The Ocean Eternal

Although I’ve lived in Washington most of my life, I have always considered myself a California girl at heart. It is only recently that I have realized the California I am referring to doesn’t actually exist; it is a collection of memories I’ve gathered like shells from the beach to reflect on later in this rainy state I call home. Nostalgia is a powerful feeling, and like most powerful feelings, words won’t do it justice. Suffice to say, this series of paintings is my attempt to show what I mean by My California.

Below is the current collection of ten paintings in this series that are available for sale as originals or limited edition Giclee prints. They are on exhibit July-September 2009 at DreamClinic Massage. I am offering an exclusive discount of 30% off original paintings for September only, the last month of the show. (prices listed to not reflect discount)
To purchase a painting or to order prints, please go to the Purchase Artwork page and follow the directions. Thanks!

Click image for a larger view

Title: Johnathan Learns to Fly
Medium: oil on canvas
Size: 36″x 36″
Price: $2,000
Purchase

Title: Kiss My Feet
Medium: oil on birch plywood
Size: 24″x 24″
Price: $500
SOLD

Title: Siren
Medium: oil on tile
Size: 14″x 14″
Price: $385
Purchase

Title: Evening on the Boardwalk, Santa Cruz
(the date is part of the painted image)
Medium: oil on canvas
Size: 28″x 22″
Price: $600
Purchase

Title: Learning the Lake
Medium: oil on wood panel
Size: 16″x 16″
Price: $400
Purchase

Title: Pacific Coast Highway Mosaic
Medium: oil on canvas
Size: 12″x 12″
Price: $225
SOLD

Title: Aruban Pelican
Medium: oil on canvas
Size: 20″x 16″
Price: NFS

Title: Made of Change
Medium: acrylic on canvas
Size: 24″x 30″
Price: $550
Purchase

Title: The Girls
Medium: oil on canvas
Size: 26″x 40″
Price: NFS
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Title: Audra’s Beach
Medium: oil on canvas
Size: 36″x 30″
Price: $1,200
Purchase

My drawing today didn’t get interesting until I admitted my mistakes,
Until I stopped trying to be perfect,
Until I let the picture have something to say–
responding to what was really there, instead of my
expectations,
assumptions,
and fear.
I have often felt as though my art is my child–
If that is true, I don’t want to treat it like Michael Jackson:
Driving it to a destiny of artifice
and performance without substance…
Caving in on itself.
Honesty and uncertainty are the truly interesting things.

The human things.

Mi Casa, a house in Aruba, oil pastel on paper, 9″x12″

My ocean series is being featured this summer at Dreamclinic Massage! The clinic has been named best of the best in the country for massage by Allure magazine, and listed among the best places in the city for massage in 2007 by both Seattle Magazine and Seattle Metropolitan Magazine. The newly-remodeled space will be showing ten of my paintings in its downstairs lobby, all will be available for sale.

Pacific Coast Highway Mosaic, oil on canvas 12″x12″, 2008

Dreamclinic massage is located on 65th just west of Roosevelt near the freeway.

Hours of operation are:
Monday-Friday 8:30 am to 9:00 pm
Saturday 9:30 am to 7:00 pm
Sunday 9:30 am to 6:00 pm

This is a detail from a self portrait I painted in 2007. It is now buried in the ocean, in a sense, because I painted this over it:

The self-portrait had been an assignment in Zhi Lin’s class at the UW. He was a very exacting instructor, and because of this I learned much from that one class. But that also means I spent about 60 hours on this painting… and while that’s nothing to some artists, to me it felt like years. I have always felt that I capture the essence of what I’m painting best when I work quickly and keep it fresh. There is always the battle to not overwork a piece and “close it down,” as they would say in critiques. Well, the self-portrait had closed down for me, and maybe I was also sensitive to my brother’s comment that I looked sad in it. I tried to explain to him that the expression is not SAD but REFLECTIVE, but the fact remained that I didn’t particularly want it hanging around for years after I finished it. So, one day I just started slashing across it with turquoise colors and experienced a sort of elation as the thing that was in my heart jumped out onto the canvas. THIS is what I want to be looking at: in just a few hours, an image had emerged of my friend Audra’s favorite beach in Aruba painted from the memory of my 10-day visit there.

This was a fun venue to show my work. The coffee shop is a converted house that features live music every weekend, and serves beer and wine as well as coffee and tea. I remember seeing the work of AJ Power here some years back and was very impressed. I’ve since seen him popping up all over town, from his open studio in Ballard on their Second Saturday Artwalk to the Bellevue Arts Museum artsfair (this year taking place July 24-26). He inspired me to follow in his footsteps to book a show at C&P… hey, I figured it worked for him!

Plus, they had this great little orange room that made all the colors really pop!

Paintings on view at Fremont Jewelry Design during the month of January. Opening reception Friday, Jan. 2nd, 6-9pm.

3510 Fremont Place N, Seattle WA, 98103. 206-547-5551

Artist Statement:
In my continuing exploration of the ocean through the medium of oil paint, I’m reflecting on all the roads I’ve traveled, and the ocean that I always find my way to at the end of them.
In the past seven years, I’ve lived with forty people in ten different locations. I’ve worked as a barista in fifteen different coffee shops, and as a graphic designer for three different companies. With all this chaos and flux, the eternal, unchanging nature of the ocean has always lured me and felt like my home. Again and again, its waves emerge as my expression whether I’m painting in a friend’s basement, barefoot on the porch of another rented house, after-hours in the storefront of a frame shop, or crammed into a 5’x5’ school studio.
In this way, these paintings are a translation of the ocean through the eyes of someone who lives far from it. They are full of the longing one feels for an old lover who has become more precious because of their absence.

Sophie picked up her painting yesterday, and was very excited with the results. She immediately exclaimed “I love it!” with a big smile on her face, and beyond that: “There’s not a single thing I don’t like about this painting!” Now, that’s what I like to hear! I love being able to bring that kind of happiness to someone with my work. It’s a moment like that I say to myself “this is why I do it!”

How do you describe that moment…
you step back from the easel as you’ve done hundreds of times already,
your lower back is knotted up and your knees are stiff,
And it sneaks up on you– the relaxed exhale, the feeling of balance.
Nothing left to do but paint the edges and sign it!

One thing that’s interesting to note is that the first time I painted this piece was about four years ago. When I look at the two side-by-side, it looks as though the girls in the picture have aged. I suppose, then, that confirms what they say that every painting has an element of self-portrait in it!

Creative inception, chaotic exasperation, reductive resolution.

(And at this point, tempted to paint the fish out entirely…)