Family Portrait

La Familia
Art has been good to me these last few months, after more than a year struggling with the drain of a day-job and debt. Or rather, I have managed, courtesy of the dreaded day-job and the resolution of debt, to buy myself a couple of amazing art experiences that opened up painting for me once again. My participation in the Seattle CoCA (Center on Contemporary Art) Art Marathon showed me my own foundation, and forced me into working a group of paintings in bolder, more efficient ways. That transformed my notion of what I needed, in terms of time and space, to create artwork.
My trip to Montana–to visit family, do art projects with my niece and nephew, and paint–gave me the unexpected inspiration of my nephew’s fantastic eye and imagination. He was mesmerized by the camera functions on my new iPad, and became absorbed in distorting images into a series of hilarious family portraits. His instinct and natural facility with art never cease to amaze me, so it was fun for me to take this very contemporary/of-the-moment technology/artform that he created so brilliantly and transform it, backwards, in a way, with a very old school/traditional artform…a physical thing, a representation of a moment, a discovery…and add to the observation of what all that means in relation to the cycle and function of art.