Cádiz Valpinçon (50)

"Cádiz Valpinçon (50)", oil on canvas, 24x24". For sale on Etsy.

A chiseled young man turns his back to us. I was thinking of Cádiz, the ancient coastal city in Spain. (Cádiz Blue, color #50 in Naomi Kuno's Colorscape book.) Faint echoes of Ingres' beautiful 1808 nude painting known as the Valpinçon Bather (named for one of the painting's owners). My painting is based on something more ordinary, an underwear advertisement featuring Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal. It is a record of my struggle to render a torso. I felt a little lost while working on this painting; stay tuned to see how I address this problem in my next painting.

Aguirre (312)

"Aguirre (312)", oil on canvas, 24x24". For sale on Etsy.

That part where Aguirre knocks down several symbolic toy Lego and Playmobil conquistadors. 
Or maybe I just made that up...

About Demon Blue, color #312 from Naomi Kuno's Colorscape book. This color is even more fitting because the actor (who I'll leave unnamed here) probably committed some monstrous acts of abuse. It seems like he was an ugly person, inside and out, who both suffered and caused others to suffer. Still, he did give some unforgettable performances.

Hotspur (321)

"Hotspur (321)", oil on canvas, 24x24". For sale on Etsy, $350.

"Sometimes he angers me
With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant."

Hotspur complains about his Welsh father-in-law in Shakespeare's Henry IV Part 1. The father-in-law is fond of poetry, using flowery language and mythical references whenever he speaks. Hotspur prefers to be blunt and plainspoken. He wants action and violence, not pretty words. 

The moldwarp (mole) and the ant are part of an unnamed Welsh legend. This is one of the very few references that Shakespeare makes to ants. For this painting, I challenged myself to join ants and Shakespeare (my randomly selected topics). All of the elements of this painting are taken from reality. My husband posed as Hotspur, staring in disgust and irritation at an oversized ant sitting on his smartphone. The ant is a toy that we own. The large face in the background is Shakespeare. It is part of a mural printed on a building façade in downtown Indianapolis. 

Fascination (311)

"Fascination (311)", oil on canvas, 24x24". Sale status to be determined.

These are my young boys, Benjamin and Maxwell, playing with their toy cars. They are thoroughly absorbed in their activity, fascinated with their assortment of wheeled vehicles. In turn, my husband and I are fascinated by our sons, watching them play, grow and develop. We've heard jokes about how toy cars can take over a house with kids, and now it's starting to happen to us. It's cute and funny, but it also strikes me as a bit sinister when I think about it (and I'm always over-thinking things). Toys shape young minds. Many of us know that we need to reduce and rethink the use of so many internal combustion engines and so much oil. Our children see a culture that mostly continues to unquestioningly celebrate the overuse of gasoline and diesel powered cars and other vehicles. I included a "Mickey McQueen" (a Mickey-shaped version of Lightning McQueen from the Disney/Pixar movie "Cars") with his mouse ears sharpened into a devil's horns as an emblem of this sinister aspect of innocent little toy cars everywhere. (My Colorscape color for this painting was #311, a shade of red simply called "Devil's". It doesn't say devil's what. It's not a typo because it appears more than once in the book. Perhaps a poor translation from Japanese? My DK Family Encyclopedia topic was History of Transport.)

Harrods Kilim (61)

"Harrods Kilim (61)", oil on canvas, 24x24". For sale on Etsy.

This is me, with a slightly enlarged forehead, reading a book. The book is Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk, who is from Turkey. Behind me is a rug with a blend of various Turkish kilim patterns. My randomly selected topics were Harrods Green (color #61 in Naomi Kuno's Colorscape book) and Turkey (from my DK Family Encyclopedia). Harrods department store is mentioned in a chapter of Pamuk's novel.

I'm fascinated by the larger story behind the novel. There is a real museum in Istanbul connected to the book. In it are exhibits corresponding to more than 80 chapters of the book, except for Chapter 24, The Engagement Party, which is the one that mentions Harrods. I loved the concept, but the actual novel left me kind of cold, hence my blank expression in this portrait. I wasn't able to finish the book before I had to return it to the library. I had too many other things going on every day. The confused kilim pattern behind me represents this constant distracting activity.

Nabi Yunus, Florida Man (238)

"Nabi Yunus, Florida Man (238)", oil on burlap mounted on canvas, 16x20". For sale on Etsy.

Opening lines of two poems by Elizabeth Bishop are scrawled in paint on burlap. "The state with the prettiest name, / the state that floats on brackish water" is the opening line of "Florida". "In one of the Assyrian wars / a chariot first saw the light / that bore sharp blades around its wheels" is the opening line of "Wading at Wellfleet". Both poems were included in her 1946 collection "North & South". My randomly selected topics were Florida Gold (color #238 in Naomi Kuno's Colorscape book) and the Assyrian Empire (from my DK Family Encyclopedia). Elizabeth Bishop joined the two topics by writing poetry that mentioned each one.

The painting evolved as I worked on it. The placement of the words was determined by the original shape of the objects in the painting. At first in the foreground was a large stone head excavated at Nabi Yunus in Nineveh, near modern-day Mosul, Iraq. While I worked on the painting, I learned about the terrorists destroying this and other ancient sites. I'll admit that I'm ill-equipped right now to comment directly on what is happening there, but it definitely was on my mind and filling me with disgust.

The background was based on a painting by Bishop. She made several small paintings in addition to writing poetry. This one was of the armory building in Key West, Florida. Nabi Yunus was the location of the armory of Nineveh. Bishop was inspired by Paul Klee among other artists. Klee made many paintings on burlap.

While I worked, I read several books about Florida (as well as the Assyrians). I learned about the human-caused destruction of the Florida Everglades, which also disgusted me. I hope to return to these topics, to do more than just feel disgusted, but for now this is what I have to offer. 

Zuni Meets Chelsea (69)

"Zuni Meets Chelsea (69)", oil on canvas, 24x24". For sale on Etsy.

A young woman looks frighteningly happy about the stone armadillo being presented to her by a Zuni artisan. The woman wears an expensive silver and turquoise Zuni squash blossom necklace that can be purchased for £1,100 at a shop called Wilde Ones in Chelsea, London. The Zuni artisan also looks happy to meet a collector of his artwork. He makes Zuni fetish figures, tiny stone creatures with magical properties, according to legend. The armadillo is a modern addition to the more traditional figure shapes, as armadillos are not naturally found as far to the west as Zuni lands in western New Mexico.

This painting connects two randomly selected topics: Chelsea Pink (a shade of mauve that is color #69 in Naomi Kuno's Colorscape book) and anteaters, sloths and armadillos (from my DK Family Encyclopedia). It was difficult to find an armadillo in Chelsea. From what I was able to gather in my research, it's an obscenely wealthy area filled mostly with bland, expensive international designer shops. The Wilde Ones shop seems to be a rare holdout from an earlier era when things were grittier and funkier in Chelsea. It offers "New Age" and ethnic jewelry and gifts. I browsed through their offerings online until I discovered the Zuni fetishes. I created this happy but slightly terrifying and unequal meeting of worlds that is unlikely to take place in real life.

Diouana (427)

"Diouana (427)", oil on canvas, 24x24". For sale on Etsy.

Diouana, a young woman from Senegal, gazes upward with admiration for her new surroundings as she strolls between whitewashed walls. The setting is Antibes in the Côte d'Azur (or French Riviera) in 1966. She is hopeful here, when she first arrives at her new home, but her tale ends in tragedy. This portrait is based on a still from the short film "Black Girl" (or "La Noire De..."), an early work by Senegalese director Ousmane Sembène. (One of Sembène's better-known works was his final film, Moolaadé (2004), about genital mutilation.) Diouana (pronounced joh-ah-nah) worked as a nanny for a white French family in Senegal. She is thrilled when they move back to France and ask her to work for them there. But her dreams of cosmopolitan life in the south of France are quickly crushed. She is forced to be a servant, not just a nanny, responsible for cooking and cleaning. Her employers suddenly begin to treat her harshly, screaming at her and intercepting her letters home. She never gets to go out and enjoy the place that she dreamed of seeing. In the end, her sense of entrapment and despair leads her to suicide.

As a side note, the actress who portrayed Diouana, Thérèse M’Bissine Diop, also experienced some troubles in real life, though with a happier outcome than the fictional character. Diop's family and friends ostracized her for her participation in filmmaking, which was poorly understood and frowned-upon within their traditional culture in the 1960s. Despite this unfortunate reception at home, Diop went on to have a career designing textiles in Paris. So she did live happily in France, unlike the character Diouana.

This painting connects two randomly selected topics: Côte d'Azur (a shade of blue that is color #427 in Naomi Kuno's Colorscape book), and southern Central Africa (from my DK Family Encyclopedia). I didn't find an exact match for that region of Africa, so I compromised with the connection to Senegal in West Africa.

Echo (306)

"Echo (306)", oil on canvas, 24x24". For sale on Etsy.

This is a contemporary take on the story of Echo and Narcissus. The young woman embodies both characters of the tragic tale. As Echo, she is trying to impress others with her fancy dress. As Narcissus, she is admiring herself by taking a "selfie" photo with her smartphone. The source for the painting was a photo I found online of a young woman in Singapore trying on a dress. She took the "selfie" to share on her blog. I never did dig deep enough to see her whole face or find out anything else about her. I included the vase of narcissus flowers to clarify the overall theme of the painting. As usual, I was attempting to connect two randomly selected topics: one, Echo, and two, Malaysia & Singapore. 

This painting represents Echo Blue, a blue hue that is color #306 in Naomi Kuno's Colorscape book.

Bumpheads with Frogs (222)

"Bumpheads with Frogs (222)", oil on canvas, 24x24". For sale on Etsy.

A parrotfish has a hypothetical encounter with a frog. The frog is a crab-eating frog (Fejervarya cancrivora), one of the only frogs that can tolerate salt water. The parrotfish is a green bumphead (or humphead) parrotfish (Bolbometopon muricatum). I brought the two together when I randomly selected the Parrot Fish color (a bluish green, #222 in Naomi Cuno's Colorscape book) and the encyclopedia topic of frogs and toads. Both species are found in the waters of southeast Asia. They would most likely come into contact among the aquatic roots of mangrove trees. Juvenile parrotfish sometimes seek out such environments for protection as they mature. A juvenile bumphead is depicted in the upper left of the painting. The coral reef habitats of the adult parrotfish are sometimes found directly beyond the coastal mangroves.

Muhallabia Bee (139)

"Muhallabia Bee (139)", oil on canvas, 24x24". For sale on Etsy.

Muhallabia is a milky, rose-water-flavored rice pudding that is popular in Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East. I prepared the pudding so that I could taste it for the first time and use it as a model for this painting. I also cooked a dish of mujadara (lentils, onions and rice), which can be seen on the plate in the upper right of the painting. My goal for this piece was to find a connection between two randomly selected topics: Lebanon and insects. I chose a recipe for muhallabia that includes honey in the topping. I chose a honeybee as an appealing insect attracted to the honey and the rosy fragrance of the two small glasses of pudding. The table setting is meant to evoke a waterfront cafe in Beirut.

This painting represents Libanon-Blau, a blue hue that is color #139 in Naomi Kuno's Colorscape book.

Rhodamine Autumn (641)

"Rhodamine Autumn (641)", 24x24", oil on canvas. For sale on Etsy.

Two women are out for a stroll on a clear autumn day. One is dressed in punk fashion, with her hair styled into a fabulous blue mohawk. The other is a scientist studying hyenas, and she is cradling a sedated hyena in her arms like a baby. The fall foliage behind the women is bursting into triangular pixel fragments. Is it really fall, or is everything given a fluorescent pink and red hue by toxic rhodamine dye?

This painting represents Autumn Glory, color #641 in Naomi Cuno's Colorscape book.

Amazon (243)

Amazon (243), oil on canvas, 24 x 24 in. For sale on Etsy.

When I decided to make a painting about the Amazon River and rainforest, I knew that it would be hard to narrow things down to just a few iconic people, animals and objects. So instead, I deliberately tried to fit in as many things as I could, which resulted in this collage/mural-like scene. I wanted to convey a sense of information overload. I hoped to show the well-known abundance and diversity of the Amazon in a new and unexpected way.

As usual, I found most of my image sources on the internet. I knew that direct searches for "amazon" would probably be foiled by omnipresent amazon.com page results. Then I had an idea. I realized that I already happened to know the names of a couple of major tributaries of the Amazon. I knew Xingu because of the black beer with that name that I drank a few years ago at Goose the Market in Indianapolis. I've known Putumayo because of those world music CDs often seen at gift shops. After a bit of searching, I found a perfect short list of major tributaries in the form of the track list on the 1999 album Aguas da Amazonia by Uakti and Philip Glass. I listened to the album repeatedly as I worked. Each track is named for one tributary, in addition to an imaginary river name on the first track and the Amazon itself on the final track. This yielded seven tributary rivers, to which I added Putumayo for a total of eight. Each river is represented by an element of my painting, as follows:

The Munduruku girl with the night monkey on her head in the foreground represents the Tapajós River.

Japurá River is represented by the squirrel monkey and the Purus River by the Purus red howler monkey, both in the upper right.

The Rio Negro is highlighted in the rough map of the Amazon that sprawls across the top of the painting. The other tributaries are also labeled.

The man holding photos on the left represents the Madeira River. (He's protesting dam building on the Madeira.) The cartoon girl lying on the ground is based on a figure from the cover of a Putumayo music album.

The geometric patterns on the left side of the painting are based on basketry and skin painting by Indians living on the Paru and the Xingu.

My biggest source of information while working on this painting was the excellent book Tree of Rivers by John Hemming. The story of the Amazon turns out to be even more heartbreaking and fascinating than I originally thought. I hope that my painting will inspire others to learn about and fully appreciate the incredible Amazon region.

Volcan (481)

"Volcan (481)", oil on canvas, 24 x 24 in. For sale on Etsy.

Steam and ash are erupting from the vent of a volcano. The rocky summit of the cone glows red hot in the darkness. This painting represents Volcan, color #481 in Naomi Cuno's Colorscape book. "Volcan" is French for volcano.

The painting is based roughly on a photo of a recent volcanic eruption that I found through Twitter. An undersea volcano formed a small new island inside Japan's territory.

For sale on Etsy, $200. 

Van Allen (408)

"Van Allen (408)", oil on canvas, 24 x 24 in. For sale on Etsy.

The Van Allen radiation belts are composed of charged particles held in place around the Earth by its magnetic field. These radiation zones can endanger satellites. In this painting, three satellites have been damaged by the Van Allen belts and are falling out of orbit. They are small and spherical and drifting down like balloons running out of helium. The three satellites are based on three online photos of Greg Allen's 2013 sculpture "Beacon Inflatable Satellite". Each photo has different reflections of people viewing the artwork. The sculpture is based on a 1958 model satellite which was never actually launched into space. 

Behind the satellites is an abstracted image based on a still from my Vine video of a Vimeo video of the aurora borealis over Norway. The Van Allen belts might influence the auroras, according to some sources, but I'm not sure what the latest scientific opinion is about this. 

In the foreground is a stylized rendering of my son's Global Glowball globe toy, which I had sitting in front of me while I painted. Like most of my oil paintings, this is part of a series meant to portray all of the colors in Naomi Kuno's Colorscape book. This one is Aurora Pink, color #408.

The soundtrack for this painting is two different Pandora stations, played on alternate days. One is based on the song "Satellite" by the Dave Matthews Band. The other is based on the 1962 instrumental track "Telstar" by the Tornadoes. It's named for the Telstar communications satellite launched in the same year.

Hortensie (522)

"Hortensie (522)", oil on canvas, 24x24 in. For sale on Etsy.

A vivid vermilion caracal sits among hydrangea blooms. I call her Hortensie. There are three layers to the painting. The blue hydrangea was a real silk hydrangea sitting in front of me while I painted. The caracal was my drawing from a photo in a library book. The background was my drawing of a still image from a Vine video that I made of cut hydrangeas for sale at my local Trader Joe's store.

I use randomizers to select my subjects and colors. My main color was Hortensie, a shade of light blue and color #522 in Naomi Kuno's Colorscape book. My secondary color was vermilion. The Hortensie color name provided one of my subjects; "hortensie" is the German word for "hydrangea". My other randomly selected topic was African wildlife. When I studied African wildlife books, I liked the lesser-known caracal (Latin name Caracal caracal, nice and easy to remember...). Caracals are not superstars like lions, leopards and cheetahs, but they have a very distinct and memorable appearance with their flamboyant, lynx-like ear tufts.

The soundtrack for this painting was a Pandora station based on jazz music by Dafnis Prieto. I selected it because I searched for a place with music and hydrangeas. That search led me online to Madison Square Park in NYC. Dafnis Prieto is one of several musicians who have performed at the park, which has displays of hydrangeas in its gardens.

Oh, Calcutta! (180)

"Oh, Calcutta! (180)", oil on canvas, 24x24 in. For sale on Etsy.

It's a football player with a giant apricot floating over his butt, standing in a field of cilantro. Let me explain how this happened. It isn't surrealism, this isn't dream imagery. It's more of a puzzle. Like many of my paintings, it started with word association. My goal was to represent the color Calcutta Curry (a shade of yellow that is color #180 in Naomi Kuno's Colorscape book). So, as I often do, I took an oblique approach to the problem.

Right now, I like for my paintings to have three layers: a real object sitting in front of me, a drawing of a detail from a photo, and a drawing of a still from a video in the background. The cilantro in the foreground is based on a real plant that I bought at Meijer. Why cilantro? Cilantro was the first ingredient of a Bengali curry that I never actually got around to making. (Bengali because Calcutta, or Kolkata, is in the Indian state of West Bengal. Is some of the rest of the painting starting to make sense? I'll get to that...) 

The next layer is the floating apricot. I deliberately selected the most butt-shaped fruit I could find. I would have preferred a peach, but the apricot had a better shape. Why a butt? The title "Oh, Calcutta!" comes from a slightly dirty French pun, which became a dirty painting, which inspired a nude Broadway musical in the 1970s. I found it when I searched for a "soundtrack" for this painting, which ended up being a Pandora station built around the track "Oh, Calcutta!" by the funk band The Meters. There's a lot of Hammond organ on there...

Finally, the football player. He plays for the Cincinnati Bengals. I made Vine videos out of found footage of the Bengals, then selected a still with one of the players sticking his butt out just so. 
Oh, Calcutta!

Zanzibar (164)

"Zanzibar (164)", oil on canvas, 24x24 in. For sale on Etsy.

A Pike Place Seattle Starbucks coffee mug, a jar of cloves, and three loose clove buds sit in front of a stylized drawing of a still from a Vine video. The Vine video shows me removing cloves from the jar and placing them on a plate while I listen to Freddie Mercury singing for Queen. I play a randomizing game to choose the subject matter for my art. My random elements for this painting were the color Zanzibar (a shade of red, color #164 in Naomi Kuno's Colorscape book) and the color emerald.

While I worked on this painting, I read The Sultan's Shadow by Christiane Bird. A large part of the book tells the sad history of Oman's involvement in Zanzibar, an island off the coast of modern-day Tanzania in east Africa. It was one of several hubs of the African slave trade. On Zanzibar, the plantation plant of choice was the clove tree. Zanzibar is still a major source of cloves today.

The coffee mug ties Zanzibar and its cloves to emerald. I bought the mug from the original Pike Place Starbucks when I visited Seattle. Seattle is nicknamed the Emerald City. I've turned the mug to show the old Starbucks logo, which lists spices among the wares sold at Starbucks at the time.

The soundtrack for this painting is the Queen radio station on Pandora. Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen, was born in Zanzibar.

Queen Loana (23)

"Queen Loana (23)", oil on canvas, 24x24 in. For sale on Etsy.

Two small plastic toy animals, a zebra and a giraffe, stand in front of my drawing of a model wearing an animal print cape (possibly ocelot) during a recent Milan Fashion Week. The drawing is cut out and attached to my abstracted drawing of a still from one of several brief Vine videos I made of rusted objects along the Monon Trail in Indianapolis. I play a little randomizing game to choose the subject matter for my art. My three random elements for this painting were the color Milanese Blue (color #23 in Naomi Kuno's Colorscape book), the color rust, and zoos.

While I worked on this painting, I read The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco. I had already started painting the model in animal print when I reached the part of the book that explained who Queen Loana was. The model seemed to be an appropriate stand-in for the character. The book is partly set in Milan, and the author lives in Milan.

The soundtrack for this painting is the Rusted Guns of Milan radio station on Pandora. That's what I listened to both while reading the book and making the painting. The song is by the band Art Brut. If you haven't heard it, you should check it out. The subject of it is unique.

Porius (401)

Porius (401) - (2013) oil on canvas, 24x24 in. For sale on Etsy.

My clay model of a Celtic deity sits in front of my drawing of a still from one of my first Vine videos, which shows me sitting up late at night struggling with Porius, a doorstop of a book by John Cowper Powys about a Welsh prince meeting Merlin and King Arthur and various other people and enduring several battles and other hardships. At least I think that's what it was about. It's all kind of a blur now. I had to stay up late to finish reading the thing, one chapter per day. Here is the Vine: https://vine.co/v/b2dtKI1zjTt I chose to read Porius because, like I say in my little video, I was trying to learn about the Celts. Really, I was trying to get more of a general feeling about the Celts instead of just picking up a non-fiction book to read. I had a couple of those, too. One book was the source of the photo that my clay model was based on. The painting changed dramatically as I worked on it. Eventually I started to feel like the Celtic deity could be a symbol for Porius himself in a way.

The soundtrack for this painting is the Afro Celt Sound System Radio station on Pandora. That's what I listened to both while reading the book and making the painting.