3rd annual art-a-thon at LRS

I am very happily tired.

It was a very productive, enjoyable weekend for me. Saturday started, after having trained 3 times this week, with a bike ride up queen anne hill and a rehearsal for the fashion show I’m doing on Thursday. I was exhausted before the art-a-thon even began, and my performance, though well received and wisely put to forgiving music and shameless nakedness, was less than technically stellar.

Aside from performing Saturday evening, doing a wee bit of art modeling and working out on the silks a bit to get some pictures, I focused on one large project – painting an 8 foot by 4 foot panel. And paint that panel I did, after what I realized had been nearly 5 months without painting. ugh! Unacceptable.

It’s mostly finished, has a few things I’d like to smooth out. I painted a majority of it in very low light, using iridescent paints along with regular colors. It was beautiful, subtle, dark, and shifting. I really liked it.

This morning, when I walked into the studio and saw it in direct natural light, it was literally beaming. The iridescent colors I thought I had used as accent had actually permeated through the entire painting. The whole thing literally glowed with light, sharply contrasted by the black gesso I’d primed the panel with. The contrast held an organic sense of familiarity, seemed fitting to my life for some reason.

I’ve found as I’ve continued with my bloodwork that the blood is what solidifies the paintings. Once it’s pretty much finished with regular paint, I start a pass with the blood gel where it feels appropriate, and expressions I’m not sure about start to make sense. It softens rough lines, adds depth where the color is too flat, and offers an almost universal transitional color. The more I use it the more a part of me the process seems to become. Sounds like a winner to me.

There were all sorts of personal revelations, heartfelt interactions, people appreciated, and missed. I don’t need to get into those too much really. This art-a-thon was much more emotionally balanced for me than last year, or the year before. It was pleasant, secure and solid. I said pretty things to people and people said pretty things to me, it was a supportive, loving atmosphere where art and life was being conjured and encouraged. I adore the feeling of being surrounded by artists doing their thing. It’s an event I wouldn’t miss for the world.

The most emotional portion of the weekend for me was the closing ceremony, much as it was last year, when I adhered my contribution “to long goodbyes” to the catcher of dreams at the studio. In doing so, I put to rest a faintly cast shadow, one with the gritty, translucent fade only a year of time can produce. It felt good to let that experience pass through me as gently as it did, and to pass along another of the few remnants from a gracefully dissolving ghost.

So very much to look forward to.

•