form. This is a reflection of you. Acrylic on 20 x 16 inches cradled hardboard.

Have a Great Day!

Be Warned

This blog was spammed earlier today. I hope 'ed' did not find you. I am in the process of trying to clear this all out, however you might want to comment on anything over at my other blog, in the meantime. What a mess! I hope I can make this work.

'Glacier Colors'

I have started a new series I am calling Reflection. This series deals with the challenges of moving forward while taking the time to reflect. I decided the idea of clarity was important in life's lessons, so I hold the image of ice and glass as I work with these pieces.

This painting, which I am calling Glacier Colors is reflective of a special place on earth which touches everyone's soul. You know where it is for you. It brings you to that place deep inside you where life is ancient, time belongs only to you and you are quite sure we live forever here. There is so much clarity and so much reflection in this special place you cannot stop going to it in your mind. This is acrylic on 40 x 30 inches staple-less, gallery wrapped 1.5 inch deep cotton canvas.

So now you see one of the things which has been keeping me from showing you some of these things. Don't worry, my life has been wonderful, however I have been thinking about how difficult it is sometimes to get through the mud to find your center, but when you do weather the challenges how clear life can become. If you are interested, I have uploaded a few of this series to my other blog (the holding place for paintings waiting to be placed on my web site), Kim's Visions.

I wish for each of you a delightful weekend.

It Just Happened...

You may be wondering what in the world I am up to here today with these two images. Mind you, they are just cropped corners of some work I have been focusing on lately. At any rate, do you see the darker purple on the lighter in the above photo? Those are dried ink flecks. I use pre-stretched canvases a lot for a variety of reasons. These come wrapped in plastic which both makes me crazy and makes me glad. I hate the waste of the plastic, but I appreciate the protection, too. Recently, I have been carefully removing this plastic along the heat sealed seams. When I do this right, I can get a nice wide piece of sheet plastic which is double the length of the canvas (plus the depth). I like it because the plastic is strong and not as clingy as plastic kitchen wrap.

So what, you say? Well, I have also been squirting acrylic ink on acrylic painted canvases and then mushing it under the plastic sheeting. This allows me to see the ink moving on the surface of the canvas and have some kind of control - sometimes. I found if I continue to do this the layers of ink will build up on the plastic sheeting. I mainly just leave it around to get the most use of it I can.

One day, I was moving a piece of this plastic and some flecks fell off. What? This is beautiful...it was all irridescent and beautifully caught the light. So I scrunched the plastic with the heavy, flaking, dry ink over wet ink and paint...beautiful. I just let it fall where it might. Then, I decided to see if I could peel it off in sheets. Yes, I could!


Here you can see where I have applied some of the sheets to this painting. If you look closely, near the top, just to the left of center there is a piece of this dried ink which is not lying flat. Do you see it? There are others, too.

Now I can't toss out these sheets. I wonder how long I can get away with using them over and over...saving the dry ink...reusing the plastic? Now the ideas are flowing.

Do you have a good way to reuse plastic? I wonder if I painted thick enough, in reverse order, if I could pull entire paintings off this plastic and adhere it to another support? Do you think this might be messing up the archival qualities of the work...using this plastic like this?

As always I am interested in your thoughts.

Have a Great Day!

Knowing and Not Knowing

This is something which came about purely by accident. I was working on a canvas and wanted to lift some of the paint I had placed there directly from the bottle. I had this piece of 300lb/640gsm watercolor paper which was the exact same size as the canvas, so I grabbed it and did a frottage. This is what came out on the paper. I have been so mesmerized with it I have not done another thing. It is not as though I think it is complete, but I cannot get past the way it appears now. There is so much to look and see on this piece.

This brings me to the work Andrea is doing at the moment with cropping and seeing her work in a new light. You need to go to her blog and read the last several entries to understand fully what has been happening in her studio lately.

I think I love this so much because there is so much to see here. I have an issue, though. I don't want to cut up this piece. I can work with the image on the computer to do some cropping and become inspired by the various parts, but what to do with this piece? It is far too busy, I am thinking, to stand alone. At the same time, I am not eager to touch it. Maybe it needs to go onto the wall of possibilities until I grow tired of looking at it for whatever reason...or go blind...which ever comes first! :) It makes me think of a line I read in the book, 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women by Gail McMeekin:

There is no way to push the river; equally you cannot hasten the harvest.

I thought this said a great deal about needing to be patient with this bit. So what do you do when you have created something you cannot stop looking at, but you know it also is not complete? What do you think I should do here? As you can imagine, I am eager for advice!

I wish for everyone a Delightful Monday!

Inspiration

Thank you to Meek Gallery for this image.

I have been thinking about how much inspiration I gain from my interaction with other creative types. Recently I had a great conversation with Bill Meek, glass artist extraordinaire! My husband and I recently visited Bill and found him to be full of conversation about how he finds inspiration in his every day experiences including dealing with a house re-build along the Texas Gulf Coast after last years Hurricane Ike (where his glass sculptures were the only pieces of art to survive the flattening of a gallery). He talked about how he is inspired when hiking the Pacific Coast Trail with his son. Each of these times, he couldn't wait to get back to begin pieces which were playing in his brain.

Several of you know I have a glass sculpture by Bill called Mariposa. My husband and I recently celebrated a wedding anniversary and decided we would mark the occasion with one of Bill Meek's pieces. We choose Antler of which you can see a similarity in the photograph above. Bill talked with us about the process he went through to produce this piece and the process of finding glass this thick to work with and how the veins and subtle impressions happen which is sometimes by happenstance. It was fascinating to listen to him talk and to hear about how his adventures influenced him to create these pieces.

This has made me think about how I find inspiration for my work. Clearly, I know, travel is a HUGE inspiration for me. I learned something else, though, I am also inspired by other artists and their work. My mind cannot stop racing with ideas since talking with Bill and seeing all of that beautiful, lovely glass. How about you...do you find inspiration from the work of other artists?

So please visit the Meek Gallery web site. I think you will be delighted. If you ever have a chance to see his work in person, you will be glad you made the effort. He has many fabulous architectural installations which might be near you or near a place you might be visiting. Bill also can be found in various 'shows' throughout the year. I hope you can see his work sometime.

By-the-way, the bowl is called Antler because he shapes those veins with an antler.

Fool the Nay-Sayers

Do you ever find there are those who are very fast to judge you? Do you allow them to influence you? Depending on my mood, I can let those people get to me or I can let them know it is their loss. We cannot always meet the needs of others, and as creative people it becomes important to stay true to ourselves in order to achieve our best work. I keep trying to remind myself how important it is to keep my focus and believe all happens when the time is right. I work hard to stay positive about all aspects of my life. How about you? Are you naturally a positive person who believes all happens as it should when the time is right? Do you think there may come a time when your life might make a sharp turn into your dreams? Do you believe?



Here is a story you are not going to want to miss. Please see what happened to 47 year old Susan Boyle from Scotland when she appeared on Britain's Got Talent television show. (My apologies for making this a link, however I have no idea how to deal with a video.) Please watch this, if you have not seen it already. Catch the smug reactions to people when she walks out on the stage.



Have you watched it? Yes? Do you now feel the world is right and good? I can't tell you how this uplifted me. I feel as though I can conquer the world single-handed. Of course the moral of the story is be careful how you treat people you come across each day...being kind never hurt a soul.

Have a Beautiful and Kind Day!

Reviewing The Basics

Do you ever feel it is sometimes important to review the basics of the work you do? I feel as though it has been important to me over the last few weeks. One of the reasons I think I have wanted to do this is because I am exploring new processes and new mediums, too. As I have said before, I am enjoying the use of FW Pearlescent Inks along with liquid and regular acrylics. No, no I have not given up on the glazing, but it seems as though I have to keep myself interested in other things while I also enjoy that very time consuming process of clear glazing. This is a little bit of one of the pieces I am currently working on. I know I should be documenting the process, however I just can't seem to take myself out of the flow of work to prepare that linear type document. There is more to do with this and you are not seeing the entire piece, I thought you might like to see how the inks are responding.

Now getting back to the idea of re-exploring the basics I have found a wonderful book called Painting Abstracts by Rolina van Vliet. While I am not one to follow a program, I am finding picking and choosing some of the exercises are quite helpful. It is helping me to think about the working methods which work well for me and reminding me to evaluate my work with the elements and principles of art in mind. While they sit back there constantly poking at my intuition, I think it is helpful to bring them to the front of my evaluation process from time to time.

If you enjoy abstract painting, I think you will find this book useful. If you are interested in exploring abstraction, I think this book is very useful in helping to understand what it is all about and what actually goes into the work of abstract painting.

Thanks to Amazon for the use of this image.

Do you find you have to make yourself step back from your work or does it come naturally? Have you ever felt as though it is important to return to basic ideas to begin to build again? How does the process work for you?

I hope all is well where you are and spring or fall is finding a way into your days!

I will be back with you soon!

Process

Over the last few weeks I have been trying to trust the process of my work and life. Sometimes this is difficult, however I have found how important it truly is to do this from time to time. As an American I have been raised to believe the more time I put in, the more productive I will be. All of these years I have failed to recognize just what it is that encompasses "time put into my work". Lately I have concluded there are many aspects of this art making which involves putting in that time and it is not always in my studio producing the next painting. Sometimes I have to step back and evaluate what I have done, read things which have an influence on the direction I am heading or where I have been, sometimes it means I have to explore other art forms and how they impact my own work...or allow them to impact it.

Recently I heard about a company in the US northeast who felt they had to cut back their work force since they were not getting the clients in this economic climate. They did not really want to lay people off, so they decided they were going to try the basic French model of working. Their employees were all cut back to a 35 hour work week (yes, I know the French have recently increased that back to 40 hours), required to take a month off (without pay at this point) in addition to their regular paid vacation. Do you know what happened? The productivity and creativity of the employees increased, their client list began to grow again and they are doing well now and have happy employees and clients. I thought this said a great deal about not only this company, but about how we sometimes have to take more time to effectively produce.

No, I have not stopped painting, I remain true to my mark a day (at minimum), but I have started to evaluate what it truly takes to do this work. So now you know what I have been doing over the last little bit. Yes, I have been painting, but in a different way and with a different attitude. It feels fresh and exciting, so I think that is a good thing.

I also appreciate you being so patient with me throughout this process. I hope to be a more regular blog poster and reader...not every day, but with more substance, too.

Oh, and this little photo at the top...just another crop from some recent "play".

How about your process? Do you sometimes have to step away and take stock in your work and your work process?

Have a Great Weekend!