After a weekend of Mardi Gras revelry, I am back at the easel and grateful for the Lent Season which is upon us. So many years away and though I am of the Deep South and witnessed the Mardi Gras parades and celebrations as a girl, this is the first year I have experienced it first hand. What a wonderful time I had as well! There is one thing I know for sure as an adult woman who has lived in the northern and southern regions of both the North American as well as the European Continent, people of the South have a tendency to be much more flamboyant than those of the North. We know how to work hard and we can play hard as well. I don’t remember when I have laughed as much as I have over the past several days. Laughter is definitely good medicine!
I began a painting of a Florida Fighting Conch over a week ago now. The shell itself is close to completion, yet I was drawn to work the background this morning, finding myself unhappy with the ground I had laid thus far.
Like the painting pictured, it is a 24″ X 48″ piece, and is designed to be hung both horizontally and vertically. Similar to “Out of the Darkness” as well as most of my seashells, there is a certain autobiographical element that many people miss. It is said that all of Fine Art is a self portrait of sorts. This is nothing new. Be the artist a writer, composer, dancer or visual artist, we draw from the depths of our soul and so the autobiographical element can not be avoided however subconscious it may be. In the case of “Out of the Darkness” this element was completely subconscious and I did not even see the hidden meaning until it was completed.
I will assume Dr. Anderson did, on some level pick up on it when she bought it years ago. Either way…this Banded Tulip could be a space ship suspended or slowly moving through space. The inside of the shell I chose to paint white and this light seems to shine through the shell at the tip and through the sides. Yet the violet designs that lie on top of the white exterior shapes are jagged, nervous, unsettling.
When I first approached the Fighting Conch as my subject, I was simply drawn to what a beautiful specimen it is. I did not paint it as it is most often viewed from above or directly from the side. It has a thicker and heavier shell than most Florida shells of a similar size. I assume it is a good “fighter” as per it’s name. It breaks less easily because of it’s thick shell. The background I started as a soft variety of grays, but after looking at the piece for several days, I decided I was not happy with it and so I mixed up a deep blue-gray glaze to work with over the gray ground. One of the beauties of oils is the time it gives you to play with the paint, pushing the glaze about and exploring all that can be done with the translucent color. 2 or 3 hours into the application, I remembered “Out of the Darkness” and the subconscious became conscious and I went with it. There is a story to both pieces I will choose not to tell, though to a large extent I already have for those that choose to listen, or more accurately, see.
