Since my trip to Utah…
The gallery and studio are closed for winter, and I've been out in California with a couple of painting clients! WOAH! Most of my time has been in Escondido, working on a diptych for clients who are building out their family home thats been standing in the hill tops of San Diego for years. Being here makes the work more alive, and I'm grateful to have this time, and client.
Using oil pastels, prisma color pencils, I’ve been taking in the landscape through drawings before pouring paint.
The last week with Tid-bit the dog has brought both intense cuteness and intense distraction. I love dog-sitting, but I do forget it takes a few days for any dog and any new person to find their rhythm together — He's probably used to waking up earlier, sitting next to his person all day. I'm a gal on the move, pacing room to room gathering materials, hovering over paintings outside, staying up a little too late. After a few days, we found a nice flow… and he’s really REALLY adorable.
This house has pretty much the best setup. It overlooks the valley, and my clients(+friends) set up a 10-foot tent on the back porch so I have that view while I paint. When I first got here, there was a crazy heat wave — unusual and very hot. It felt great coming from frozen Rockport, and the pool helps for cooling down. While I was preparing and gessoing all of my canvases in that heat, I was also sketching ideas and proposals — for the clients I'm living with, and for someone in LA.
Something I wanted to do while out here as well is apply for a residency, and prepare sketches for another client in Gloucester that I'm super excited to share. But one thing at a time.
This time in between — waiting for paint to dry — has created a spaciousness that I don't know if we talk about enough. I’ve needed this solitude for sitting down and accomplishing the computer work, organizing my photos and my life for the gallery and upcoming projects. Applying for residencies lets you do all of that cleanup, even if you don't get accepted. It's such a great excuse to update the website for new eyes. So I sent in an application for a weeklong residency in upstate New York for early June. Since I want this year to be more about painting — painting for me, painting for the gallery — it was important to find something that would let me still work through the summer but give me a new landscape to access new corners of my brain. So, fingers crossed for acceptance, but I'm not sweating it either way. I've updated a lot, and I'm proud of that!
xo for now