The Assemblages

I have been quite a busy gal and should really be in bed right now tending to this frog in my throat. But i realized i haven't posted and i really want to continue with my reflections of painting series. I've been working pretty hard on my brain and my thoughts and getting it all out visually and written....my journal has been getting almost daily recounts of my thoughts and visions. I like my way of working with my new piece,with my rules of loose and tight. And I keep thinking about adding the object soon. I added old paintings as objects but I think I really need to find the metaphorical object that speaks vulnerability. Here is a sweet series I did in around 1994-97. Fondly I got to revisit my Musical Chair piece that has unfortunately lost the groom, but I also think that that was also meant to be, be it the metaphorical object of that piece.

photos....1987

I am not a great photographer. I will admit it. I feel too shy to photograph people except my poor students. I had to take a photo class in order to get certified to teach and it really was one of the greatest classes I ever took at Towson. I found away to shy away from my shyness of photographing people and simply used myself as the model. It also motivated me to develop my film as soon as I could because I had no idea what my photo's really looked liked until then. I loved the timer and the tri-pod. I was living back home after my big year of poverty in the big shitty....and installation became my love of the basement. I transported my ankhs from 27th street and took over the massive space. My poor parents had no idea what was up with me. So here we are....sorry to not be writing enough these days...big paper work...taxes..divorce stuff and grades have taken over my life....but I am still secretly painting..even if its just in my head on some days.

1990...the David Salle period

I know I'm going backwards.....the period of my work that I am reflecting and writing about have no order or reason behind them except these are the works that I am currently thinking about. I have started to paint in my studio and with each brush stroke memories of frustration of getting the consistency of paint right on the smooth canvas....if I can get that one right. We take steps backward when we don't paint. So I"m thinking about 1990 and me living on Baltimore Street in the Artist Housing. It is the last year of my being single before marriage number 1. I have nothing but gray outside my windows. Abandoned store fronts...in fact the old Turkish baths were across the street from my painting/living studio. I was taking a life drawing class at night at MICA with Rex Stevens and I was ready to mixed them into my paintings. The definition were fading away and the image vocabulary was developing. My favorite artist at that time was David Salle. He had been for a while after a hate at first site!But I could not turn away and really became intrigued by the juxtapositions of the everyday with emotional as well as the random.

Day 1 in the Painting Studio

Wow what a day...its currently 7:54 and I started around 11 this morning, taking a break to go out for brunch...plus some other house hold duties...so lets minus a good hour and a half not working in my studio today! Not bad. My walls were bare this morning and now I have 5 shape paintings started. I've decided to work on the theme of loose and tight....for each loose procedure there will be a controlled tight procedure. So one, cut out random shapes : loose; two, press edges and sew: tight; stretch and gesso...simply a needed procedure so this doesn't count; project pattern: tight, paint it loosely....that was today. I'm working on an entire series that addresses vulnerability with these shape paintings. I wanted to get away form the ordinary, away form the square or rectangle. I wanted to incorporate sewing in what ever form I could. I see sewing back in to these at some stage. The pattern is simply to get me use to painting again. I have to go to Utrecht tomorrow for new brushes and stand oil for my medium concoctions. It feels so good to be here in this place. Above our pics in order including my idea sketches of water towers that will be my main character as I speak about vulnerability.

10% Goes to Haitian Relief!

I'm having a donation deal in my jennyjen shop : $5 of every sale till the end of January will go to either Wyclef Jean's Yele Haiti Foundation or the Red Cross. I'm still doing some research on both organizations and will post my results as I begin to collect donations. I want to contribute to the best resource! I'm updating my shop all week to include everything I currently have. So keep checking in! Here are some my favorites that are now currently for dale in the shop:

!992....the beginning of the complex levels in paint

I think 1992 is my favorite year in terms of the growth of my paintings. I really started to show my work around town and began to really play with layers...layers of color, pattern, imagery, text and then of course the delivery of complex content. I had been collecting my vocabulary of images, not very consciously, in fact more aesthetically, I collected. I loved to play with putting images together that I thought were absurd or very different and found a whole new form of therapy for myself when I began to find deep meaning and observation of what was going =on inside my head. Here are my benchmarks for 1992...a very productive year!

More reflections on Painting...the Minimal Assemblage period

In 1987 I moved to Bolton hill where I lived with two other Artists and one was a found object sculptor who liked to collect....and collect...but never really did anything with this collection of found objects, discarded wood and building materials...so I decided to play and created a small series of works. One actually got into Artscape that Eric Fishel curated, my first acceptance into a juried show after college! This series is based on Apartheid that was still quite strong in 1987 and I still couldn't believe such treatment of humans was happening in this modern age...still can't believe what is still going on...but onto the art. I really loved most of this work. My favorite two are the blue painting with the window screen titled "pink" and the darkest green and white pieces with the perfect separation of this gorgeous piece of discarded wood titled "Apartheid". I've been reflecting and looking back at my work and I see myself taking from each favorite period of mine and throwing it all up onto canvas. I have these ideas in this head that just keep spinning...can't wait to see what happens.

Loving this Band...even if its a bunch of damn hippies

So I say this in jest cause I know deep down I am a damn hippy myself. Knew that the day my grumpy old grand pa called them hippies those "no good for nothing long hairs" that we use to see in Hagerstown MD of all places back in the very early 70's....any who, I want to play my violin again in a collaborate band that has fun! This looks like a good place to start when finding new mentors. I can't get this song out of my head for the life of me, it just makes me feel so damn happy!

1989 ...the year of the definition

I thought I would continue my reflection of my painting career after getting some positive jolts in the brain for reassurance for why I need to go back to painting. My new decade has begun with great reflections and me being very adamant about "no excuses" just do it and stop complaining. I am happy to report that tonight the office has been cleared to a small corner of my old sweatshop, freeing up two major walls ready for paint! Yes, I mean it...my painting studio! All I need is a little help in the muscle power to bring up my drywall walls and masonite from the basement to protect my walls and floors and my painting cabinet! And I'm ready to go! Anyway, here are some of my paintings from what I think was a pretty good benchmark..1989. I was living in Bolton Hill at the time, in this amazing apartment with high ceilings and I was teaching Elementary school art. I started to go through the book room and finding many books that I remembered from childhood. I found this old dictionary and I wanted to begin questioning these definitions that I remember as I child, was the Bible of truth....no lies, only the facts of the what each word means....and so I began to put my imagery together with what I thought of each word...and this is what I got....

The New Sweat Shop is done!!!!!

Pictures tell all....just need to get that stupid TV out of there and we're done!