Witnessing

Self Portrait of the Artist as a Witness of Atrocities
digitally altered painting
by Mary Stebbins Taitt
click image to view larger

Cowardice and the Two Ongoing Murders

A girl is screaming and pleading for someone to help her as a man approaches and stabs at her with a knife.  I turn and start toward them, then panic and hide behind a wall at the edge of the stairwell.  I pause, weigh the options of rushing to help her or running to escape.  The man has a weapon; I have nothing.  He is larger and stronger than I am.  I decide to run for help.  I am at college.  I run to the top of the stairs and enter the administration area.  Another man with a knife is attacking another girl.  This is within sight of the desk where I was going for help.  Pandemonium surrounds the area and the receptionist is talking urgently on the phone—but not about the ongoing murder, about something administrative and unrelated.  I try to interrupt and tell her about the girls being attacked, but she shakes me off, annoyed and busy.  No one will listen.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

I am a girl being attacked (multiple times), a girl seeking help, a woman trying to help others, and a person avoiding responding to calls for help—all at once.  I am truly all of these people.  I am the coward who runs rather than helping the person in trouble.  AND perhaps I am also the (a) man (person) attacking with the (a) knife.

• Ø  Although I have not been murdered (not yet, knock knock), I have been attacked and threatened with murder more than once (once with a knife) and have been attacked in other ways as well (rape). Being attacked is terrifying and can be life-threatening or life-terminating.
• Ø  I needed help during and after my attacks and had great difficulty getting it (was turned away from rape crisis because I wasn’t hurt enough—hello?).
• Ø  I have made efforts to help people in trouble:  the fire in the apartment building, the woman passed out on the side of the road, the man having an epilepsy attack on the side of the road, and others.  I’ve been turned away begging for help for others.
• Ø  I have turned away from helping people for a variety of reasons, fear often being first among these.
• Ø  I have learned sarcasm and cruelty from family and partners and sometimes turn it toward others—and sarcasm cuts like a knife.  L

This dream resonates for me.  I am ashamed of my failures at being helpful.  Shame attaches to every phase of this scenario.  I want to be at peace with myself, but so many people need help.  Including me.  I cannot help them all.

I am reading a book, I’d Know You Anywhere, by Laura Lippman, which is bringing up a lot of memories for me.  The protagonist, Eliza, witnesses the peripheries of two murders, is raped and fears for her own life.  I can see both elements of the book and elements of my own life in this dream.

The book, by the way, is well-written, engaging and suspenseful.

New art and experiments in art with oil pastels

I have two pocket items for the first mole that comes my way.  The first one you've seen as a photo, but it's dry enough now to scan--It's the wandering minstrel, the Mandolin player, done in water soluble oils.

The Wandering Minstrel, The Mandolin Player
by Mary Stebbins Taitt
Water-soluble oils
for the first round 4 pocket.
size: I cut this exactly to fit the Mole pocket, hopefully.

The second pocket item is for fun.  It is a bit weird and silly.  I was playing with oil pastels.  My question was, how would they work on dark paper.  I actually went to the store and bought the paper just to experiment--I've got my teeth into exploring oil pastels at the moment.  I like them because they are bright and don't stink (like the fixative for soft pastels, chalk pastels.)  I had in mind sort making a mandala from a poppy.  When I was nearly finished, I tried to sand off on of the bumps that had formed and the layers of varnish and oil pastel delaminated.  This is something I'd been afraid of and had a series of other tests and had not managed to delaminate any of the tests--but this one did.  The peeled off pieces felt like flower petals so, for fun, I glued them on.

Poppy Mandala with Torn Petal
First Round 4 Pocket item
Mary Stebbins Taitt
oil pastels and acrylic varnish
Click to view larger.
8.5 x 11

 The next painting (drawing?) is another in my series of tests of oil pastels and acrylic varnish.  It's on one of my practice sketchbooks, an old one, painted (drawn?) over an old failed painting.  One thing oil pastels, I have not yet learned how to do detail.  Nor can I do it with a palette (painting) knife, as seen above.)  The oil pastels tend to shed little lumps of pastel material which then builds up with successive layers to make "pimples."  These pimples are weak spots from which delamination can begin.  I have no idea about the long-term survival of these pieces, but I think they will not delaminate in the short term, as they did in the poppy mandala above, unless they are subjected to undue stress, eg, sanding.

Ami, age 13
Mary Stebbins Taitt
oil pastels, acrylics and acrylic varnish
in multimedia sketchbook
9 x 12 (part is missing on right, as my scanner is smaller than the paper)

I am not sure how much longer I will continue experimenting with this media or whether I will use it in any serious art.  I will not use it in anyone's sketchbook (Mole) in the exchange unless someone gives me the go-ahead, since the archival nature of the medium is unknown (to me) at this time.  For some reason, I seem to be taken by the medium at the moment.  Trying to ascertain its possibilities.

The Quill and the Inkwell

The Quill and the Inkwell
Acrylics, pens, tissue paper
click image to view larger.

Yes, I know that is not an inkwell, but a bottle.  Believe it or not, I'm old enough that I remember inkwells built into our desks at school.  This is made of torn pieces of tissue paper glued together with acrylic medium as well as acrylics applied with a sponge and ink.It is an illustration for a serial novel I am working on.

Walking on Eggs

Walking on Eggs, acrylics and pencil
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Walking on Eggs, Acrylics and pencil, Round 3--still have a lot of round 3 pages to complete.  I'm going to write more about this later.

Cover to my New Traveling Moleskine

Self Portrait with Biker Buddy
"tentative final"
click this and all images to view larger

Yesterday, my new Round 4 Moleskine arrived in the mail!  YAY!  I'm so excited.  Biker Buddy and I went out and took a self portrait photograph from which I painted the cover of my new Moleskine. Acrylics on gessoed Moleskine cover.  OH--I took pix of the stages again.  I will post them below.

These sketchbooks travel around the country, and sometimes around the wold, to other artists, collect art and return to me.  FUN!

I need to get back to work on my Fellowship application.  No more art until I hear that this round has officially started.

gesso and pencil sketch

blocking

underpainting and first coat

adding highlights and first details

Self-portrait Today

I wanted to complete my Moleskines BEFORE I took a video of the finished Moleskine.  I'd intended all along to make a painting on the back of my Round 2 Moleskine, so I did that tonight and the book is now, finally complete.  I will attempt to make a video of it at my earliest convenience, BUT I am still working on the Fellowship application.

This is a self portrait.  I painted it from a photo my husband took of me at a restaurant in Slovenia.

I took some pictures of the steps, but I will post the scan first.  Acrylic on Gessoed Moleskine cover.

Click images to view larger.

"final" (maybe--I always like to fiddle)

(Step 2) Blocking in with pig markers
I forgot to photograph the pencil sketch

(Step 3) Underpainting
(first coat)

adding detail

The Traveling Minstrel--in progress

I decided to try an experiment.  I am painting an oil pointing with water soluble oils for the first Round 4 pocket that I get.  The time for someone to prepare and mail their moleskine and then for me to have time as well should allow the painting to dry.

While experimenting, I decided to use only a palette (painting) knife.  So there are several factors that are fairly new for me--including the water soluble oils and the palette knife.  The painting is done on watercolor paper treated with two layers of gesso.

Click on images to view larger.  I'm including my process, not that I know what I'm doing.

sketch

added darks in india ink

Blocking in some of the color with pig markers

adding the water soluble oils part 1

adding the water soluble oils part 2

This is not finished yet, but it needs to dry a little before I attempt to add more detail.  I have a glassine to put it in to protect it in the pocket and to protect other things from it.

adding some details

Still not done--one thing I added was eyelashes, hard to do (for me) with a palette knife I mean painting knife.   Still needs more work.

Garrett's Broken Arm

Garrett's Broken Arm
acrylic on water color paper
in Round 3 Moleskine
click image to view larger.

This is my latest painting in my round 3 returned Moleskine.  It is an illustration from a serial novel in progress, Discovery at Little Hog Island.  It's an adult novel, in spite of the fact that these are children, but I may also use the illustration if I ever finish it, for a children's novel. I know it's imperfect, and I may work on it more later, but I have to quit for now.

I'm hoping to post the novel here, serially, but haven't had time.  If I actually DO IT, you may see this image, or an updated one again at some point in the future.

A Long Time Ago

me, at age 18
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It was a long time ago.

I was 18.

I had my first real job as a lab assistant in a medical research lab at the VA hospital.

It was lunch break.

The photograph was taken by my boyfriend, Hal Phillips, who is now a pediatrician.

My mother made the dress I was wearing. She made most of my clothes. When I was a teenager, I was ashamed of my homemade clothes. I never had the fashions other girls had. Later, I came to deeply appreciate it.

Folk Art: The Dinghy

Click to view larger

This is my second ever oil pastel, which I did my Round 3 returned Moleskine sketchbook.  I concentrated on practicing technique.  I drew the image freehand, but copied the boat from an online image and the background from a different online image (both photos).  I had already started it when Ballookey told me that the oils could damage the paper over time.  It is on the page facing the pink elephant (below).  I photographed it rather than scanning it--I didn't want to damage the scanner.

I am still trying to learn to be an artist.  While this isn't great art, it is a huge step forward for me from my early attempts.

If an artist is someone who makes art, a writer is someone who writes and a poet is someone who writes poetry, why am I uncertain about calling myself those things?  I don't claim to be a professional artist, who I see as someone who earns money from art. I must be a folk artist--someone who does art for the joy of it.  But I am often hesitant to even say that for fear that people's expectations will be higher than what I can produce.