A ceramic frame which will eventually have a drawing in the inner space.
What has become pretty clear to me is this: Artists who use their work or others’ work to train an AI to spit out images for them to paint are completely missing the real value of what they potentially could get from working with an AI assistant.
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The tile, Nimue. In Japanese culture, wabi-sabi— to “embrace the imperfect,” is often a rationale for repairing broken pottery (kintsugi). With this philosophy there’s less trauma when damage occurs, often with a highlighting of the imperfection as a kind of journey or experience of the object. This tile had too much fragmentation and still would have to be fired again to stoneware temperatures that I’ve decided to use the pieces as glaze-testing pieces instead.
Heartbreak is only temporary pain as I scoop the shattered bits of tiles into the dustpan or repair kiln shelves from the bubbled bits of glass fused to their surfaces. My heart begins to mend from the many failures with every dried bit of greenware I dump back into the clay reclamation bucket. Because with every failure, I earn an experience which teaches me something new about my craft.
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Klaus' Greenman. 15" x 15". Red stoneware.
A dear friend of mine passed away last year and he left an enduring mark on my life....
Read MoreBeing an artist means sitting still to work on art for hours at a time to focus for a sustained period. It’s an absolutely essential component of making art (at least mine) and yet, it can be a bit contrary to one’s physical health to sit still for so long.
Here, I’m writing about my experience trying to dial in the right way to keep myself healthy and lean while still having enough time to get my work done and meet my deadlines.
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The valiant little spring clamp tried its best but alas!
My oak easel, bought back in the early 90s when I was just starting out as an illustrator, while sturdy, was really only meant for lightweight canvas duty or for smaller boards. So, when I started working on heavier panels, I had a problem with the tray slipping…
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The Meeting. Older women are wonderful mentors.
Mentors are super important! If you don’t have one or several, get thee some right away. And if you have the chance to mentor someone else, it could greatly and positively impact their life in ways that can’t be quantified.
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Little Kingdom, graphite; Arches mounted to hardboard, 12”. 2023.
I meet someone at a gathering and they find out I’m an Artist. Before I can get even one word out about what kind of work I do, they start telling me about a painting— a painting! they saw at some gallery or show or arts collective. But they didn’t buy it and now it haunts them. They don’t know how to track down the artist but they snapped a photo of the artwork. Breathlessly, with hope in their eyes, they ask me…
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Art collaborations are quite interesting. There’s Warhol & Basquiat, Dali & Buñuel, Björk & Barney, and the list goes on. Artists work together to stretch their abilities and techniques, and to gain important feedback about their work. In a collaborative visual artwork, you’re also “listening” to what the other artist is creating …
Read MoreHoly heckin’ heck. In one month, my life’s been turned upside down. I’ve never been an early morning person, but since we’ve gotten our chickens, getting out of bed at 530 to greet them at rosy-fingered dawn with musical wakey-wakeys and a tray of their favorite things …
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Sun streams in and illuminates the stained glass windows behind the stone sculpture of a saint. St. Joan on Arc Church, Hershey PA. Photo by Christine Chardo.
If I wasn’t dozing off, I was taking note of the art in this church. Morning light streamed into the floor-to-ceiling stained glass windows bursting with colored fragments, scattering light everywhere. Can we appreciate the aesthetics even though we no longer engage in the religious culture?
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We have been stewards of this dear log house for 20 years.
Laura Ingalls’ book and series, Little House on the Prairie, about her life as a pioneer, was an incredibly influential bit of literature for me in an important time in my life. Few books had such a lasting effect on me as this one did.
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Starting at the corners seems counterintuitive….
I found a great way to stretch canvases starting at the corners! According experts in restoration, it’s an archivally sound method that distributes the canvas’ tension evenly so as to avoid tension cracks in the painting’s corners.
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The Banshees of Inisherin considers what is the spirit of Ireland and how civil war breaks so much.
We sometimes hear people referring to their children and family surname as their “legacy” and this is an oft heralded achievement. But when artists use that word, legacy, it’s suspect. Is it because we’re not dead yet? Because we haven’t yet finished the work? Perhaps legacy is…
Read MoreA post about a commission of a series of 4 paintings tied together thematically by the “seasons”, done in my usual botanical style and content. So that means the images will be overflowing with plants and animals, particularly bugs, flowers, etc. Everything jockeying for a place onstage, tumbling and vying to be seen, interacting with the environment, living in their niches…
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My painting, Natural History, 1999, oil on canvas.
In 2023, my keyword is commitment. It’s not a very flashy word inspiring a lot of boldness or risk, but one that speaks of quiet grit. It’s a word that really describes what I feel is an appropriate focal point for my current thought.
You see, I know what burn-out is….
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I started working on weekends and summers when I turned 14. My very first job was cleaning hotel rooms. The cigarette smoke and weird smells of the aerosol cleaners weren’t a great combination (and people can be really gross), but I could walk to work and…
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Hanging in my current studio is one of the oldest gargoyles I’d ever made (1996?). Dark brown and lovely, Della Robbia clay is an “air dry” clay that can be heated in a kitchen oven to obtain a certain hardness but it would still dissolve in water.
Sometime in the mid-90s, I had the opportunity to visit Harlan Ellison and his wife Susan at their home in Thousand Oaks, CA, and what I remember most was the gargoyles they had hanging over the garage entrance. When I got home, I just had to try making some of my own….
Read MoreThere was a poster hanging in the hallway at the art college I attended that was a call for artists/ artisans to come to New York City to apprentice as a mason/ sculptor on one of the cathedrals there in the city.
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