I have been thoroughly derailed from my more usual artistic pursuits recently, and have had to find my art in remodeling work. I have been converting a storage room into living space, and it is taking several months to complete. My studio has been chaotic and full of extra “stuff”: furniture, supplies, and more, making every activity more difficult. I cannot find things I need, and cannot put things away properly.

Now I am starting to get some relief; the project is almost complete. However I am still not able to really move in to my newly remodeled space! Maybe next week will be the week!

Here is an attempt to incorporate some artwork into my project. I added some custom artwork during the painting phase, in order to hide the boundary between two different “whites” on the back room wall.

My remodel modified two rooms that had been joined by a double door. Now they are separated, and both now have previously missing closets. Yay storage!

The above bubbles rise from floor level and spill onto the ceiling and the closet door. I painted the first stream of bubbles by hand, but then created different sized stamps from a piece of adhesive backed velvety fabric, then used various techniques with my paints so that each bubble is unique. The effect is satisfactory: not fine art, but not too silly either! So I did find an opportunity for art in remodeling.

This new collage, A Small Prayer, came about from my studio cleanup, during an interval in my remodeling intensive. I am delighted to make any new artwork at this time, no matter how small! A Small Prayer is approximately 7″x7″ (not quite square) and it consists of quite a few different pieces from older art, along with a couple of found objects.

I started with the one remaining remnant of another much older artwork. This was a rather unsuccessful work that slowly decayed to nothing outside, leaving only the small figure below. I evicted the original low relief artwork from my studio, along with several other early pieces! Yard art!

I rescued the small kneeling figure from the grass while tidying up the yard, and made it the focus in my new work. I probably made this much older and now weathered figure from polymer clay, and added layers of paint.

In addition to the figure, A Small Prayer consists of a construction byproduct circle of metal roofing, a lovely scrap of birch bark, and several pieces of my collograph prints. I mounted these to a square of door skin plywood. Then I mounted that to 3/4 plywood, so it is painted, edged, and ready to hang.

These bound and wrapped mummies are a chine colle photo etched print with string, mounted on honeycomb cardboard packing material.

Here is another artwork that I started long ago, now completed by adding collage elements. The images left to right: the early version, the new version, and then the final mounting:

I am afraid that the earlier version was already sufficient. It consisted of the watercolor window with cutout trees superimposed, with the tracing of purple shadow painted in.

I may well have cluttered and spoiled it by adding the newest elements: a leaf, a bird, and a crescent moon. But it is done, and now the work is mounted on a chipboard panel eady to hang.

I am currently very discouraged about most of my artwork, so I will put this away and hope that I will like it again later! Wouldn’t it be lovely if someone wanted this. But really that is not very likely. I am doing no marketing here. Although I did sign up for the August studio tour, so maybe I will sell a few pieces then.

I have been taught about the value of presentation. A fabulous painting or lovely drawing will be better “seen” by others if it well presented. This may mean framing, or I may choose mounting for presentation. Mounting an artwork to a board or panel may be more appropriate. I don’t want my work behind glass, and framing is a lot of overhead for an artist. Professional framing is expensive, and do it yourself framing requires skill, time, and tools.

With some drawings and paintings I mount the original work directly on a board or a panel. If it is on paper, I will seal it with acrylic medium or wax. This is not archival, but I am not making great art for posterity. The surface will be delicate/fragile, but so what? Art will be hung up for viewing, not handled daily like a toy or a tool! It will be up to the owners to care for it as they see fit.

When I mount archival prints of my work, I may not resist the urge to enhance them. Even a very good print will not have the impact of the original work if the original has dimensional impasto or collage elements. So when I mount an archival print, I may do a bit more to improve the presentation. Here is one example:

You can see on the left the archival print, just positioned on the painted canvas board prior to mounting. At right is the mounted print with enhancements. Note that I took the photos in different lighting so the colors appear different. Really the overall colors are much the same.

What is different: I added a tiny hint of dimension to the print, using acrylic medium & translucent color. I added to the leaves and another spot where the original work has dimension. The main change was is on the mounting panel: I extended a hint of the branches out beyond the print. This felt necessary because I mounted the print on a larger panel, so the background distracted me from the actual print. I like it better with this additional level of presentation. It is not just a weaker copy of the original, but something a bit different and new.