2013 Mural Project: Providing Balance

"Providing Balance" 8"x 8"
Copyright KKMarino 2013
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Here is a small painting that I recently finished for the show. I am excited about this color combination. I prefer unusual color schemes. My grandmother was a quilter and she had a keen sense of color. Her combinations always worked, but were at times most unexpected. I learned from her to take a chance, try new ideas with color.

Two days until I move the work to the gallery. 

2013 Mural Project: Once Again with Feeling

"Once Again, With Feeling" detail.
copyright 2013 KK Marino
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“Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning do to do afterward.” 

― Kurt Vonnegut

I'm not sure I have ever had an art exhibit without a little bit of Drama leading up to the show. I am not by nature a "dramatic" person, though I certainly have exercised my right to pure self-indulgence in the art of drama in my younger days.

Right now I just don't have the time for it.

So I am now in the last week, the runway up to the exhibit and the mural project. 

And it begins. 

Just when I thought I had my schedule worked out, here comes life: the final frontier. A Big Roadblock, not a little stumble, a significant crack in my well made plans. So I readjust my schedule and replan my time again and move forward.

I am by nature an organized person. My lists have sublists and I have even resorted to little check box squares by my tasks to give myself a reward for having completed something. But sometimes I can't find my lists, so I am a true contradiction in organization. 

Sad right? Probably.

So I paint and plan and plan and paint and rewrite my lists.

I am looking forward to the laughing phase which is undoubtedly coming later this week, when I just throw up my hands and say "Okay,okay I got it-I need to work harder to make this happen".

And then I do.

2013 Mural Project: Clarity at Last

I decided to paint, and paint and paint and paint
copyright KKMarino, 2013
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I am very excited about this mural project as it has been on my mental radar for over two years. As an artist I find that one of my biggest challenges is patience. (possibly in life too).

My conceptual process involves "waiting" which I am very bad at. I'm not patience, whether in the grocery line, an appointment , in traffic or when I am problem solving. Especially when it comes to my work.

I want all the ideas now, totally resolved or even yesterday would be better.

This mural has been a blank canvas, just fragments of ideas, thoughts, lines and desires. Now is the time that I need the image. So I am impatience.

Since I am not new to the business of  being an artist I have learned that I need to get out of my own way on the creative process.

And so I did.

I decided to paint, and paint and paint and paint and to let the pressure of the mural image go. Give it up and just do the work, day after day after day.

And sure enough this morning 4:00 a.m. there it was. I woke up and the concept was there, the image was emerging and even the title!

Now the real fun begins!

There are times in an Artist's life...

Note to myself from the paper covering my painting table, October, 2012

“There are times in an artist’s life that are life-changing. Some are mere moments and others more significant. Regardless of the rest of my journey, my time at PrairieCenter of the Arts will stand as a unique gift that greatly impacted me as an artist and the course of my work.”

Kim Kissinger Marino, 2012

O Studio, Studio! Wherefore Art Thou Studio?

"When are you going to get to work?"
Zoe, Studio Dog Extraordinaire

As you can see this is not a photo of the finished painting from the residency that I have been promising for several days. It is instead the boxes of supplies and gear from the residency, that remain unpacked.

So what gives?

I was spoiled by my residency studio. It was large and airy with good company:

"The Caribbean Vacation of Studios". 

Now I feel closed in and uncertain about where to land.

I have this space which includes my office and those naggy life things like files and bills and other major distractions. Or I have an unfinished location above the garage where the temperature is now a balmy 32 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Humm. My plan is to land here in the office/studio and then plan my next move....as you can see my faithful "Studio Dog" Grandma Zoe doesn't really care as long as "her" chair is part of the mix.

Home

Arrived home Wednesday.

It is amazing how quickly you return to the push and pull of life. In short order I began making lists, handling work questions and headed down the slippery slope of
life over-consumption.

My fine diet of art, art, art the last 30 days has opened my eyes to the negative sources in my life- those life draining situations that zap your creative and spiritual energy.

Its "house-cleaning" time for me both figuratively and literally.

I will publish my final residency painting in the next few days when it is complete.


Until then:

"What we think, we become." 

- Buddha

Residency-Last Day in the Studio

Prairie Center of the Arts-Last Day in Studio, 2012

Today is my last day of residency at The Prairie Center of the Arts. 

This blog will continue but the residency is complete.

I can think of many things to say, but none that accurately describe this experience. 

So I will default to a word list:

Life-Changing

Art...

               

"Art does not reproduce what we see; rather, 

it makes us see."

Paul Klee 

4" X 4" Drawing: "Together" (Shown 2 ways)
Copyright KK Marino, 2012

Completed New Work-Yellow Waterfall

Yellow Waterfall
18" x 18 " Oil
copyright KK Marino, 2012

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Here is the final on Yellow Waterfall. As you can see the addition of the black lines change the piece completely.

Being an Artist

Blankness 

There are times when I am stuck-solid.

The past few days have been like that.

The more I thought, the less I knew.

The more I pushed the less I moved.

A wise person told me that if you just stretch out on your bed and don't get up until you have made a decision about your problem, then you can move forward.

Even though I did not physically do the exercise, I mentally did. That is, I thought about my creative blankness from that point of view and it worked!

I made a decision that allowed me to move forward.

The goal is to always move the work forward, deciding how is the hard part.

A-R-T

A studio mate of mine mentioned Morris Code the other day while looking at my work and I thought it would be fun to play with it a bit, since
I am a dot-a-holic!

Here is the word A-R-T

A very visually interesting language.

Change Is a Comin'

Untitled -12" X 12" Acrylic on canvas board
copyright KK Marino 2012

After a week of focus my imagery is definitely changing. This painting shows a new direction in my work. Still very organic, but a move towards more simplification. My figures have now taken a new form, resembling some of my earlier work with trees only the shapes are new. The black lines are directly painted, not drawn with craft glue first. I am very interested in these figures particularly the two that are joined. What is the relationship here?