SENDING OFF TO SAN DIEGO!
I was recently asked by a work friend (aka excellent human=), who is soon to be the most recently verified owner/exhibitor of osTRAnderArt, to help create an extraordinary space with some large art for her San Diego home. It has been a while since I have been able to work with a buyer on a commission that is purposely built for an existing environment. Artists can sometimes feel pressure when creating a painting that must, at least, satisfy the one person who is buying it, unseen… it can be creatively restricting and challenging! For me, it’s all the latter. I really enjoy using various inputs & constraints combined with likes & preferences to create elegant solutions. I try to live this passion almost every day in what I do, in and out of the art studio.
Does anyone remember bufeo and surface tension? Both were the outcome of experiments collaborating with local buyers in Northern California on a commission for their homes…
I just loved the process and results of each of these!
My latest creation, fantasy carousel, was born the same way… albeit it “virtually” this time around! =) After looking at the room via Facetime, studying the wall space, lighting, and other black, white, and red objects in the room, I had a vision for what to create!
I first covered a 48″ x 30″ gallery wrapped canvas in enamel for the distinctive texture I’ve been trying to master lately. I think I have finally reached my comfort zone for working with this medium in a multitude of ways. One way I have been continuing to experiment with is painting over dried and cracked enamel. In fact, I have never completely recolored over an entire surface with an another full layer of paint. So that was the stretch goal in this project… what would a blacked-out enamel surface reveal? I couldn’t be more pleased with the results…
I still didn’t know how I was going to bring in the white and red, but I just loved the black! It gave a very carbon-y, burnt-wood vibe. You can see in the pic above that I contemplated using brushes… but in the end fantasy carousel got nothing but improvised ninja swipes on top of this luscious black base!
Instead of loading up the surface with puddles of paint as done in past ninja swipe efforts, I created a ‘launching-tray’ from which I would flick, snap, and toss my paint across the black background. Net effect – glorious ninja swipe tails and streams… and only glorious ninja swipe tails and streams! The pic below is just following this very fantastical session; you can see the wet paint settling in to the surface…
I let it dry and then hung on the wall so I can back away and see if it needed any further work after this first session…
NOPE! =)
I decided it was ready for a signature. At this point I wanted to share the creation with my buyer to ensure she was loving it before locking it in with the final coat of resin on top. She was elated and so away I proceeded with one of my favorite steps… pouring glass!
As I pondered the final imagery for a name, I saw a constellation of fantastical figurines delicately circling around each other in a dance of dependency, like the objects suspended and intertwined within a carousel or mobile… it made me think of how we are each members of several various carousels in life; each either balanced, or not, with the impacts we impart on others and others on us. Aspiration, Inspiration, Respiration, and sometimes Desperation ensues… depending on which fantasy carousel we entertain with our presence.
Once it was named and complete I had what turned out to be the biggest challenge of this project… how would I transport to San Diego from Folsom, CA? My previous long-distance shipping experience was to Seattle, WA a couple years ago, but it did not have the fragile cracked enamel surface… I felt up to the challenge and set out to build a shipping container that would protect this beautiful piece. After engineering a solution, gathering materials, packaging it up with hanging hardware and a Certificate of Authenticity, I was off to UPS to find the best way to send…
Turns out, prices have gone up quite a bit in the last couple years! (who’d’f thought?!) I didn’t want to commit on the buyers behalf for such a large expense (think $300+) and so I said we would figure out another way. As is always the case, the universe provides… a solution presented itself and so tomorrow my first ever hired assistant, and temporary private art smuggler, is transporting this beauty 500 miles to it’s new home. =)
I can’t wait to receive back pictures of it hanging in it’s forever space! Thank you, Lena, for your awesome support! <3
I now have work up and down the entire border of all three Pacific coast states! Who will be the next osTRAnderART owner to fill in their home state to this map? =)
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“fantasy carousel”
| Date of Creation: | September, 2023 |
| Medium: | Enamel, Acrylic, Resin |
| Material: | Canvas |
| Size: | 48″ x 30″ |
| Style: | Abstract |
| Status: | SOLD |
