The River

Stage 3

The River

letter blocks

 I f you have ever played a card game called Texas Hold 'em you may know this term, it is the last draw before the hand it over.  You have three previous cards before this one is dealt.  As you receive your cards you are waiting to see what kind of hand you can put together. 

Statue of Liberty Transparency with colored piano key pads,
and words of home in varying languages

 I think of the term River as an actual river also, where there is a flow and the water is running downstream. The water runs over rocks, around bends, and though eddy's may form the constant gathering flow builds from a tickle to a small stream to a river, mighty and flowing.  This stage of the artistic process is like that where all the bits and pieces I have gathered are coming together, first a trickle of an idea, then a stream that is growing clearer and clearer in my minds direction until the idea flows and comes together like the Mighty Mississippi as it becomes the glorious river it is. 

varying type sets of letters and numbers

Porcelain glove mold hand with image transfers

Rear view of suitcase with ceramic round disc with ceramic ink transfer in
multiple overlays 

The flowing also takes place in ones mind, runner's call it a runner's high, Zen masters call it meditation, for me it is like a floating place where there is no sense of time.  In this step one minute can be one hour or all afternoon, time stops and there is just no sense of time at this point. 

Test tubes with cicada's, cocoon, and leaf bug 

 Once can sense there is a coming together and it feels right, things are beginning to make sense and fit, but the end is not yet in sight, as I am still swimming in the flow of the water like riding a crest of a wave....I can feel the power of the movement below me and I am riding its motion.

THE ARTISTS JOB IS TO BE A WITNESS TO HIS TIME
ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG

ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG       MIXED MEDIA                                                        FROM GOOGLE IMAGE

More Dr. Bob (click for link)

New Orleans Folk Artist 

        

Mixed media with wood, tin and found objects
from google image

mixed media  wood, bottle caps and acrylic 
from google image

Sign outside Dr. Bob's Studio
from google image

Test Tiles for Transfers on Ceramics

Test Tiles for Mixed Media Art Project

These are not decals, this an actual printing on clay using a ceramic ink on raw clay, then fired. It has taken us much practice and experiments to get this to work. In these pictures you will note the image looks pixilated, it is due to the canvas the clay was rolled out on. There are many variables that effect the look of the image.

I am working on a project that will use images and thoughts from my Mothers life, as a type of portrait and honor to her, but in general to all women of my Mothers generation who survived two wars and a great depression-they are made of stern stuff, but who also wore there badges with grace and compassion. My Mother was beyond a sewer, she was a seamstress, a tailor, and artist with cloth and needle. She also was a science teacher majoring in biology and chemistry. Her love of nature and science was passed on with great love to myself and my brother, and like a stone dropped the ripple effects go on to our whole family. Now her grandsons hunt fossils and points with great glee...a gift given from another generation. At almost 99 she still is a presence in my life, even with the effects of a massive stroke 9 years ago, she can still communicate love, grace, compassion and determination. I am always in awe of her being and thankful for the gifts she has given me and others. So it will be in an art piece, perhaps many, that I will honor her as Mother, as Earth Mother, as life giver, as woman, as love....it will be a theme in my art to honor these gifts. As Dali, Jasper Johns, and many other artists develop a symbology of language that reappears in their art, my art is developing its own language, its own alphabet. So these test tiles are the beginning of a mixed media piece in the making. As the piece progresses I will share it with you.

The Eyes Have It!

"Eyes are the Windows to Our Souls"

This famous quote has a mysterious origin, but one person that has been thought to have coined it is Leonardo Da Vinci. Many artists use they eye as a symbol, as do various cultures. The evil eye in the middle east protects you. The eyes on the temples of Katmandu are God watching over you. The hand in the middle of the palm can be found in the earliest of art going back to ancient Egyptian times as a symbol of protection against perceived evil.

I like to use eyes as a symbol in my work. I feel comfortable in the world of Surrealism and the use of symbology. I like the idea of concept, visual poetry and hidden subtle images triggering meaning. The photo below is a detail from my latest work for the Dali Museum Event, Liquid Desires. The name of the art work is "Wet Dreams". The work is now in the collection of an Orlando Physician and shares its space with a Chihuly! It is partly a reflection of what the eye sees, as Dali portrayed in several of his pieces.

In the detail of Alternate Universe you can see how I used eyes again as a symbol in my work. On the far left are the eyes of Galileo, in the center are the eyes of the Mona Lisa, and on the far right are the eyes of Einstein. The rusted metal strip with multiple transfers, glass and mirrors is as a sentence to a paragraph. The paragraph being the larger section of the art work.

Some eyes are so identifiable that they are iconic. When using popular icons one can not help but think of Andy Warhol and his Pop Art portraiture. Elvis peers out at you in the top photo while a young Leonardo looks out at us in the last photo.

Wonderful Interesting New Artist

There is a site on Google called Artist of the Day

Every day they highlight a different artist. I usually check it daily. I am fascinated by how many artists there are with so many creative ideas.

This is one that really spoke my language of love of the past, old, fading, people of another time. I love how he juxtaposes the past with modern, and planning with intuitiveness. Mike is also a mixed media artist. You may want to check out both websites. Artist of the Day and Mike's site. There is also a video on his site that explains his work methods and mental processes. I think you will really enjoy this site and it may give you ideas for your own art or website. His work makes me feel like I am in a Victorian time capsule.

http://www.mike-weber.com/

Alternate Worlds

Elizabeth Gordon

Tampa/Asheville

USA

Alternate Worlds

Part of a series of art work I created studying the theories of time, with references to thoughts on relativity and the string theory using mixed media.

Detail of String Theory Calculations

Metal scraffito with photo transfer and glass

Metal, found objects, glass

photo by Ann Suggs