Challenges and prizes.

November was a challenging month. particularly the last two weeks. it started with the Inscape open house, which, in the last minute, i almost quit participating due to the complete chaos and uncertainty about my own process. the studio sleepover, when i worked 10 hours non-stop, just made me exhausted and disappointed with myself. i was unable to complete half of what i had planned. finally i decided to open the studio for the visitors even with few pieces completed. and it was totally worthy: i received invites for two shows and "Sheltering Ghosts", the piece i hang in the foyer group exhibition was very well received.

"Sheltering Ghosts", hanging on the Inscape foyer.

then, in less than two weeks, i had to get ready for the Forgotten Goddess in LA, Bherd Gallery and Rock the Terminal, in Seattle. and all the crazy conflicts with my technique of acrylic on panel kept going. i had decided that i didn't want any graphite that time, and there was no way to achieve the texture i was looking for using pure acrylic! and there was no time to cry and stomp feet like a temperamental artist. show must go on... and then as a last resource i came into an art supplies store and left with three 12 x 24 stretched canvases. 

pure joy. :)))))

it was an amazing shift in my work in less than two weeks.

after i dropped off the last pieces in the last gallery, as soon as i get home, i just sat and cried for several minutes. i had won a challenge and a lot of understanding about my art, my current moment and what is really important for me right now. and most of all, i thanked the Supreme Intelligence for all the network of support i have around me, all the fantastic people who push me forward and the love of my boyfriend and my daughter, remembering me all the time where lay the most important things of life.

and on Saturday, time to have fun on the Rock the Terminal - ANT Gallery opening!

I participated with two 12" x 12" pieces (called "Dialogues") since I was included a little late to the line up and they didn't have a lot of wall space left for bigger works. (I wish the had placed the works side by side, but that worked too.)

Moi taking care of myself (the beer was great!!) and my loyal sidekick, who was always cheering me up with her excitement and positive attitude every time i got messed up.

+

There are people asking me if i am abandoning my works on pencil. The answer is "no". I love working with graphite and i am a way better drawer than painter, so stopping my pencil work just because i am excited with new toys is almost like shooting my own feet. As a matter of fact i am seriously planning to start new series of pencil works on paper. Painting on canvas became a delight (old followers must remember how i used to curse the canvas in the past,) and i am excited and grateful for achieving such degree of versatility. The most tools i have to give voice to my inner universe, the better. :)

(by the way, posting images of the new works soon!)

seeking the silence.

i have been totally absorbed in my seek for satisfactory solutions for my new works. it has not been easy. i am a perfectionist. i don't feel happy with anything that sounds shallow or meaningless. and i have my ideals about what my art in particular should be. there are points in the artist's development when you feel like you have to move on, to explore new things, to find new meanings to what you are doing. people love my ornamented, klimtish, colorful stuff. well, i do too. i took years of my life to find out that i was a colorful person inside -- in spite of wearing black all the time -- and that reflected in my art. however, i have to confess that, during the process of my art making, there's a point, when the final color glazes have not yet started to be applied, when i strangely sense that "this is it" feeling, but for an urge of pouring color and ornaments everywhere i end up losing the momentum.

like here:



and here:



(i don't know if i am making any sense at all.)

i've been trying, among others things, to hold the feeling of "that's enough, you don't need to scream so loud to make sense and be beautiful", the minimalism, the serenity and silence. i think i got that once with "Waterlily". Eastern philosophies teaches us about the meaning of the emptiness, and that reflects in their art. i think that one of the things that transmits that peacefulness you experience when observing a piece of Chinese or Japanese art, for example, besides the softness of the lines and colors, is the use of space. in most works, at least 30% of the area is an empty space. empty, but absolutely meaningful -- that emptiness is exactly what expresses reverence. here in the West, the emptiness bothers us. we just cannot be minimal. we have to fill up every space with stuff. when i paint, the background is the part that most bothers -- and intrigues -- me. i just can't leave the background alone and concentrate in the figure. i've tried many things, and if i don't fill up the space with little triangles, swirls and other visual paraphernalia, i don't feel good about the painting.

Zou Chuan-an

the approach i've been trying for a while is integration and adaptation. working on the background first, and then adding to it. make the figure to adapt to what the background commands. which is also sort a philosophical approach. to go with the flow, to dance according to the music. do not force, do not fight. just adapt. use the force you consider an enemy as an ally.

background was inspired in the texture and colors of a rock, and built with a sponge to give that grainy effect. love it.

when i was making the Materia series, i left each color of the 4 elements to guide me through the painting and teach me things. i found out how refreshing and invigorating the greens could be; the blue, so spiritual and apparently passive, can have a strength that sometimes is difficult to manage (in my opinion, is the most difficult color to work with). the same sensorial approach is being used during the making of the "O Fortuna" series, and it is probably something that will accompany my creative process for a while. working with the energy of the colors and the suggestions given by the shapes that will form by texturizing the backgrounds brings my process closer to a more "right side of the brain" attitude of making art. less rational, more psychic and visionary.

this unrest

Revelation [work in progress]
(to be aborted, or improved maybe... who knows...)

last week i was organizing my pieces in year of completion, in order to put on the new website, and noticed how awfully prolific i was last year. 2010 has not been the same. maybe because of some personal problems, which has been put me away for the easel and made me spend time concerned with practical matters; maybe because of this unrest inside me that is continuously pushing me toward new ways to express myself.

in the last months i've been trying to pursue a style that is at the same time loose and rendered. i've been also wanted to dive into a more intuitive, less planned and left-brain oriented type of painting, which, for me, is easier to achieve when i start working with an underpainting composed of careless layers of paint and loose brush strokes; the shapes and colors generated by the underpainting will pretty much define the feel and the general subject of the painting. also, this method most of the times fixes the problem of the backgrounds - i never know what to do with backgrounds. i am also seeking to decrease the excess of ornamental abstracts and bring the focus more to the overall symbolism of the painting and the body -- an ancient intention that i have never been able to put into practice efficiently.

the wip above is a painting i've been preparing in the last days for the Nude show, in Lexington KY. deadline is super tight and i don't know if i will be able to make it. it plays with the concept of inner nudity - heart and soul - rather than literal body nudity. i like it immensely how the figure is coming out. however, the background is totally killing me because it is pretty much 50% of the canvas area (the photo shows only the center.) i'd better find a convincing solution until Thursday!

i need to allow me a little bit of serenity. and more hours spent in the sketchbook drawing loosely and without commitment with results, this big perpetrator of artistic blocks.

About "Materia"

Materia is a series of 4 paintings I am creating for the next Energy Art Movement Salon, on July, which theme will be "Energizing Radiance". I immediately thought about exploring something more "scientific" while transmitting a sense of energy (read more here), which is one of the main directions of this exhibit. I really love when I have the opportunity to work with science and (meta)physical concepts. And since I am fortunate enough to have a respectable scientist who is also a lover of art as a friend (hey there, Roy!), i had a precious help and idea to create the concept, which was not easy at first. My basic ideas: including mandala art, since the mandala in my opinion is a perfect link between science and spirituality. The mandalas should appear behind or integrated to the heads of the figures, just like the images in Byzantine art; representing the link between humans and Nature, and how we contain the macrocosm as the macrocosm contains us, all in a big energetic network; making four pictures, each one representing one element - Fire, Earth, Air, and Water - since they are seen as the essential parts of everything, as stated by the hermetic philosophies; representing the bodies with certain parts "disintegrating" in energy or molecules that would float upwards, to the ether. It sounded like a whole bunch of things, each one with its own richness, which synthesis in a pictorial solution sounded like a cosmic pain in the butt.

Roy came to my rescue introducing me to a little thing called ferritin. Ferritins are proteins that store and release iron, and that exist in almost all living organisms. I couldn't help but get blown away with how the ferritin molecules look like:

Exactly. A beautiful, intricate, gloriously designed mandala. Added to that, the little thing stores iron, which is absolutely necessary to life since it helps produce the energy that will move you. Iron is attributed to Mars, the archetype that symbolizes the raw forces of nature, energy, and drive. I immediately knew that it was the glue that would put all my ideas together. Isn't great to know we have such a wonderful source of inspiration in nature, in our own bodies?

My first experience was not very satisfactory (pics here and here) and I decided to start it over -- typical me. I had chosen to represent the molecules of ferritin as the disintegrating parts of the body, but in the end it didn't work because it was incredible time consuming (the pattern is too intricate), and I didn't achieve the sense of unity I was seeking for. Then I had the idea of transforming the mandalas in the heads of the figures as big molecules of ferritin! Actually I would just copy the main structure, which should be a common element to all 4 paintings, and make use of my artistic license to add other elements freely according to the nature of each one.

 My copycat of the Divine's design. He/She is indeed a terrific mandala maker.

The main structure of the ferritin molecule after my creative intervention, forming the "Byzantine" mandala. 

Remake of Earth, penciling and underpainting. Notice the parts of the body disintegrating in circles (another allusion to the mandalas) I chose to represent the element Earth through the leaves forming the bottom part of the figure, the horns in the mandala, and the color green.

Back to underpainting first. Absorbing the vibration of the green actually helped me with the drawing. The mandala design afterwards came pretty spontaneously. I am going to repeat the process with the other three paintings. 

I am pretty happy now with the result and very excited to start working on the other elements. This is indeed being a fun project. My deadline is now super tight so I'd better go!

Gratitude.

Although I've been drawing since I was a kid, I never considered before the possibility of following a career solely based on my skills as a fine artist. I became many things during my mercurial life: actress, designer, writer, astrologer, singer, teacher. Dealing with brushes and paints was limited to my aspirations of illustrating my books or comic novels. nothing like showing in galleries or selling, an universe that I had experienced only as a student and spectator.

Digital painting made my friend Roy, UK. 

When i moved to America, at exactly 5 years ago, I found myself extremely limited by language and communication. The very things that have forever moved my life and defined my career paths. I could speak a basic English, but that was not enough to get a teaching or writing job, acting roles (here, my strong accent posed another difficulty), or anything else related to communication. The only thing left was my drawing. And it was to my drawing that I grabbed myself in my absolute necessity of expressing my ideas and communicating.

Initially, i wanted to do illustrations for the fantasy and new age markets ("The Divine in Me" and "The Chemistry" are from this phase), but doing this kind of work soon became restrictive and limiting, both stylistically and in matters of concept. In the late 2008 I began to experiment new approaches, materials and techniques and also to put my pieces for sale and promote myself around the web. I then started this blog to record my trajectory, ideas, blocks, and the "human" side of being an artist.

I am a true believer in "life paths". You know, a particular reason or purpose of your coming to this world, a special job or "mission" that everybody has and that is part of the big web of life. Following this path, or your "hero's journey", brings great inner satisfaction and ends up opening a chain of happenings that will ultimately lead you to the accomplishment of that "mission", what happens because it is just natural.

Vali Meyers' print sent as a gift from my friend Julia Inglis, Australia. The gift was also from Vali, in whose life and work I mirror my own.

And that's how the story has been unfolding: since I decided to change my direction in art, many wonderful things have happened, things that have made me believe that yes, I found my true path, the one I've been just strongly felt in my heart since early age but that it was a little blurred or covered by a kind of fog. It's funny how we are educated to never believe in the magical, in the wonderful, in the good and beautiful. It's amazing how many attempts we do in life to obliterate our true path; in the case of artists or creative folks, always struggling with the practical things of life - i.e., paying the bills - we are always making choices that turn our path more difficult because we believe we're not going to survive doing the things we love. I know life can be tough. I myself many times had to temporarily stop doing the things I wanted to do because I had to make some money. But we should never forget that our nature is to be creative. that's how we manifest the Supreme Intelligence in us. And when you allow some room for this energy to flow, you begin to align with Nature and the natural cycles and things just happen, because they are meant to be, just like new green leaves in Spring, or the planets orbiting the Sun like clockwork... Meant to be, in a flow that's just natural because we are part of it. (To illustrate this, I recommend you watch the beautiful M. Night Shyamalan's tale "Lady in the Water"... It is everything there.)

My Gratitude to all the ones that have been made this all very clear to me, and much more than a theory... Patrons who become friends, people who come here just to say words of encouragement and love, or who leave messages on Facebook, RedBubble, Fine Art America, Deviantart, and other places where I showcase my work but i simply don't have the time to come by often and send the love back... I try to find other ways to pay it forward though, to keep feeding the big source of Love from where everything originates...

and the Great Round spins on...

There are hidden elements writhing beneath my coming together.

Transformative fires with flames of butterfly shadows dancing inside the skin of this lionhearted past.

My twins perfection splits masked by artist craving

where I paint loving invitations, inviting opportunities for you to feel the impossible (the knowing my perception) .

There is nothing like owning my own body and feeling my own movements to songs that send me off into the zone of creation.

Here all my ‘work’ becomes meaningless but remains the only way I know to get from here to there.

It is a place that swoons jazzy ideas round a lighted desert flame

A vortex appears and clothes my spirit with zennia passion and captures relentless fury allowing for spectrum color clouds

that I embrace like a lover.

I am a seer who calls the spirits to play, our language translates into pools of water, color and form. I sense my place in the world

when you too begin to sing water songs embracing what I have found. And I have found life everywhere, in my dreams, and on the days where sun is hidden from our hearts, grace opens its loving arms and asks to be revealed .

With Joy, I comply.

Inspired by the work of Patricia Ariel

The Waterman: Ignis Aeris

By Linaji 2010

doodling around... musing around...

it's funny how sometimes i feel empty after finishing a painting. it happened with Lilith and with some other ones... somehow i feel like i passed the point of what would be the best for that work, aesthetically. this is way too frustrating and feels like a lot of wasted work. Lilith looks too dark to me, excessively hot. i try to convince myself that is just how the painting is supposed to be, due to its demonic nature -- we, artists, don't have the control! people are praising it a lot, which is always flattering and encouraging, but believe me, I'm not the type that thinks it's everything okay just because of that. i am very conscious of my limitations and very self-critical (maybe too much sometimes.)

last night i decided to doodle around to relax and try to find some comfort. i need to do that more. when you are not pressed by concepts or commitments is when you mind opens and ideas arise more easily and freely.  i think i need to set myself free from my references, not to be so dependent on them. i need to play more with the body. i want more empty spaces. more elegance and serenity. i want less shadowy faces and color control, without losing the power.

i want my paintings dancing like the waters of a river. sometimes they just overwhelm me.

in progress: Lilith

still frustrated and sad from the loss of my stuff. but we must move on. Lilith awaits.







like a good Moon in Scorpio, i've been always drawn to the underworld folks. i love drawing Liliths; this is my 3rd one, and it's the most intense and mature. my understanding of this goddess came a long way, and lately she's been blossoming inside myself with great intensity. there is a Lilith inside every woman, but our feminine unconscious has been so mashed up for so many centuries by the patriarchal mentality that we ended up suffocating that powerful, independent woman inside us. even without realizing it, many of us still believe that we are evil. that good girls don't do certain things. that we need to put a mask (usually with plenty of make-up and botox) to be "right" and acceptable. this is why my new Lilith holds a cracked mask: because it's time for us to reject those roles and become ourselves, whatever is our appearance, tastes, sexuality, and life styles.

 this Lilith was made about 14 or 15 (?) years ago... i was a graduate in fashion design and all my figures used to have this sort of "modelesque" presentation. the "Klimtian" style was already manifesting.

this one came about 4 years ago. I was trying to make a name in the fantasy/pagan market then. it's more of an illustration. i still like it, and people still look for prints of it. she looks pretty friendly and different from all the demonic cliches. maybe this is what I like the most in her. recently i noticed that, differently from this Lilith, who brings a dark crescent in her forehead, my new depiction brings the symbol of the Sun -- the masculine and creative power.

In progress: Vali

trying to redeem myself from the Tree of Life fiasco, i decided to forget it for a while and catch up with my list of projects. there was something disturbing me a couple nights ago and that just let me sleep after I grabbed my sketchbook and filled up a page with an almost mediumistic sketch. that was Vali Myers.



this preparatory sketch was made yesterday morning, and during all day long I dedicated myself to the labor of attempting to represent that mesmerizing woman. when Julia Inglis introduced me to her, some time ago, I was preparing material for my workshop "The Sun's Pathway" and recognized the synchronicity, because Vali was the perfect representation of the Sun in its full force (not mentioning that she was a Leo, sign ruled by the Sun.) leaving the comforts of her homeland to follow a remarkable trajectory, she was a true hero and left us lessons on freedom and living according to what our spirit inspires us. this has always been my philosophy of life, and this is the main reason why Vali 's figure touched me so deeply.









i used acrylics for the initial washes. the first idea was to put a mask with stylized sun rays above her head (Vali was a performing artist), but the mask was gradually transforming in the Sun itself. i love this stage showed in the 5th picture, with only the thin washes and the face rendered in graphite.







i felt so energized by that painting that i could get into the night doing it until having it completed. never worked so fast in a 15 x 20 painting before. before going to bed, at almost 1am, I still stayed for many minutes only looking at her, in a silent talk to her eyes. for a while, Vali was myself.

in progress: The Mirror

i still feel sick. i have moments in the day when i feel more energetic; in others i just want to lay in bed. feel sick to my stomach. still the pressure inside my head. the sad thing is that i totally know why i am that sick - just don't have the resources to fix it and the people that could help me are miles away. so, i stay strong. i always do. i am a warrior. but i don't know for how long though. there's a limit for everything.

but anyway, concentrating in art is always a big help - when you have the energy to do so - and right now i am trying to work in the last illustration for Liquid Dreams. it is called The Mirror. 

the poem, entitled Chasing After Light, suggests a love poem, but not directly. my understanding is that there's something emotional in it, but also sort of rational, like a suave battle between two opposites.

I’d chase after you at the speed of light,
but what’s the point?
You’re already ahead of me.


Instead I’ll pace my self,
continue to move forward,
knowing that at some point in time,
you’ll come across a mirror
and reflect upon it.

i see laws of physics, which is something so interesting to work on... i love this idea of a mirror, which expresses well the duality, and also the velocity and light the poems suggests. so i initially put this female figure like being reflected in a mirror, but she can very well be penetrating another dimension of reality to escape that guy, who knows... i'm very thankful to Ricardo for giving me this poem to work on, because it really made my mind travel.


i currently work building a preparatory sketch and then, when i am sort of satisfied, i transfer the sketch to the illustration board - only the main lines, in order to suggest where the figures should be placed. then i apply this watercolor underpainting, which is a very random and intuitive process, using the basic colors of my palette of choice - in this work, blues and yellows, with a little gray to help toning it a bit. i do the transfer the most primitive and old school way you can imagine: using tracing paper and transferring the graphite lines by applying pressure on them. i know it's ridiculous, time consuming and all, but it's how it works best for me. there was a time when i tried to do the sketch right on the board, but when you're working on paper, even on a sturdy surface like illustration board, you don't have a lot of margin for mistakes. so i returned to the preparatory sketch method, which can, in a long run, save you a lot of time - and materials.

here you can see two stages of the figures in the "mirror", in the process of shading. i use white pastel for the highlights and love it.

in my paintings, i am free from commitments with reality, although my figures follow a more realistic style. i want a blend of materiality and unreal, of flesh and spirit. so nothing besides the human figures are subordinated to the physical laws as we know it - and even my figures, sometimes, suffer a little distortion in strategic parts of their bodies (my favorite body parts to distort are neck and the curve of the waist when it connects to the hips. i think those are beautiful curves and i love to elongate them!) elements like animals and plants i like to make in a mid term between the real and the abstract, maybe because i find them so pure and uncorrupted, almost like a connection between the two worlds. working in the realm of the surreal is very liberating, but sometimes a true challenge. it will all depend on what you want to achieve with your painting, what sensations you want to trigger. technique here plays a big role and even when painting the "unreal" you need to sound convincible enough, which will only happen with training and learning the ways of your materials and dominating them... they are like raw nature forces!

about Waterlily

Waterlily was a nice surprise to me since I got to believe I was not able to work in soft colors anymore. I've been pursuing a dreamier, cleaner and suave style for a while and it suddenly came to life with this work. again, I got to achieve exactly what I wanted just by working with no sense of compromise or preoccupation with quality or symbolic purpose. I suspect I'm getting closer to something very exciting right now... :)h

another thing it's been difficult to control is the complexity of certain subjects I plan to work on. they end up too detailed and because of those I run away from my stylistic aspirations. so I have to learn how to express exactly what I want using few but powerful elements. exactly due to this complexity that doesn't please me anymore I had to set my recent piece Our Lady of the Angels-Gone aside. I think it needs more study, and the colors for some reason don't seem right.

let's keep on experimenting then...

Our Lady of the Angels-Gone and the "Terrible Mother"

about two weeks ago I began to feel a strong wish of working in a piece about abortion. I got to make a nouveau-style illustration some time ago, but nothing close to this work I started to develop early last week and decided to call Our Lady of the Angels-Gone.

writing this post was very difficult, since many questions came to my mind, questions that lead to another to another to another... the ones who know me know that I am totally pro life, and it saddens me to know that this term today is associated to conservative and retrograde people. however, due to my spiritualist way of seeing life, it couldn't be any different. without the limitations of materialism, your vision of things become kind of multidimensional. but that's my own vision, and I don't intend to push it toward others as the only truth. while science do not come to a conclusion about when human life starts, it will be hard to know the truth about things. even being so sensitive to this question, which makes rise in me a blend of compassion, revolt and sadness, I have concluded that it's very difficult to approach such a delicate and contradictory subject. I then decided to make the work as a kind of "visual prayer", not only for the spirits that have been interrupted in their reincarnation process but also for the mothers that for one or other reason were forced to interrupt that process - which never occurs without any pain of some sort.

as it always happens, the artwork takes control and I simply let myself to go with the flow. at first I had imagined a kind of enlightened entity, like a saint, who would take care of the little spirits and of the mothers in suffering. something like compassion personified. it didn't work. the face that came up didn't sound very soft, but even a little severe. she covers herself carelessly in a kind of dark cloth, through which we see her golden heart. I thought that it was so important to show her heart... because there's no better judge for this type of question than love. another thing that came to me and sounded interesting was her hair... that appeared like huge roots of an old tree, or like tentacles, or still like serpents... running down two masked figures that seem to beg for shelter under the saint, or goddess, clothes.

there's a myth that represents the opposite pole from the caring and donating Great Mother: the Terrible Mother. this myth symbolizes the domain of the instincts and of the unconscious powers that have not been controlled by Ego. the Terrible Mother doesn't nurture or protect; she is the denier of the feminine in its positive pole, castrating, repressing and even killing her children. she is represented in different cultures as dark and destructive goddesses, like the hindu goddess Kali, balinese Rangda, or the gorgons. the stepmothers and witches of the fairytales are also related to this aspect of the Goddess. all of these goddesses are identified with reptiles, spiders or snakes (it's funny how my figure reminded me of Medusa...) anyway, I ended up finding in her great identification with this myth and I'm still in doubt about her soothing character. maybe she should entirely reflect the negative aspect of the feminine. (notice that in the world of myths as well as in nature there's no manichean conotation, nothing like positive = good and negative = bad. and that my attempt to discuss this matter in this post by no means intend to be accusatory, as if the Terrible Mother was the "bad girl" and the Creator Mother was the good one. both are aspects of the Great Mother and contain in themselves aspects of the psyche that are present in every woman.)

the relation of abortion with the Terrible Mother myth is quite intriguing. I believe that reflections on this archetype might turn possible bringing to light a little of the psyche of the women that for one or another reason deny themselves the development of the creative facet of the feminine (notice that this position does not relate to the therapeutic abortion, but the one that occurs for the mother's free will, for a series of reasons.) I really respect the position of the women that don't wish to have children, that don't feel connected to motherhood (although I don't think that that's enough to justify abortion), but I think that the vision of many feminists about abortion and female freedom, about having control of our own bodies and sexual behavior is very dangerous. in one of my favorite books, Jung and Tarot - an Archetypal Journey, by Sallie Nichols, she speaks about something that, to me, is very revealing. in the chapter about the Empress, she explains that the destructive aspect of the Goddess becomes apparent every time that woman neglects her true realm, which is the one of relationship and love. her strength can then turn toward the desire for power, taking them to lose touch with the female creativity. thus, The Empress, to whom her kingdom was denied for too long, comes to the surface with infernal fury. "It's understandable", she says - and pardon me for the rough translation, since my book is in Portuguese, "that in the search for her true essence, woman appears under several aspects."

for the ones who don't know Tarot, the Empress is the arcane that represents the complete woman, emancipated and fulfilled, conscious of her creativity and a "governor for love". the one who has all the goddesses balanced inside herself. my hope is to see someday woman coming to this condition of fulfillment... although I know that it does not depend entirely on her. there's a whole system that favors the flourish of the Terrible Mother, stopping the Woman-Empress from taking control of her creative role.