Beginning and Ending...2010 to 2011

Happy New Year!! Hello 2011....Goodbye 2010!

The date feels foreign until it arrives, 2011 is here and the retrospection of the passing days seems to blur and fade.  A turbulent wind blew 2011 in and left us grateful to see the clear blue morning sky and to feel  the crisp bite of frosty air, a veritable breath of life.  Mississippi is well known for her fickle ways with the weather and I have no reason to feel 2011 will differ in any fashion, but what I do feel is a change in my work.  I began in March of last year working on a series for a show in November and with it, I opened a door into my psyche and work that had been ajar and almost closed before, the cracked opening is becoming more of a portal for a new direction in my work.  I will work mainly if not totally in series of paintings with the effort and intention of trying to hone my focus in directions that best express my thoughts and understandings of what life has become for me. I hope in 2011 to challenge myself to leave marks that will exemplify and give credence to what I have learned on my journey in life.

  I did not make resolutions this year as I never seem to keep them, or for that matter, even remember them past the second week of January, this could be partly intentional and partly old age.  I had a fractured Christmas; I had to spend it in two places to accommodate my need to be with my children,  and found that what I thought was going to be upsetting for me, turned out to be quite nice and gave me a time to focus on each of them separately, which up until now has not happened in past Christmases. Christmas has always been about making sure I did not slight either of them in favor of the other; and Christmas has been in the past; a time consumed by family gatherings with extended as well as immediate family, a time that is fraught with nerve racking hurrying and scurrying leaving little time for enjoyment or concentration on anyone aspect of the holiday.  I have over the years run a checklist of who to buy gifts for and what to cook and where to go that has been a mind numbing din of rote activity . I learned a lesson this year, focus can be a very important aspect of life and in art, without it we simply bounce from one painting to the next, giving them all the same energy and time but not really making a strong statement in any of them.

In the studio the work presses on without regard to what year it is or what season is outside the windows.  The ever present and relentless linkage of art and life continue to manifest in layers of pigment, found objects, and varnish on substrates of wood and canvas. The muse of art and talk are melded and forged into the one idea, my latest series of work:  ArtSpeak, a series of words that speak through the shape of figures.

Silent Scream III  24 x 24 by Cathy Hegman

Silent Scream II 24 x 12 by Cathy Hegman

The latest series I am working on is incorporating layers of acrylic mediums to create a tactile almost encaustic textured painting.  I love encaustic painting and the process is wonderful but I am always trying to create new ways to complicate my work and this is just one more way to do so.  The mediums with the opaque and clear gels allow me to play with obscurity in my work without losing the general idea of it. I blogged last month on the first of these but this month I am working on creating art with not only texture but a deeper interactive meaning for the viewer.  I saw an indie film in which two people communicated by circling words of text in their books to talk instead of ever uttering a sound, this hit me as very intriguing and so I am using my figures to contain the  text and  I have circled words that tell a story.

  I am using my mediums to give the textural depth to the painting as well as to give a patina to the work that bespeaks of age and wisdom by tinting it with differing transparent pigments.  I have completed four and hope to at least finish four more before putting them out in the world.  I have had them in the studio for the last month and everytime I walk through they catch my attention, a good litmus test for any work. If after a month or so the work still resonates with me I feel it is complete and mature enough to leave the nest and face the world of critics and art enthusiasts.

Silent Scream IV 12 x 24 by Cathy Hegman

I am working with the Golden high solid acrylic gels and both Golden Acrylic  http://www.goldenpaints.com/http://novacolorpaint.com/ in this series. I am using earth tones and muted hues to give the shapes and text the center stage.  I  have also used a a few found objects and embedded them in the layers of acrylic gels and paint. I am not in reality much of a collage artist; but I do find on occasion that the addition either paper, metal, or canvas to a painting can push it to another level.  and Nova Acrylic paints 

I hope this will inspire you to try the different acrylic mediums and gels available. Perhaps give yourself a new challenge for 2011 and make it your most creative year yet!  

Happy New Year to all and I hope it is filled with love, peace and joy and wonderful enduring  art!

Cathy Hegman AWS,NWS,MSWS,MOWS, SAA,SW, ISAP
www.cathyhegman.com

*All artwork and text included in this blog is copyright protected by Cathy Hegman and should not be reproduced in any form or fashion or used without the written permission of Cathy Hegman. All text and artwork included in this blog are solely the thoughts and original art of the artist, Cathy Hegman, unless otherwise noted, and are meant only to be guidelines and thoughts for others to read.my blog.

*All photography is copyright protected by Thomas Hegman and should not be rep