For some weeks now, Nicole and I have been attending our painting 'group' by ourselves. Dallas has attended twice or maybe three times if my memory is correct, and Janessa from CA has come once or twice. Nicole and I have been the only constants in our little project. Thus is the nature of the 'art group'.
This week though, Terry Shay came to join us with her art endeavors and as usual the evening started with talk. Terry is also a graduate of Fontbonne whom I met near the end of my time there, while she went on to graduate a few semesters later. Terry works as a freelance illustrator, and as adjunct faculty at St. Louis University and if I absorbed this correctly, her goal for now is to create five large paintings that she will show at Boogaloo, a restaurant in Maplewood. Terry is vibrant, extremely humorous, and eccentric. A new dynamic was created with her presence. We launched the evening comparing stories of childbirth- where Terry re-counted and re-enacted how she gave birth to her son Ben who was coming out of the birth canal, the nurse didn't believe her and wanted to start an IV... and ultimately in the end the baby popped out and was barely caught by the hospital staff.
It was a slow start with the new dynamic and I didn't know quite where my goals were regarding my aloe painting. My mind had been hazy the entire day with not knowing what to do because I was faced with the dilemma of having three different pieces that were brewing either in my mind or on canvas. In not focusing on one thing, I accomplished nothing during the day but kept myself busy procrastinating in one form or another.
I brought my three 'pieces' to CA (Chesterfield Arts) not knowing which direction to take. My aloe painting was almost complete, and I was in that stuck mode where you don't want to mess it up so you are afraid to put anything else on the canvas. I have a commission that I haven't even started on that is becoming a very large monkey on my back, and I have a third piece that I have started in my duality series with a triplicate image of Madelaine which is to be shown upside-down. I would like to get going on the latter piece as well as the commission, while concurrently building new medium sized stretchers for "Duality". I also brought one of my sketches on a large canvas for "Duality" that was in competition with the aloe painting, and am currently trying to decide if I should start over with a new sketch on this piece, tweak it a little, or carry it through.
As in the past 7 or so weeks, I only wanted to work on "Aloe" and completely forgot to even ask about any of the other pieces I brought. While we talked mainly of love and marriage, I tried to work out the hand and arm issues, feeling in the end that they might be done. Nicole thought the new skirt color was good- although I think we decided that I missed its original color. I re-worked some of the background where I had re-drawn grid, and I put a dark glaze over Erica's pants in a purple- brown. I decided that the last thing that I needed to do was to work on Erica's portrait a bit more, and I needed to determine if the shadow color on her neck was what I wanted it to be.
In the meantime, Terry worked on stretching a square sized canvas and gesso-ing the canvas with a clear gesso which I thought was interesting. She told the story of how it ended with her last ex. She said she sat on a mosquito net in Greece, looked up at her beau, and knew it was over. Funny how you can know these things and that one wrong move could shatter a relationship. Really, we know that this was not the reason, but rather, this was the straw that broke the camels back. I will always think of her when I see mosquito nets now.
Terry said that next week she would try to bring her friend Kit, who paints on mattresses and is represented by William Shearburn (gallery). I asked if she would carry in her mattress... I get a little uneasy with new people and new situations at times. However, I was happy that we would possibly be expanding our horizons.
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