Tag Archives: color
May 28, 2011 letter to a friend: a painting for a wedding
[ from a. addair who is listening to Sondre Lerche (Faces Down) ]
Things I was thinking about as I made this painting:
celebration flag banners
“this is the beginning of a parade”
surrendering to the story
miracles and magic
flowers
whimsy
unpredictability
simple delights and surprises
fun!
interlaced plum trees
roots
foundation
hope and community
life and color
Many of the words on this list came from the wedding inspiration list which I thought was beautiful and delightfully imaginative. It was so fun get creative with you. Thank you for the opportunity.
I loved your vision for the ceremony, it allowed me to engage in thinking about marriage in some fresh ways. Through the painting, I wanted to honor the unique particulars of your union and offer a perspective from our own married adventure as a hopefully useful and encouraging gift. I think Alain de Botton communicates this best when he says, “We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failures to grow anything beautiful from them”. Levon and I are incredibly grateful for our happy marriage, but whenever I attend a wedding I can’t help but to remember the troublesome parts that arrived so quickly after the vows and shape so much of who we are.
The imagery is mostly taken from the setting of your ceremony: the backyard garden, Park Ridge, flags and lights draped from tents and trees and you both promising your love under interlaced plum branches decorated with fabric and family photographs.
These are the impressions I want to communicate through the painting, but I’ve kept the imagery loose and abstract because a mere depiction of the setting couldn’t capture the mysterious joy-sadness, family melding, and vastness in the atmosphere of sacred vows.
Circles are the basis for many of the elements in the painting. The symbolism inherent in circles communicates the wholeness and cyclical nature of what a marriage can mean. Many of the circular elements were made by painting on a plastic sheet. Once dry, the paint circles were peeled off and either cut in half to form the flags on the banners or folded and clustered together to form flowers. I think this process is appropriate for the ways that we function as elements made in one context and given meaning in another. We are both parts and completed wholes as we live out our vows to not only our spouses but to our families and communities.
I find the symbolism in wedding traditions powerful because of the threads (think flag banners even) they weave over time and through generations and so I used some of those practices in the making of the painting. For instance, I painted the white, tree cluster-cloud element as if it were icing on a wedding cake. And I pinned the flowers onto the ground as a boutonniere to a jacket lapel.
“A real work, like a real love, takes not only passion but a certain daily, obsessive, tenacious, illogical form of insanity to keep it alive” -David Whyte
This is my wish to you, Amelia and Josh. Your wedding day was beautiful and I’m so grateful to have been a part of it and now may you insanely follow the love you declared under that 5.21 sunshine.
Blessings and thank you,
ashley
Tags: 5.21, alain de botton, amelia and josh, celebration flag banners, color, david whyte, faces down, family, flowers, marriage, painting, park ridge, sondre lerche, the johnsons, the three marriages, wedding
April 20, 2011 i just need to tell you this, okay. maybe its symptomatic of the season.
[ from a. addair who is listening to The Walkmen (You and Me) ]
hermit seasons are good for journaling. page excerpt 1
I’ve always been on the quiet side of the social butterfly spectrum, but 2011 has been firmly hermit-esque.
That I even want to follow this statement with reassurance that I’m not depressed says a bit about my unease in naming this solitary spell; there’s a real stigma attached to being alone. I know there is some validity to this and of course, there must be balance, but the sort of season I am in is not of the dangerous sort.
hermit seasons are good for journaling. page excerpt 2
I’m not gloomy, I just feel a peace in and yearning for long solo intermissions. I’ve been following this need and its been good. But every so often I get anxious about the consequences of being alone. I think it’s because I let cheap advertising get in to my brain mix and I start to wonder if I’m missing out, if I’ll eventually deteriorate into a lonely old woman, or if I’m a social mutant.
hermit seasons are good for journaling. page excerpt 3
I have this tendency to view events and prescribe their aftermath in extreme terms. But it’s probably more appropriate to understand that life cycles in seasons.
I guess what I’m trying to do is make myself understand that its okay to trust the seasons. To live where you are in stillness and joy. To understand that the nature of the universe works in terms of balance but not stability. Just because I feel like spending a lot of time alone now doesn’t mean that I will feel like this forever.
hermit seasons are good for journaling. page excerpt 4
If this all sounds familiar, it’s because I’m finding that I have to keep writing/painting/thinking through the same concepts in order to absorb them. To borrow from my last blog, I’m simply hanging a color on this little space of time-love. And I guess my flags of late are all shades of neon mustard yellow.
Tags: 37, alone, anthropology, art, collage, color, hermit season, journaling, red, solo, the walkmen, you and me
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- Posted under Ashley, home, relaxing into, simple living, things i'm reading/learning
April 18, 2011 about this painting : hanging is only scary when you’re small
[ from a. addair who is listening to Son of a Khrusty Musical (Son of a Khrusty Muscial) ]
hanging is only scary when you're small. acrylic on canvas. 36"x36"
Lately, my experiences have been ones that I can’t intellectualize; death of loved ones, the possibility and consequences of having children, and wondering how the best way to spend days that string together to form a lifetime. I’ve come to the end of my reasoning and, for sanity’s sake, I’m just taking things a morning, afternoon, and evening at a time. I’m trying to be quiet enough that I can hear the thing that I feel I should/want/could do and then without much angst just do the thing and trust that someone knows the bigger picture, even if it isn’t me.
Each moment in time is like a little space of line that I have the opportunity to drape color on.
detail
I might be able to recall what the last few colors were, but I have no idea of the direction of the line and am unable to see the entirety of the composition made by the history and projection of the line.
In short (and inevitably incompletely), this painting is an abstraction of time. It is (in part) a way for me to internalize, to get ideas into my body, and to relax into what is already there. It is a thinking process that is teaching me to hang my colors boldly and with humility because that is really all I’m qualified to do. Or, to step out of the metaphor, I’m learning to simply be kind, love recklessly, paint, take walks, and eat well; just do what humans do and let the drama of existence circulate.
Those were my thoughts as I set out to create the painting. But what I love about making art is that through the making, I get surprised by realizing there is more there than I have the capacity to understand.
As I was painting this, I realized how apt it is that the half circle shaped “flags” are created by being painted on a sheet of plastic, and once dry, getting peeled off the plastic and glued to the canvas. In essence, they we’re created in one context, and given meaning in another.
detail
Just after application, these little half-circle-shaped flags looked discordant and unsettling until they went through the process of becoming a painting. It was my job, as the creator, to make the jumble cohesive or somehow satisfying and meaningful through the layering and adjustment of color, texture and line.
In the end, the painting is a God’s-eye view. A hopeful reassurance to myself that it is my simple objective to hang my momentary color flags with honesty and relish, but someone else’s to give it context and ultimate worth.
detail
A step further into the metaphor (and a little joke the painting played on me) is that I painted the piece “upside down” from the way it is oriented here. It wasn’t until the last moments of working on it that I realized it was meant to be viewed the way it is pictured. Fitting. Even when we think we know or are learning something, chances are, our view is distorted, foggy, or almost right, but still upside down.
Tags: abstraction, abundance, acrylic on canvas, art on etsy, color, context, god's eye view, Life, limited understanding, line, making art, painting, perspective, process, relaxing into, son of a khrusty musical, texture, time, Uncertainty
October 26, 2010 pictures i like: because a party is a party no matter how small
[ from a. addair who is listening to Television (Marquee Moon) ]
Tags: banner, citrus, color, diorama, etsy, festive, flags, garland, holiday, marquee moon, miniature, mixed media art, paint chips, painting, pictures, recipe cards, religious art, television, tree, upcycled, vintage, yellow
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- Posted under art workshops with a. addair, Ashley, crafting, etsy, pictures i like
June 17, 2010 pictures i like: the painting that was talked about in the last blog
[ from a. addair who is listening to Eric Clapton (Me and Mr. Johnson) ]
Tags: a, A&P institute, baby girl, color, eric clapton, etsy, home, humanity, initials, letters, love comes before knowledge, magenta, me and mr. johnson, ochre, old fan, painting, photography, play, red, starving artist, what we share
June 4, 2010 as if wanderlust can be beaten out of you
[ from a. addair who is listening to Yo-Yo Ma, Mark O'Connor, and Edgar Meyer (Appalachian Journey) ]
Now that we’ve decided to make our home back in good ol’ East Tennessee we’ve often been asked “Well, have you learned your lesson?” We get this mostly from fearful grandmothers but there are a few bona-fide haters in there too.
home-grown collage
Don’t get me wrong, one of my favorite things about coming home is encountering the fine Southern tradition of knocking high-falutin city kids off their high horses but I can’t help but to want to string the bacon on the table around the person-asking-this-question’s neck.
No, we didn’t learn our lesson. But yes, we did learn many lessons.
Tantrums aside, it is a real pleasure being back in Old North Knoxville.
Tags: appalachian journey, bacon, collage, color, edgar meyer, fabric, family, home, home-grown, lessons, mark o'connor, old north knoxville, olive oil green, plywood, southern tradition, Travel, wanderlust, work-worn color, yo-yo ma
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- Posted under Ashley, etsy, home, Life, simple living, things i'm reading/learning, travel and adventure
June 3, 2010 pictures i like: petite varmints 40 and 05
[ from a. addair who is listening to The Lonely Island (Incredibad) ]
Tags: art, bunnies, clubs, color, color studies, cuteness, drawing, found materials, incredibad, non schematic, nuance, numbers, pencil, petite varmints, pink, recycled art, science, the lonely island, vintage cook book pages, virginia
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- Posted under Ashley, etsy, painting, pictures i like, things i'm reading/learning
April 22, 2010 pictures i like: feeling elementary
[ from a. addair who is listening to The Carter Family (Wildwood) ]
Tags: abstract, carter family, color, compassion, espanol, learning, numbers, orange, painting, science, small things matter, spanish, turquoise, wildwood
- 2 comments
- Posted under Ashley, education, etsy, mexico, painting, pictures i like, simple living, social justice, travel and adventure
February 11, 2010 pictures i like: first inspired by mexico painting in progress
[ from addair who is listening to Levon Walker (New York City Spanks Levon Walker) ]
Tags: acrylic, cobalt, color, dancing, falda, Levon Walker, mexico, new york city spanks levon walker, painting, skirt, unfinished painting
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- Posted under Ashley, mexico, painting, pictures i like, travel and adventure
February 8, 2010 a good human is, i think, an uncertain human
[ from addair who is listening to Antony and the Johnsons (I am a bird now) ]
Being the foreigner, I’ve been withholding my opinions. My particular set of American sensibilities inevitably colors my view but, as much as I can, I’m trying to keep my lenses clear. Or at least on the rosier side of clear, I can’t find any harm in reveling in beauty, even when it is out of my zone of familiarity and culture.
The task is difficult, not because I find it hard to abstain from judgement but because it is hard to separate my identity from my platforms. It’s a good lesson for me. I know it must have something to do with values and humanity, self-worth and priorities, but I’m still in the lesson so I can’t comment with much accuracy.
This lesson has me asking questions like: Are we still good humans if we have no platforms? Or choose to mostly observe? Without opinions, which part of me is left? Being clearly out of my element has me wondering if I actually own any element. It is bringing me closer to the understanding that I am, and always will be, limited to my very personal and specific perspective. If this is the case, when do I have the right to assert my opinion? My sense of justice?
I don’t pretend to understand very much about life here in Mexico and I wonder if I’m closer to understanding the reality I face in the United States.
I don’t understand most things. And a complete understanding of any thing is, I think, impossible.
It seems that I spent the first part of my life acquiring ideas and beliefs. With each new experience embellishing my densely adorned sense of self and the world in which I lived. And somewhere along the way it has shifted. Now, every new experience requires me to take a layer off, to simplify and make room. Its beginning to seem that the most stripped down interpretation of justice, of love, of happiness, of ethics is the truest; the one that leads to the greatest satisfaction, liberty, and peace.
Tags: a good human, antony and the johhsons, church, color, culture, ethics, experience, familiarity, flags, foreigner, i am a bird now, justice, mexico, observations, perspective, photography, questions, san cristobal, sol, tint, Travel, Uncertainty
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- Posted under Ashley, Life, mexico, simple living, social justice, things i'm reading/learning, travel and adventure, Uncertainty
