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   Welcome to my blog! I'll be posting thoughts about art, photos, happenings, and other things that strike me--and hopefully my readers--as interesting. And please visit my website by clicking the link to the right--thanks!

   Also please check out my second blog, The Painting Archives to see older (pre-2004) paintings for sale.


Thursday, February 26, 2009
  new painting


This painting is called Interior, and is 30" square. Like several others in my upcoming exhibit, it evolved out of visual impressions of the heavily textured old walls of Catalonia. It's also another painting that has many fine lines drawn into its surface, and many subtle shifts in shades of white--not easy to see in a photo.

I spent today dealing with the many small chores needed to get my paintings ready to deliver to Madison tomorrow--taking a few last photos, cleaning up edges, putting on wires, wrapping the work in plastic. All of it is necessary--if not my favorite studio activities. It really feels good to arrive at this point, though. It's been a fairly intense few months since finding out about this exhibition opportunity. I'll be happy tomorrow to load everything into my car and drive it to Madison, and I'm really looking forward to the show, which opens a week from tomorrow (Grace Chosy Gallery.)
 
Sunday, February 22, 2009
  new small painting

This is Niche, 7.5"x7" done with mixed media on paper. Small but intense. It is actually less intense and more nuanced in real life than in the photo (I have trouble capturing true reds with my camera, for some reason.) It is off at the framer's right now, and is the last of the small works on paper that I'm preparing as part of my upcoming exhibit in Madison.

I've been really enjoying Facebook, and connecting via introductions from friends with a number of artists who are either new to me or with whom I have never corresponded before. It's actually expanding a little faster than I can keep up with..but I know that at some point I'll visit everyone's blog and website and make some personal contact. It's something I look forward to.
 
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
  framed


I've been having a few more of the works on paper framed from my September residency in Catalonia. This is Ruin, mixed media on paper, 12.5"x10." It's inspired by the old abandoned barns and houses in the village and here and there around Farrera, where I was staying. These old, collapsed structures of wood and stone were not the eyesores we might consider them here, but seemed instead to be gracefully returning to the elements. I loved their complex, weathered textures, and the contrast between their sunlit exteriors and the dark interiors, a jumble of slate and beams. In abstracted form, this is the visual impression I took away with me, and it has found its way into a number of recent paintings.
 
Saturday, February 14, 2009
  new small painting


This is a small (12" square) painting called White Landscape, which refers to the rocky, arid aspects of the part of Catalonia I visited in September. I have spent the past week going through all of the work, including this painting, that I plan to hang in my upcoming exhibit at Grace Chosy Gallery in Madison, WI (opens March 6.) I've been choosing the work that best relates to my time in Spain--several of the works on paper I did while there--and a number of oil on panel works that have evolved out of the experience. I've also been making last minute treaks and adjustments of color, cleaning up edges, and taking photos. It's an exciting time, and also a time of self-reflection and self-evaluation as the work merges into a cohesive body for presentation to the public.
 
Monday, February 09, 2009
  new small paintings

I've been working on some small paintings for several exhibits in the works. Above is are three from the White Paintings series, 10"x8" each.

In Barcelona this past September I was very moved by a huge white/off white, heavily textured painting by Antoni Tapies in the Contemporary Art Museum. It is a very minimalist painting--no imagery at all, even in an abstract sense. Its presence and power come from its monumental scale and subtle textural shifts--and to a great degree from its extremely pale and haunting color. I wonder what it is about white (and subtle variations of white) that has captivated me, and is emerging in quite a few of my paintings (I was heading in this direction prior to seeing that Tapies painitng...that was just an added push.) Perhaps I love it because it creates such a quiet atmosphere, in which the slightest whisper of color, line or texture becomes significant.

On a completely different topic...I've recently joined Facebook and I'm finding that it really is a great way to network and keep up with all kinds of things in the art world, as well as with old and new friends and their lives. (And yeah, I'm probably way behind the times in waiting this long...)
 
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
  new small painting
I finished this painting today. It is 24"x18" and can be seen in an earlier version in my last post to the far left. So far, it's untitled, but it brings to my mind the textures of old walls in the Pyrenees.

This week all my focus has been on my small paintings, and I've been happy with the results. Most seem strongly related to the work I did while in residency in Spain. Perhaps my ability to work with this format was strengthened there, where out of necessity I worked on small, individual sheets of paper. I'm also still feeling strong influence from the rich visual textures that I noticed everywhere in the village and mountains where I was staying.
 

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       Rebecca Crowell