Pattern Pieces and Pond Book

I just posted a new image to the blog: it's called Pattern Pieces, and you can see it on the website here.

I've been thinking about patterns: how they comfort and mislead us. This piece is about that idea. The blue pattern of feathers behind the swan has sewing marks.

There are two main things happening in the piece: there is the swan overlooking the frogs and flowers in a menacing fashion, and there are the frogs, who are performing a play.

The actor frogs are dressed as flowers and swans. The frogs on the bottom right of this detail are playing out the action: there is a frog who is playing a swan (fake beak, feathers) being attacked by a frog who is behind him, dressed as a flower.

The real flowers in the piece function as a chorus. They comment on the action. The flower on the right below says, "I'm not sure..." and the one on the left says, "I have been ready my whole life!"

It's been a busy summer. I made a book! It just arrived in the mail the other day, and it looks great.

The book is based on a series of paintings that I've been calling my Pond pieces. The paintings in that series play out a complex narrative about art and beauty. The structure of the book is loosely similar to that of a graphic novel: each piece is shown in such a way that the text can be read in order, so that characters and themes that repeat from piece to piece can be clearly seen in a progression. 

I'm in the proofing stage now- I made one copy of the book and so far I'm thrilled .

I'd love to send one to all the wonderful people who have supported my work, but it turns out that it's disgustingly expensive to make a nice quality art book. The next step, once I finish the final adjustments, will be to see if I can get some funding and send it around to commercial publishers. Suggestions about potential publishers or curators or gallerists who might like to see this work are more than welcome: I'm excited about what I'm making and can use any ideas about finding an audience for this work.