studio shot

This is what the progress looks like on my piece for the Outside of the Box show; I'll start painting next! (And I just put the branch in to see what the composition is looking like - I don't collage & color & paint around it, so it's in & out alot.) You can see the sycamore seed pod that's been coated with acrylic medium on the table above the piece and my dog Mopar laying on the floor, wishing I would play with him...

basic box composition

This is where the Outside of the Box project is now - I've got the basic composition laid out & I'll work on putting it all together today, as well as prepping & teaching, and seeing if I can make headway on the other projects in the studio as well...

where my heart is

Working on my Outside of the Box piece (this is the photo that will be in this box) & my mind is racing ahead to a new series... likely showing in November 2011 when I'm featured at the Kennedy Gallery. I'm seeing pieces similar in construction to this current piece (I've already begun what my daughter dubbed my stick collection.)

The imagery will be a little different than what I've been doing lately - I'm looking at homes and exploring the concept of "home is where your heart is" and all that might entail. I don't want to say too much yet but I do want to put out a call for anyone within driving distance that has a "home" that I might want to photograph...

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outside of the box

I've been wanting to work more three-dimensionally lately and when I saw the call for Placer Arts 4th Annual Outside of the Box show, I was completely ready to jump in. So I got a box, which is 15"x15"x3" and almost immediately knew what I wanted to do! The deadline is only about three weeks away, so I finally got started with the physical aspect of working yesterday, which is what you can see here.

With my paltry woodworking skills, I managed to drill a properly sized hole to put my little tree branch into - I am so proud of myself! Next step is to gesso & work more on the final composition. I'll post photos of progress, have no fear...

still sketching

sketch book

Some days feel less successful than others...

putting it out there

One of the hardest things I do is submit my work to juried shows. It's nerve wracking, handing my soul to a stranger to judge, hoping that they'll like what I do, validate me, accept me. It doesn't matter how many times I've gotten into a show or how many times I've been rejected, it's always the same gut-wrenching rock in the pit of my stomach feeling.

This time the show is St. John's Religious Art Festival, a biannual show here in Sacramento that's been going on for nearly seventy-five years. Last time I was not only accepted, but awarded first place for my Mustard Tree piece but this time the curator is Scott Shields, the Chief Curator for the Crocker Art Museum - no pressure there at all...

So I'm dropping off these works today to be judged and scrutinized and I'll try not to be too anxious about the whole thing.

studio work

And so the saga of producing pieces for the 20/20 Show in May begins...

sunny day

Feb 27, 11
Kaseberg Creek near Bear Dog Park
afternoon - warm in sun, clear, no breeze
out with Deidre, Garret & the dogs

(Type 55 film, over exposed looking positive means a properly exposed negative)

Took alot of coaxing to get Moey to cross the little plank bridge across the creek - silly pup.

yosemite creatures

new series debut

I am slowly breaking down the creative barriers - deadlines are good for that, actually, and today I am meeting a deadline. I will be submitting the piece above for the upcoming 20/20 Show in May at the Kennedy Gallery Art Center. The main gist of the show is that a whole bunch of artists create a series of small works and show twenty of them on 20th Street at the gallery. The show started at the Twentieth Street Gallery a few years ago as the 50/50 Show, with each artist creating fifty works in fifty days, no small feat. Now that Twentieth Street Gallery is closed, the show's founder, Joannie Ferry, is overseeing it's transition to the Kennedy Gallery. And though I am a resident artist at Kennedy, and I will most certainly get into the juried show, I still have to submit my sample and theme and paperwork just like anyone else.

Of course I didn't just create one piece - even when I submitted to the 50/50 a couple years back, I created a couple samples, chose the one I liked best for submission and kept the others to help me remember what I'd done. The gallery holds onto the sample and I do best with a reference piece to keep me on track. So this second piece is my reference. It will also be part of a demo I'm doing in Placerville this coming Sunday - another deadline I need to prepare for. What would I do without deadlines?

playing in the backyard

Feb 6, 2011
afternoon
backyard
warmish, a little breezy
clear skies
shade already fully envelopes the yard

Finally testing the PX100 Silver Shade film with my SX70 camera. After carefully reading all the tips & tricks for working with this funky little film, I seem to have done alright for the first shot - the low light of the shade slows the camera's shutter too much but it's produced a double image that is actually a little charming.

I took a tip I'd found earlier for protecting the film from light as it first ejects from the camera by taping the dark slide to the camera, and then I develop by turning the film face down on my journal & keep it warm enough by placing my hand on top - having cold hands means the film stays in the right temp range (63-74*). Next shot of pistache tree branches looks nice.

I just read about the possibilities of emulsion lifts with this film, so I'll take a few more like this to try that with at a later date.

I take another photo of succulents in a little better light, leaving Moey on the other side of the pool fence. He gets down into a play position and barks at me.

I'm discovering that keeping my hand in one position the whole development time creates dark spots from the heat. This time I try to keep it warm but not too warm - a bit of a trick. It's funny to see the images go from a deep cobalt to the final sepia tones. I'll scan all these today & try to store them vertically, as that is one suggested way to prevent fading. Scans will be my insurance policy to preserve the images & test my success.

It's good to get in the journal and get into a purely experimental creative exercise - I've been a little stuck creatively & in the studio, I think I need the discipline of the journal to help get me back on track.

I got a pretty neat shot of the dogs - the light is starting to fade a bit & mosquitoes are quickly becoming a pest. The warmer weather means I need to restock the tub pond after the last raccoon raid in the fall - nothing like fish to take care of mosquito larvae.

Moey sits pretty still but not quite enough in this light - why I thought it would be better with Sparky, I don't know.

Suddenly I've taken eight shots & this pack of Silver Shade film is gone. Next pack will be for a sunnier time...

branchinecta lynchi

I have been learning about fairy shrimp! First I learned you can tell male & females apart by their antennae and then I learned you can tell different species apart by their antennae... that would be the first set of arm looking things coming out of this guy's head - and I've also learned that there are many photos on the web that are mis-labeled or labeled in a very generic manner. And my client for this commission is very attached to these particular little male vernal pool fairy shrimp, and she knows them very well, so this sketch has to be just right, which I totally understand. I hope the third time is the charm!

seagull sketch

completed prophecy

The holiday busy-ness is over and I'm working on cleaning & organizing, catching up on bookkeeping and all that kind of fun stuff - and in the process, I realized that I never posted the final image for "Prophecy of Hope."

This is my largest piece to date - so big I have to beg others for help to transport it - it was shown in the Art of Christmas exhibit at Oak Hills Church in Folsom and is now being stored with a friend. Hopefully, it will make it's way to my midtown studio, unless my friend & his wife decide they can't live without it...

working working

A shot of my studio as I madly produce fifteen new works for Kennedy Gallery this month (there are more on a table outside of this shot, if you're counting.) Watch for the debut of these new works soon...

fairy sketch

For a commission piece for a vernal pool specialist, she likes the male vernal pool fairy shrimp because they're fiesty...



P.S. So apparently I've sketched the wrong shrimp! Back to the drawing board. ;)

revelation

I had an amazing day in the studio today - I made significant progress on "Prophecy" but that wasn't the biggest deal -

As part of this final part of the process, I spend a significant amount of time just staring at the piece, making decisions on what to do or waiting for something to strike me. Sometimes things just strike me and I do it. For this particular piece, I've been a little worried that God hadn't been as involved as I had hoped.

I've been studying a book about Finding Divine Inspiration and this has really been on my mind a lot. At one point the author, J. Scott McElroy, says something to the effect that he doesn't always feel God's presence while he's working, that he'll just ask God to work with him and trust that it happens. I'd been trying to trust but worried that I wasn't letting God be a part of this while I really wanted him to be - I know, pretty thick-headed, but hey, we all are sometimes.

So today I was just trying to paint, not think too much, because I find I do much better that way, though it's a fine line to not thinking enough and messing things up, too. First I had decided to create the green glazed section to the left side, it was something that had come to me earlier, and still seemed like a good idea this morning, so I went with it. Then I started staring. Wondering, is this a good thing? Or did I screw up?

It still seemed like a good thing but not complete, it seemed to need a thin red line between the green and whatever the rest became - and another one across the top, sort of around the curvy horizon line. What? Red lines? I don't use red (almost never, anyway.) What would that look like? Why? And then I saw it - then it hit me, it would be a red cross, red like blood, the sacrifice that the prophecy of the Christ would fulfill and on the other side of the cross is green, new life. This wasn't my idea, I've never done anything quite like this in my work before, but I'll be doing it in this one - the revelation of it hit me so hard it nearly brought tears to my eyes. God is involved, just as I had hoped.

prophecy of hope

first stage of collage work done

After months of preparation I've finally begun to put together my piece for the Covenant Artists' Art of Christmas show at Oak Hills Church.

This has been tough for me - maybe that's not the right word - I've felt an unusual amount of pressure to do this piece justice to the concept: it's based on scripture prophesying the coming of Christ, which is the tie to Christmas.

There are actually several chapters from Isaiah and some from Jeremiah that are in the physical work - you can see it down the left side of the work in progress in these photos.

aerial view of my work table

So throughout all these passages, Israel and people in general are referred to as trees and forests. Isaiah talks about how God is going to punish Israel for worshiping other gods by burning them down like a wildfire in a forest and letting the king of Babylon chop them down - then chopping down the king of Babylon. It's in this context that God then promises the hope of Immanuel, or God With Us. Then Isaiah 11:1 says, "Out of the stump of David's family will grow a shoot - yes a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root."

Being a tree fanatic, these scriptures really resonate with me & I wanted to find a way to illustrate them, but having an idea and then going out and trying to photograph it is a pretty tall order sometimes.

first layer of paint - working on an easel now

So that's where the pressure started -and I decided that I was going to do this large four-by-four-foot piece just for kicks. It's actually the biggest piece I've done so far and after I had the panel custom made, I discovered it doesn't quite fit in my car! Thankfully, Phil, my friend who built it, was able to bring it to my house so I could work on it and I'm sure I'll find some way to deliver it for the show & get it to my midtown studio for display later...

And then there's the focal point of the work - not a photograph, but the stump with the shoot - marking another shift in my work, at least this time. At this point, I'm finally feeling like it's all coming together, but it has certainly been stepping stones of faith to get to this point.

I'm actually used to this final stepping stone - having all the painting come together and getting done in time - of course, there's the little part of getting it to the show, but I'll figure that out in the next week, I'm sure - since that's when I have to have this done!

a dog's tree house

As one of the studio artists at the Kennedy Gallery Art Center, I was asked to paint a dog house to be sold as a benefit for a local rescue group called Homeward Bound. Homeward Bound rescues and adopts out Golden Retrievers - many of you know that my hear belongs to another breed, but how could I say no to any dog?

So here I was, crazy busy with a hundred things, looking at a used Dogloo trying to figure out what I could squeeze into my already tight schedule...

Of course I saw trees! The spaces between the faux ice bricks instantly translated to tree trunks and branches and the idea of a dog tree house was born.


My first step was to scrub and prime the Dogloo, which I managed to do just four days before my deadline -

Three days to deadline and I had the time to start the trees themselves - having only a rudimentary plan in my mind, I started laying paint to Dogloo, without any sketches or real idea of where I was going - not at all the way I normally work, but then again, I don't usually paint dog houses, either...

I had started this project feeling like it was a chore - yes I had said I would do it, but it was more like one of those instances of "it seemed like a good idea at the time" but not so much when I had to work it into everything else I was already committed to.

But somewhere along the way, painting trees without any plan, it became fun...

The day before my deadline was the day it all had to happen - it was a completely free day for getting this project done - the deadline day was Second Saturday, when I spend the afternoon to evening at my midtown studio while crowds of people come through for the monthly art party in Sacramento. This particular Saturday also included several family errands and complications (like so many Saturdays do) so Friday was work day.

No makeup, no worries about hair, paint clothes & thankfully nice weather to paint on the back patio, building the greenery of ground and leafiness, adding a couple little birds with acrylic transfers and more shades of greens...

Sparky was content to hang out in the backyard, chase of birds and a neighbor cat, roll in the grass and leave me alone for most of the day. But in typical Stafford fashion, by mid afternoon she wanted to be in the middle of what I was doing and by the time I was done, she was trying to sit on my lap, or my foot, or lean against me & generally hinder my progress.

Finally, as the light began to fade in the backyard, I had added the final layers of yellow-green and then blues & lavender for sky, and the finishing touches of blues in the trees to create the depth of color that would make me happy with what I had done.

Saturday morning I was ready to varnish the Dogloo Tree House, but the last bits of blue glazes weren't dry yet...

Sometime around noon I was able to put on the first coat of varnish, the second coat at 1 p.m. - two coats would have to suffice as my plan was to be at the Kennedy before 3 p.m....

Not too long after three, the dog Tree House was installed on the front lawn strip at the Kennedy Gallery, ready for midtown's Second Saturday Artwalk. Before the night was over, we had a strong interest in the Tree House; if it's not sold by the end of today, it goes to Homeward Bound's 10th Annual Kibble and Bids Event, either way, dogs in need of rescue benefit & I can feel good about using my talents to help others.