Neighborhood Art Collective Episode: Molly

I’ve just been thoroughly enjoying these Neighborhood Arts Collective projects; not only is it amazing to be able to have the opportunity to work with such amazing creative minds, talk about their process, and watch them give birth to new ideas, but it feels so meaningful to make something personal and individualized.

More often than not, when I paint, I spend my working time allowing my mind to touch upon generalized themes and ideas. I frequently think about the dynamics of human behavior, our interactions, love, attachment, devotion, heartbreak, disappointment, growth and expansion. These themes rise unbidden to mind as I’m choosing colors, managing and encouraging shapes and viscosities of the paint, and they continue to coexist with the process as I sit and watch the paint dry. It’s all about intention, you know. Much of the time it feels very personal, and (as much) of the time it feels global, but unless I am creating a specific commission for a client, my attention wanders until it finds a focus. With the Neighborhood Arts Collective projects, I come in to the project focusing laser hot on an individual and really get to dig in to what’s there. 

 🖤

Checkout our latest: 

https://www.neighborhoodartscollective.com/molly-painting

Studio Day: Daylight and Soft Backgrounds

I re-lit my studio with daylight LED bulbs today (why did I not do that sooner?!) and I’m incredibly pleased with the result. Although it’s still a little chilly in there, I can now work into the wee hours and not have to call it a day when the sun does. Not to mention, I’ll be able to photograph works in progress without setting up all of the shoots outside. I’m also in the throes of a new work, that dusky monochromatic beauty you see below, so my desk is a humble amalgam of thoughts, colors, tools, and test pours. My brain feels somewhat the same, cluttered, but constantly moving.. I’ll organize them both before this painting is through. I’m still working through my adventures with acrylic on my Cricut machine (an adventure worth an entire blog series of it’s own), but I am hopeful that I’ll dial in those settings soon and really be able to accelerate my techniques in that manner. I don’t want to tell you too much now and spoil it, though, so you’ll have to wait to hear more. 

Wild Patterns

I’ve been going crazy for textures and patterns lately. Upon stumbling onto my cache of digital photo collages from my undergrad days (which I uploaded to the gallery, go look!) I found a renewed sense of interest in collecting and squirreling away some of the surfaces I find on my day to day travels. We’ll see what comes of them, but for now, here are a few I’ve found of late..

Sacred Temples of Mind and Body

Weddings and a Halloween prep shenanigans

I’m so ready for fall. It snowed on us at a beautiful wedding and we were just thankful for green trees and wet streets and warm coffees and fires. I love this time of the year. 

Roots.

It's all about balance, lately.

How to balance weighty expectations with the fleeting desires of the heart? How to balance that which seems to pull in opposition, as solid as the dug-in, earthy toes of great trees and as light as their cotton seeds borne upwards on the shoulders of the pressure systems surrounding. We are all storms and the roots that drink from them. How do we slate our thirst?

The trees have the necessary knowledge to manage their growth and their resources. Deep rings of wet wood show seasons ripe with dripping opportunity, ready to be absorbed and transformed into flesh. Drier years; (for there will always be dry years,) there are rough round remembrances of thin energy and budgeted time. Just another lap around the sun. Just another skin strung up to the canopies. But there is always the green. The little buds in spring that push forth from brown bark and stretch their little fingers towards the skies. Little curls of leaf open like mouths to drink from the air around them and they shake, slightly, under the weight of cold morning dew. A deep freeze reminds that water embodies more than life itself but also time, and we thaw in relief at the touch of the dawn sun.  A slow stretch, upwards, and a big gulp of fresh mountain air. (Will I have to describe the smell of fresh air to my children someday, when we are sneaking sniffs of bottled atmosphere from tin cans in the midst of murky cities?)

I miss the forest, clearly. 

Sweet Chaos and Sticky Little Hands

Wildflowers and sweet lavender

Bright starbursts and wildflowers

Salt Water and Fresh Tracks