Clothes on a Line

It's a snow day here and I'm making up for lost time! I have some blog posts that I never got around to publishing, so I'm going to release them all now and pretend they have different dates...

  I have been largely consumed by this beautiful Victorian home that I am so tickled to live in. I grew up in an early 1900's reproduction stone farm house and I have always sought out old buildings as a renter. In my childhood home, there were Mercer tiles around a beautiful little St. Francis statue on the back of the house (this little thing was so important to me that I made rubbings of the tiles when my mom sold the house so I didn't have to leave them behind). Mysterious artifacts would sometimes get churned up when we tilled the garden and we ate apples from enormous trees that had been dropping fruit on that yard for god knows how many generations. It was all a big mystery that would never completely unfold. I enjoy the feeling of living in a place with deep history. This current house is so full of character and stories as well.
  This past summer, we renovated our little side porch and made all kinds of interesting discoveries. The crawlspace under the porch was hiding a huge, ornate bed post (it took a few weeks of walking past it in the hallway for us to place what exactly it was), several antique laundry ringers and a number of other great-looking but yet to be identified objects. THEN, we opened up the walls to add insulation and discovered that they were lined thick with old newspapers. They are very brittle and delicate so I carefully stashed them away in my studio, intending to do some projects with them but unsure of what they would be.
  I recently started a painting that incorporated these pages. I also used some stiffened fabrics that I cut into hanging laundry because I am sort of obsessed with clotheslines. Something about the way fabric catches the wind, and perhaps they represent a meeting of domestic life and the natural world. I can't put my finger on it, but I just love the image of clothes hanging on a line. It's been a while since I did a mixed media piece and now I remember why it is so fun! This piece is pretty rough around the edges, but when I get a solid block of time to work I think it will be very satisfying. I'm always off to a very messy start!
  Here is my progress thus far:

Vintage Scale Re-Vamp

  I haven't posted any new paintings in a while, but I have been busy! I decided to share some of the other things that I've been working on.
  I wanted to try this chalk paint that is all the rage, so I bought a sample jar and experimented on this retro scale we picked up at a yard sale. They threw it in for free when we bought a couple fishing rods! I almost didn't take it because it was so unsightly. It took some serious elbow grease, but turned out to be a cute little piece for the new bathroom.
  I took photos along the way...

This is how it looked when I started. There were segments of the original grippy plastic top that needed to be chipped off. It was heinously dirty and I didn't realize how many nooks and crannies this thing has until I started cleaning.

 

It needed a layer of something on the top to cover the holes and make it more comfortable to step on. I was hoping to find something jazzy rather than just replacing the plain black top and when I came across some leftover paintable wallpaper I got exxxxxxcited. This stuff is easy to cut with a blade and has a sort of squishy 3-D texture which I thought would be nice to stand on.

 
  To make a stencil, I chose a tracing paper with a weight that was easy to bend but not easy to tear. I didn't get any photos of this step, but It was relatively simple. I first tore a line down the middle of the tracing paper where the handle comes down. Then I was able to slip the paper underneath the handle and have flaps on either side that came up high enough to meet the grooved chrome area. Then I traced the perimeter of the area I wanted the wallpaper to cover, slid the tracing paper off the scale and cut it out with scissors to create a stencil.
  The next step was to choose the placement of my stencil on the wallpaper pattern. I played with it a couple ways and decided on my favorite. The wallpaper cuts much better upside down because it is an untextured paper on the back side. I attached the stencil to the back side of the wallpaper with double-sided tape and cut around it with a sharp blade.

  This is how it looked after a coat of 'Old Violet' Annie Sloane chalk paint. I bought it because I really liked this color, but at the time I didn't have a project in mind.

The scale had lots of dings and scrapes on it so I masked off all of the chrome and glass and gave it a coat of semi-gloss spray paint.

  I had to fold the wallpaper a bit to get it under the handle. Then I put some spots of rubber cement on the underside of the wallpaper and stuck it down to visualize the finished product.

 

I am in love with this color and the scale came out great, but I decided they don't suit each other.

 

  So I re-painted it matte black and voila.

Kitchen Mouse!!!

We just got a really cute infestation in our kitchen...

A friend spotted a little mouse hole painted on the curb and sent me a picture of it. I loved it so much that I made my own version in our kitchen. I hope she can get along with the cats.

Upcoming Art Class!

My March class at North Light Community Center in Roxborough is now open for enrollment. This facility has a nice big Arts and Crafts room, which I am familiar with from teaching for the after school program. I have some really fun ideas for this class and kids are going to take home a great little project each time we meet. I am looking forward to meeting my new group and seeing all our creations!
ABC's of Art and Art History (ages 8-14)
Learn more about North Light Community Center

I was going through an old hard drive of photos (while putting together my new website!) and I came across a whole series of photos of a painting that I completely forgot existed. I have no idea what happened to this painting, but I do remember making it. It is really not my style so it's sort of an interesting mystery to me. I think that in the end I just primed over it and reused the canvas. Anyhow, here's how it developed...

I have been a bit behind with blogging, as usual. I've had a stream of small commissions that keep me busy and lots of big life changes are finally settling down. Many exciting things are on the horizon for me and I am feeling pretty happy!
First off, I have been volunteer teaching at North Light Community Center in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia. Last week was my last session with their after school program and I am gearing up for a really exciting new class that will begin in March. I can follow up shortly with the final info for that program and how to sign up. Check out North Light's website here and check out the news on an upcoming documentary featuring North Light here!
I finally relaunched my website, which I had to rename (slightly) because I accidentally let my domain ownership lapse and some other artistic Moore snatched it up! I am working out the kinks on that project and will post a link for that soon as well.
The large geese wetscape for my painting swap with Ron Smythe is complete and needs to be delivered...

My latest landscape-meets-animal painting is still sketchy and has been developing really slowly, but I'm excited about the idea. The main tree in this painting was drawn from a huge limb that I could see out of my studio window in the old Mount Airy apartment. Now that I have moved, it has become a totally different tree. Also, I have been working on the thing for so long that the seasons have changed several times! I decided to accept this as part of the history of this painting, and let the background fracture into segments that each show the season during which they were painted. So far, we've got summer, fall and winter...I hope that spring doesn't creep in!

I am really excited to be doing an art swap with Baltimore artist Ron Smythe. I've always admired his  work and now I'll get to hang it in my new home! We aren't done working, but I'll make sure to post pictures when they are completed and swapped. Below is an image of what I'm working on. Visit Ron hereto see his beautiful work.

HELLO FRIENDS!
    During my weird year of being out of commission, I accidentally let my website expire! R.I.P. moore-art.com. I am still working on getting back to a creative life so I haven't yet launched a new site. I have been brainstorming ideas for a new URL and welcome any suggestions!

'From Ikea to I-me-a'

I was tickled to hear that one of my paintings was included in an article for The Inquirer last week! The online version can be viewed here (The second image of the gallery features my painting 'Red Paper' in an inventive interior by local designer Naomi Stein).

Welcome back to the blog!

I recently regained my energy after almost a year of illness and am really itching to get back to my creative life. I have had ideas bursting out of me and now I'll finally get to see them in person!!

It has been a really strange and difficult year, but I think the distance I gained from my creative work will prove valuable. I have a perspective I could have never earned from continuing to build off of my last concepts. During my hiatus, I completed a few simple little commissions that ended up being surprisingly challenging. I was working with different materials than I am comfortable with and the painting style was totally unusual for me. Those experiences opened up my range of ideas for new projects and reminded me that I am an artist of many mediums. I am still focused on oil painting, but have a renewed curiosity for mixing it up like I did in the early years.

I've never found myself in a position like this before. I sort of have a clean slate. All of my older work is now in the homes of customers or friends and I have a studio free of influence from the past...and I am really happy about it.

I took a look through my image archive today and wanted to post some work from different phases of my evolution...Here's a brief review of the last 5 years!