Friday, September 10, 2010

Back to the Studio














So many more ghosts need faces for my upcoming show in November, Mything Persons. Here' s the start of one - I'll be in my studio again today conjuring up another...

I've been nested so solidly at home and in my garden this whole summer, I had to rip myself out yesterday to get back to the city and into my studio. My entire adult life I have struggled with acknowledging, paying attention to, and then balancing these two parts of myself: the mother/homebody and the artist, or "the domestic and the wild," to quote the wise poet mother of an artist friend of mine. Brings to mind this truly atrocious old song...

3 comments:

Brad Gailey said...

The value shifts are great! I have so much trouble with the value gradient in my work, I'm envious.

Brad

martha miller said...

brad:

i start with a medium vine charcoal and powdered charcoal which yields those gray tones, and then go for the darker darks with a very black compressed charcoal. i have also been using a white acrylic to heighten the whitest whites! i use my hands, and rags to work the surface, as well as the direct stick of charcoal and paint brush. so it's a real mix of media! :^D

Dean Grey said...

I'm glad you're getting back into your studio, Martha!

I think all artists struggle between work and creating art.

-Dean