m. p i l g r i m (art)

final painting: mornings without you. i think the most important lesson I've learned so far in the past 12 months is that sometimes art, in its process, looks really, really, really crappy.  shitty even.  until it doesn't.  until that happens, i tolerate the awful until it become unbearable. then i close up my paints, clean out my brushes, and walk away for a while. it  always  looks horrible close up  during .  i finally know why paint brushes can come in such long lengths - so you can back up as far as possible from a painting which, for me, looks really, just, well,  awful  close up. case and point: the current work.  a friend send me a link to a fundraiser to end homelessness.  a local nonprofit invites local artists to submit works to be auctioned off.  "we respectfully ask that the work be worth at least $25" the theme is to be, what makes home  home?   i had just recently been moved one morning to...

I have fallen behind on my blogging because blogger isn't terribly iPhone friendly.  I tried downloading an app called "Blogo" on the mac.  It sucks.  I wrote the developers and told them so.  There's a decent little IOS app on my iPhone, but I suck on those tiny little keyboards.  Don't even get me started on the autocorrect debacle.   Seriously?   Acrid lickers ? No, autocorrect, clearly I meant  acrylics .  Dude.  Seriously.   Now, for a while I've had an idea in my head of something I wanted to create.  A canvas divided into fourths, with a closeup of a cactus in each.  This past week I finally started working on it. I have no shortage of cactus pictures, or pictures of things close up - it's one of my favorite subjects.   Internal questions:  1) I'd like to line between the quarters to be sharper. 2) What will go in the fourth quarter? 2) The cholla flowers need to be pinker.   In unrelated news th...

  I'm taking a class in small metals, which includes making jewelry. Project 1: "Cold Connections" project.  We were to design, make a model of, and build an item using metal.  Cold Connections refers to the lack of soldering, mainly.  It involves rivets and tabs.   My project is a little decorative/artsy item that will have a small spinner inside it.  The spinner can be turned to indicate the weather outside.   After my initial model, I spent more time working on the design, including sketches.  I decided to do away with the tabs holding on the top piece, and include it in the spacers and rivets.  I had to design the axis on which the weather elements will turn - it will include   Sawing, let me tell you, is a bitch.  Behind, a saw blade: I broke about ten of these little bastards while cutting out my pieces.    After cutting out the pieces, my next step was to drill holes.  This involes a drill and hopefully, n...