-that-Apple-refuses-to-fix Mac) has died and has been sent on to the Apple Gods who will supposedly fix it or give me a new one, so I've been inspired to work towards backing up precious things. Or maybe I'm just bored and looking for projects. The sun was nice and bright outside so the colors came out really well. I'm quite fond of a few of them. They tell a sort of story to me looking back. I know they aren't great, but I think I do okay for never having had any kind of instruction. And some of it might make some nice wall art one of these days. When I am grown up, I think I'll paint the interior of my house a pale orange and hang some of this stuff up. I'm a big fan of the orange and blue contrast. Really it is the only warm/cool combination that I can manage to keep from turning a washed-out brown. When I have money again, I'm going to buy some more oil paints. I've squeezed out everything I can out of the old ones.
This one is called "The Morning After." Because of the teetering emotional state I was in at the time, I had the intense urge to stomp on it as it was drying...so...I did. Though I wasn't so bold as to stomp in the middle.
"The Insides" This is what it feels like in my stomach sometimes.
"Humphrey" I painted this with five tubes of paint on the back of a piece of plywood I found in the dumpster out of sheer boredom.
"Why You Stay"
"Still Life-Joy" This is the one still life that I like. I have about fifteen others that are really stupid looking. Though I did do a still life of my inhaler that was fairly amusing.
"Mirror"
"Sunday Morning--1992" This is what the front room of my house would look like if there were nothing in it. My mother would be thrilled. I was thinking beautiful and lonely and slightly anxious.
"What Might Have Been" This is my rainbow warrior. I love her. She has some sort of serenity in her uncertainty. She doesn't have the answers and she doesn't know if she's doing the right thing, but she's okay with that for now.
A copy of some Bonard painting
This one is called "Everybody Knows" and it has a story behind it. Toward the end of my last semester at Bard, there was this duo nude-modeling session that I went to. I had just stretched this huge canvass and was itching to use it. I was a little nervous because I'd never done a nude session before. So I got there early and set up my easel and waited. And these two women came in, stripped, and waited for the instructor to tell them what to do. They couldn't have been more different. The first was kind of timid, pale, contemplative, probably in her late twenties. The second was scary. She had tattoos covering half her body's surface area, everything that could be pierced (and I mean everything) was, and she had these icy-blue eyes and this sparkley opaque eyeshadow that sent chills up my spine. I think I recognized her from a childhood nightmare. There are two chairs set up, facing different directions and of course the second model picks the one that is directly facing me. And she just swaggered up to that chair and made herself comfortable...really comfortable. If she spread her legs any wider, she would have needed stirrups. I swear to God I could see her cervix. Everybody else was already set up and I just picked up my 50 pound easel and knocked my way over to the other side of the room. I didn't think I had delicate sensibilities, but I did not want to use my big old canvass to do an illustrated pelvic exam. Though, in the end, it really got me thinking about vulnerability and shame in a more visual way.
This is called "Hell, Yeah! Maura made a kick-ass stretched canvas!" This is what the above painting was on. You know, I think I may be prouder of this than any of my paintings themselves. It's like creating something out of nothing. You take some scraps of plywood, a few yards of canvas, four 1X3s, four quarter dowels, some nails, and a staple gun and there you have it.
This one is called "I'm Fine"
I tried to do this black and white reproduction of this famous painting, but now I can't remember which painting it was.
"Termination"
