Knee deep and figure work

This is a newer painting I finished a bit ago and a couple of monotypes/ drawings I am working on currently. 

Elegance and Absurdity-two things I am curious about.

The Other End of Graceful.

A new project!

I spent the week working on an installation at the gallery at school. We are having a faculty show that opens on Monday. After a couple of sleepless nights, here's what I ended up with. I am happy about it, but fairly uneasy considering I have never done an installation in a solo fashion. Paintallica....yes, but not when all the weight is on me. It was a great experience. I incorporated a lot of screen prints that I have been working since the summer. I think the red fringe makes me happiest though! figures. The reception is on Thursday night.
I injected a few sayings that have been floating around in my mind for a while. A couple of them were overheard words, and some random ones. One reads, "Good Luck in heaven crazy pants"
one on the right reads "it's like we're giants" and "they're drowning" the top reads, "Reduce your amplitude" (solid advice given to me).
This feels more like "me" than the still life paintings for right now. So, I am thrilled that I had the chance to do it.

A drawing for S

One of the great people I met this summer was S....a great kid who makes fantastic Pokemon drawings. This one is for him.

http://www.pica.org/festival_detail_new.aspx?eventid=359

I'm off to Paintallica in Portland, OR to work with some fantastic folks. check out the site above.
Thanks to Senor Gustav for not destroying my home town. all are safe and accounted for!
I'll post pics when I get to Portland!

Origination of the animal symbols.

http://ask.yahoo.com/20000810.html

Gustav and the elephants.

This morning, I spoke to all of my family, who are luckily safe. There was an unprecedented evacuation on my home town, Houma, as Hurricane Gustav makes landfall. We will know today how bad it is and whether or not their homes were affected. It is scary to say the least.
I was listening to NPR and the coverage of the storm. The reporter said, "New Orleans was not the only city affected by this storm. Let's go to St. Paul, Minnesota where the Republican National Convention has faced a great challenge because of Gustav." Need I say that it is ridiculous to compare what those two cities are about to face. It just seemed so absurd. Also, McCain was on the air making a desperate attempt to disconnect himself from the behavior of our administration during Katrina by paying close attention to this storm. He said, "It is time to take off our Republican hats and put on our American hats as this storm approaches." (that may not be it exactly, but the hat part is correct) Pivotal words.

Bill

Bill made this drawing for me. Check out his blog. It's great!
There is a link to the side and here!

Spandex makes the world go 'round.

I wanted to post this drawing too. I made it while we were on the way to the west "coast" of Iowa for the start of RAGBRAI. (The Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa)
We stopped at a rest area, and there, to my surprise, was a woman already sporting an entire outfit made of spandex with a fanny pack, and smoking a cigarette! I suddenly felt so unprepared for the ride! Who knew I could have worn the spandex in the car!!!!? and why?! why?! no fanny pack?! I kick myself every time I think of it! There's always next year!

Cleaning up.

When I was a child, I had a strange habit of wearing this really ugly brown felt hat when my mom would make me clean my room. It was kind of a ritual. Occasionally, I would put on another kind of hat, accessories, whatever I came across in the cleaning process. By then end, I would be sporting an interesting look, but have fairly clean room in the process. The other day, I was cleaning my apartment and realized that I really haven't changed all that much. By the end of the cleaning spree, I had on this fire red, orange and gray silk scarf that I never wear, earrings that I discovered in a bag, and some charcoal colored eye shadow and red, red lipstick that I had forgotten about. It was a lovely look, really! It just made me remember the felt hat. Also, in making the drawing, I remembered that I had this miniature basketball goal that sat on my garbage can. It was battery operated and would cheer when you successfully got paper in the hoop. I think I could use that kind of positive reinforcement now. Maybe I should get one to put on the clothes hamper in my room now.

back on the drawing train.

Before I left Grinnell, David put in a request for a very specific drawing of him and his horses. I hope it fits the bill!! It was great to get to look through my Grinnell pics to get an idea of how to go about drawing this. I cannot say enough nice things about that place and the people there. 
During the storm, I watched way too much TV. On one of the "news" channel's storm coverage, a man was interviewed who inhabited a house boat. He lost his boat and everything on it.  It was an overall sad story, but he said...." I lost everything...my keys, my teeth, my wallet." There was just something so specific about his list. It needed to be drawn in some fashion. 

His name has been changed. :) The boat was really called "Lil" Freedom"

I HEART IOWA

Marie milkin' the butter cow. Marie, everyone knows you can't REALLY milk the butter cow. That is not unless you have butter hands. 

FAMOUS HUMPHREY'S SWEET CORN!!! 
That's right. I'm really excited about the butter cow. What can I say? 

I HEART IOWA SOME MORE.

Amy and I with a strangely deformed corn dog. mmmm...food on stick. 

Carlos and butter Shawn Johnson. He's about to pull her pony tail. A little known great pick-up move. 
Carlos vs. The Corn Dog- a battle  not to be missed. 
David on Mariah. I had the chance to ride her on my last day there. It was great. 
Lisa Esposito's beautiful dinner....man, she was a fantastic cook!

I was looking back through some Iowa pics from the summer and thought I'd post a few that I thought were great. Some are Iowa State Fair pics, and the others are circus highlights. 

My blog posts have been few and far between as of late. The Tiny Circus project I am involved in is a-rollin'. So, check out what I've been up to at the Tiny Circus blog. We are currently working on the History of Rain. Check it out. It is a beautiful endeavor, and I am completely grateful to be a part of this project!!! 

My friend Josh Rush made this piece. I'm not positive if it is oil or pastel, but it is quite lovely either way. I am kind of a sucker for those amazing shadows that occur on blankets of snow. I miss that about living in the wintery Iowa clime. You can look at his website here. 

Drawing Drawing more Drawing

So, this will be quite a lengthy post for today. I just returned from a week of teaching at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, where I was a resident artist a few years ago. It was a fantastic week. I had a really outstanding drawing class, and met lots of interesting people over the course of the week.
My class made these amazing drawings in less than two days!! We started them on Thursday afternoon, and they just charged right through making them.

Here are some shots of us in the studio. There were eight of us in the class. These super-drawers were fearless!! They just cranked out drawings. It was really impressive and a lot of fun. They were just so full of energy, great moments of observation, and sporadic marks of invention.

Below is a piece created by one of the current resident artists, Damon Mcintyre. Check out his site. He has quite a range of work, all of which is quite charming and graceful in its creation.

On the way to Tennessee, I made this drawing of girls with earrings. I saw two women over the last couple of weeks with this enormous earrings. They just seemed like something worth drawing. Then, on the way home, I had to take the early...very early shuttle from Arrowmont to the Knoxville Airport and wait for four hours until my flight departed. My little world for several hours was framed by these very narrow airport windows. I must say though, that the Knoxville airport is the only airport I've ever been to with rocking chairs for the travelers to sit in. Lovely.

A positive-negative space drawing I made while teaching.

Mountain Magic

This week, I am at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee teaching a drawing class to a group of fantastic people.
Last night, I found a lovely spot in the middle of the crowds of tourists in downtown Gatlinburg and drew this band. Later, a couple of them came over and talked to me for a bit. Gary and Austin. Good musicians. Very kind. Liked my drawing of them.

Vanity in Shadows and Sexy Red Peppers

A few days ago, Ann roasted these beautiful peppers and made an amazingly yummy assortment of roasted pepper salad dressings. Yum!
Living in an Airstream doesn't afford me the luxury of having a full length mirror around right now. I have this habit at my apartment to always check myself in the mirror as a constant way of seeing if the extra chocolates I ate or the extra running I did the day before affected my body in some way. I am aware of the ridiculousness of my rituals. 

However, while running the other morning, I ran in the opposite direction that I usually do and was trailing my shadow as I ran. I caught myself analyzing my shadow with the same intentions.  It just felt necessary to fess up to that ridiculous moment of vanity. The same day, Carlos said        " There should be a bumper sticker that reads, 'KILL YOUR MIRROR'." 

A drawing made in the honey room studio here. I've always really liked that Diebenkorn painting of scissors. 

We just got a whole box of baby chickens in the mail here at Circus-ville, USA. They are so cute, but I am trying really hard not to name any of them. They are tasty. They are tasty. They are tasty. Chicken are for eating. Chickens are for eating. Chickens are for eating. And drawing. 

Ann and David Ferguson's horse, Raleigh, taking a break in the shade. 

They gave me a great pile of lovely pens, so I tried to use all the colors in this one drawing. 

The pens, and the Ferguson's are fantastic! 

TINYCIRCUS.ORG
The final logo design....after many, many tries and with lots of good input from others. 

A long overdue drawing .....the view from my bed in the Airstream. Fantastic prairie grass and flowers surround me. So, I captured them and stuck them in a glass to die. Maybe that wasn't the best approach, but maybe they live on in the life of the drawing. Also, watched a Miyazaki film where there was this mesmerizing animation of the Toxic Forest. The textures were so great. It made me want to draw plant-y  textural things.

Here is a first try at the logo I made for the Tiny Circus. I'll post the new and improved one shortly. Check out tinycircus.org to see what it's all about. It is a super-fantastical project that I am working on this summer in Grinnell, Iowa with other artists. We have a great blog going that chronicles what we are working on currently. 

 

I apologize for the lack of postings lately. 

More are on the way....stay tuned. 

Until then, a photo of Carlos and I in Piggot, Arkansas looking a bit rough after gutting the new 

circus airstream!

I made these little drawings today. I'm not sure what to think of them yet, but I like the ambiguity of their actions. I think I am going to use them in a screen print soon.

http://www.art.uiowa.edu/gradimages/gradarchive.php?artist=Songe%2C+Greta&program=&gradyear=

I forgot about the University of Iowa grad archive page. It is pretty great. A lot of interesting work. 

Here's some old stuff, I had forgotten all about!  (the address is in the title area. I cannot figure out how to cut and paste stuff on the blog just yet!)

PEONIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE PEONIES ARE HERE!!!  THE PEONIES ARE HERE!!! In Iowa City, the peonies have started to bloom. They are soooo beautiful and fragrant.

As I was taking the photo of the little drawing alone,  I liked the way the shadows fell on the page, and the splotches of paint made me really happy too!  The morning light that comes through the print shop window is quite dazzling.

It seems like overnight, these beautiful purple irises showed up at Megan's apartment.