Pure Abstraction...work continues

/

Here is a sneak peak of a painting which we used during the video filming recently. 

It's part of the Pure Abstraction series and incorporates beach sand, moulding paste, gloss medium and varnish, heavy gel matte, soft gel gloss, irridescent pigments, acrylics, alcohol, tissue paper and probably more I can't remember at this point. 

This piece will take a few more weeks to finish as every layer as to dry before I add to the next one. Need I say...so much fun!!!










Here's your chance to name a painting!

/
I need your help and would love your input! This painting needs a title!

Best name will be chosen and winner will receive an 8x 10" print of this art piece.  Please leave your title suggestions in the comments box below this blog. Thank you. And Thank you Tai Kerbs for coming by to photograph this piece last minute in the studio!

(untitled)
Pure Abstraction Series
(c) Deb Chaney 2008
Mixed Media, Sand, Acrylics on canvas
24 x 36 x 1 1/2 "
Feng Shui Recommendation:  To support spiritual and personal growth place this piece in the left hand corner of your room .
Original available for sale, inquire debchaney@live.com


Support team & fabulous friends

/
When I was doing the voice over for the video Josh and I are making about myself and my art- i an audio visual artists statement/bio if you will-  we went through a list of prompts or questions one of the last questions we went through was what advice I would give other artist or artist starting out?

I know I said a lot of things that I would encourage artists starting out to do including...writing morning pages, using affirmations, reading the Artist's Way, and setting scheduled work habits.
 
However, if I were to pass on one gem to other artists  starting out, the TOP thing, it would be to create a support system and surround yourself with a cheering team. 

Surround yourself only with people who believe in you, see your dream, applaud you, cheer you on, make you laugh, ask you question that propel you to move forward, bring you dinner, help clean your house, listen to you and call you at your darkest hour. Discard the rest. If they are bringing you down they are bringing your art down. Life's too short. 

As Madonna says: "Don't go for second best baby..."

So, I want to thank just a few member of my stellar team and keep on cheering and being in my life supporting my dream to sell my art to movie stars and support my family lavlishly from the production and sales of my work. Thank you!

The photo here is of me and my friend Meg hiking in Montecito. Meg  just had a piece published in the newly released book Conscious Choices An Evolutionary Woman's Guide to Life. Congrats Meg and thank you for continuing to inspire me on so many levels. 

Mathew- san...'darling you...bring me....bring me home" for the paperwork, love, pizza, stories you've read to Ruthie and pure friendship. Here's to sailing down the coast. Thank you.

Todd, thank you for being here, iphoto, mac support and being your cute barbie doll self - Ruthie just loves you!

Misty, for our call last week. For telling me I will find the positive in hard times, that i will thrive no matter what. Thank you for calling.

Heather, for your feedback, input and love. Can't wait to see your new house and hike in the rockies again.

Jeff for bringing over dinner the other night, hikes, calls, friendship and showing up.

Kath, Grace, Sharon, Jackie and all the girls I get to share and be with when we have our groups.

Geoffrey and Laurel, Miss Sal and Miss Liz for taking such great care of my girl, Ruthie Firefly!

Peter for your love, art, smile, understanding and friendship.

Lana Grow for being my pillar of art, teaching, mentor.

Michelle Y Williams for being a success, inspiration and creating the beautiful amaizng work that you do. 

Josh and Zach for all the work on the video, filiming, place to crash, love & encouragement. 

April for our hike and making me laugh big time! I'm never going to think about rent money the same again! Here's to Lazy Acres and cashmere blankets. Lov eyou babe.

Ann Blachke for yoru honesty and groundedness.

Sloane and Bob and Peggy Reali for Christmas dinner, love, music, understanding. 

Tai Kerbs for the encouragement and willigness to help me create this dream.

Hunter & Troy for those digital photos!

Jolina for the start of something great. Thank you for our awesome meeting and wonderful chat about men and motherhood.

Jordon at infusionsoft for staying on my butt!

Reyna and the team at back 40 Designs for patiently waiting...

Lyza loo I love you!

Jenn....my singing in the rain at Interlaken girlfriend, always there for me, standing by through the good and the bad. I love you woman. You are my pillar. Thank you for being so strong.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Getting started Painting, or getting back to it....

/

I got a message on my facebook wall ( facebook is mylatest addiction, I confess!) the other day from a friend I met at business seminar in San Diego, specifically Sales Explosion by Frontier Trainings, several months back. He asked me how to get started painting....

It's a good question and something to consider is one that a child would never even think about, they just go for it. Somewhere along the way into adult hood we get all this beliefs and notions and fear and so on in our heads and even the smallest thing, like writing a few lines in a journal, let alone picking up a paint brush and pushing paint around become monumental, difficult, overwhelming....

I paint nearly every day and have been for years - 8+. I write in a journal almost daily. There is nothing special or different about me. Just that I went out of my way to find out how to overcome procrastination, overwhelm, artist's block and all the other things that stop us from pursuing our creative callings.

Here are my favourites that keep me charged up:
  • Look what I've already done - I was just at Samy's Camera working with Troy and going over the digital photos he'd shot of the first 8 Patchwork Paper paintings and I kept commenting on how energized I felt seeing m y completed work. Well done, Deb I kept saying to myself. Troy & I were laughing but it really was a genuine feeling of pride. That feeling keeps me going.
  • Bridging - Setting up the studio so that when I next come to it everything I need to start painting is in place ready to go, organized, water containers filled, paper towels available, counter space cleared to lay down a  painting.
  • Writing. See the photo above I am painting on a piece of paper in which I wrote using black  india ink (I like Higgins Black Magic) just to release some feelings and thoughts. After I clear out mentally it makes room for creativity to flow. In this case I was thinking of incorporating this into another patchwork painting piece....but anyways I'm working on some other stuff...( so much to do, so little time)
  • Evening ritual of writing down my successes. Every night before I go to bed I write out my successes. When I take the time to congratulate or honor myself for what I did today as a forward movement towards my long & short term goals - IE success - showed up at the studio, worked in Pure Abstraction paintings today! It makes  me want to do more. Hence it gets easier and easier to come back and start because I've created a positive neuro association with the task at hand. Make sense?
  • Looking at other artists work - this Friday my friend Lyza Loo and I are headed to the LA art convention in Santa Monica to look at other artist work! Do you know how jazzed I get when I see other artist making it happen and succeeding big time? Very. because I know if they can do it, so can I.
Keep feeding your well. Please feel free to share with us what keeps you going or gets you started. Best, Deb



Art inventory - fire under my ass

/
I' Am finally back to completing an inventory of all my current available work! (I think I've been procrastinating for about a year! And If I was even more honest with you here I'd tell you this blog in itself is a little further procrastination to the job!!!). Anyways, since the goal in the next two months is to get the new website up and having the painting inventoried is imperative, as I told my Scottsdale artist friend JM - I've got "fire under my ass" this year!

Last year I was using e-artist for a while on my PC. Then the PC completely crashed and quite honestly I wasn't that excited on the e-artist program - kind of clunky and antiquated in my opinion. So I've left that one behind. 

However, there is light in the land of art inventory! I am using Iphoto. And since I have not used a mac since high school...Thank God for my friend Todd. We met yesterday and he's helping me understand albums vs folders and all the intricacies of the mac world. But quite frankly the details section for each photo offers plenty of room for all the info I keep on each painting. 

In case you're curious. Here's what I keep track of:

Painting Inventory Detail

Title

Belong to Group: ( this would be the name of the body of work, like Raw Expression)

Medium: ex. mixed medias, acrylics, oil, sand, collage

Substrate: what I painted on - paper or canvas

Size: I think the standard is  H x W x D (depth) but I need to double check with my art biz coach, I always forget this detail!

Year: year I completed the piece - that's usually when I wire the back and paint the edges and varnish the surface...hey and let me know if you're interested in this process and archival varnish, etc . I could write more on this. Pls leave comment.

Sold/Selling person/Location: Ex. SWiTCH Boutique Beverly Hill on consignemnt with Jen and Julia Cohen since January 2009.

Feng Shui: Something I do that is unique in that I give each painting a Feng Shui recommendation and also guide collectors as to where they could place the  piece in their home or a room to further energize the area the piece supports such as health, relationships, family, or creativity, etc. Look back on old blogs with paintings posted and you'll see this.


Photographed for prints? Y/N

Posted on Blog/Website/Cafepress? 

If you have any ideas on how to make this process more fun, pls do let me know. Until next week!

Art Career Success - vision boards & affirmative video

/

My friend Lyza Loo and I are going to get together to create affirmative vision boards for ourselves and our successful lives as artists. I made these last year, one for my art career and the other for my dream homestead. I'd like to add to the art career vision board and make it prettier.


 I think this video might be as good even better and it's already done! Check out this Art Career Success video. Tres Cool!

New adventures in 2009 - SWITCH

/
Next week I'll be driving down to Beverly Hills to meet with Jennifer and Julia Cohen, the two wondrous fashion diva owners of *SWITCH Boutique in Beverly Hills. They are currently showing and selling all my Raw Expression paintings (you can see these paintings on my website http://www.debchaney.com hompage.) 

These paintings were truly about getting it out there. Really, the series title "Raw Expression" says it all. The real honest story is that when I met Peter Moraites at Date with Destiny a few years back we had an incredibly sexual connection and Peter, being the man that he is, offered the suggestion that I used the energy to create art work, instead of venturing down other paths. You get the drift. So voila, 18 paintings.

Jennifer already bought "She fucked him for breakfast, lunch and dinner and still it was not enough" and my husband thinks she purchased this subconsioucsy because she wants more sex in her life???Who knows. These women are hot and happening. I'm sure getting 'it' is not a problem. But I must say it's one of my favourites of the series. 

Anyways, I'm going down to see how they've displayed the work and discuss having a few framed to hang on the wall as well as explore a few PR options and how to get the word out....Apparently movie stars and other celebs shop there so perhaps my work will end up with someone interesting...Will keep you posted!

*SWITCH Boutique
 Location: 238 S. Beverly Dr. Beverly Hills, CA 90212. Ph 310.860.1650 info@switchboutique.com

review and links:
http://yelp.com/biz/switch-boutique-beverly-hills


What brings you joy?

/


A few weeks ago I drove up to Big Sur, CA to take some personal time and work on a new series of paintings I'm calling Patchwork Paper ( photos of works in process will be revealed next week!). During the drive I listened to a new book entitled A Thousand Names for Joy by Byron Katie. This book took me into an entirely different way of seeing myself and reality. I recommend it highly.





So, here's my question for you for today...what brings you joy?





I was thinking of this question myself this morning as I dropped my daughter Ruthie off at kindergarten and set myself up to make little artist gift cards at a local cafe. Making cards brings me so much joy, as well as making art. Lately Ruth has made friends with my friend Kathy's dog Zeus - it brings me such joy to watch them run around togher, down the lane through the autumn leaves...wonderful.

Some other thigns that bring me joy:



  • writing in my journal

  • taking long walks in nature

  • ocean swimming

  • thinking about new paintings

  • connecting with friends

  • working on a project
  • reading a good book

Patchwork Paper....new paintings in process!

/
Here are some fun snaps of a series of collage paintings in process. The series is called Patchwork Paper. Each collage 'painting' is 23 x 30" on 150 pound paper and is a compilation of painted and textured papers put together in a patchwork pattern.

I paint and cut all the different papers and then organize the pieces to create the final piece.

This body of work has been created in various places - at a 24 hr paint-a-thon that occured in Santa Barbara in October, up at Esalen in Big Sur, and at home in my studio....

and, if you're wondering, the rocks are simply used to hold the paper in place before I begin to glue them down! (plus the rocks look nice!)

You can come and see the paintings in person this thursday December 4th at the DRAWN OUT group show, 125 E. Carrillo, Santa Barbara, CA 93101 5-8 PM

I start by painting the variuos papers - tissue paper, rice paper, hand made papers from tibet. I have been collecting these papers for years as I find them at art and specialty stores. Some of the papers were gifted to me.






Laying all the papers out to figure out what will work together.






During the process I write myself post-it-notes to remember what piece goes where. The pieces interlap so when I am in the glueing proces it takes all my focus and attention to remember what pieces goes where! The final piece is never the same as the initial.








After choosing the papers I begin by putting them on the 23 x 30 " paper and start working out the pattern.





A close up of the pink and gold patchwork piece.






A close up of the deep red papers.




Near the end when I have glued on all the papers, I lay down a plastic kitchen garbage bag (these seem to work best) and then cover it with heavy books to flatten the collage down.

Stay posted for the final art pieces which will be posted on my blog and website when they are finished and then professionally photographed. All works are for sale. Unframed $800 USD and framed $1200. Feel free to call to view paintings (805) 403-9879. Serious inquiries onlyl please. Thank you.

24 hr -paint - a - thon & ART SHOW in Santa Barbara

/
On Saturday October 25th a group of Santa Barbara artists, including myself and my friend Lyza Fontana got together to paint for 24 hrs! The show was organized by Ethan Turpin -

Here are some picts from the event.


Some beautiful caligraphy writings were created on paper tags by Ulrike Kerber.









Ethan worked on a large scrolll with words and pencil drawings






Here we all are working







Julie did very realistic sketches of mosquitos and wonderful little abstract sribbles on papers.








Jonny Troyna working on his pencil drawings






The group art pieces we all added to during the day/night.






Saul Grey-Hilderbrand  is working on a 150 ft long scroll!





Lyza Loo (nickname for my wonderful friend Lyza Fontana) is working on her wonderful mixed media paintings on canvas. Love her work. Kind of reminds me of Kelly Rae Roberts's work.










Lyza Fontana in her groove making art. Go girl!





and I did not take any pictures of myself, except the Patchwork Paper collage painting series in process which will be my next blog post!


All the art will be shown:

at " DRAWN OUT" an exhibition of the 24 hr ARt Slam" thursday Dec 4th 5-8 PM

VIVA Design Studio Gallery
Located behind 'Labor ready'
125 E. CArRILLO ST.Santa Barbara.ca.93101






























My Kid Could Paint That

/
Just finished watching the documentary My Kid Could Paint That about Marla Olmstead the contemporarty abstract painter, established age 4.

This movie brought up so much emotion I found myself crying during parts of it. Her work is real, her process liberating, and the scene where the art teacher cannot speaks because emotion is welling up inside her, quite honestly, is the reason I teach adults --- to let them re- experience that childlike wonder and freedom of creativity. Beacuse we all have that in us at and if we are honest we all long to go back to that place of childlike innocence, pushing paint around, finger painting, stayhing in our PJ's all day.

The reasons Marla paints are the reasons I paint - for the moment, to play with paint, and to connect with something greater than myself that is part of all of us, that as humans we have lost with our thinking and analyzing and fretting and resisting and labelling and judging, and wish we could return to.

Cheers to you Marla, sweet artist, and to your fantastic and loving parents who did the best possible thing they could at every step of the way. Your work is exquisite and I hope above all you are able to keep the fun and bliss in your creating alive, always. Love to all of you.

Inspiration from sidewalks

/

When I was in San Francisco this summer I came across some framed paintings hanging in a store by artist John Smiddy. It was at The Big Pagoda Company downtown on Sutter street SF.


What grabbed me from his artist statement was;

" As my art practice has intensified, images I wouldn't normally have noticed -- the grime on the sidewalk, graffiti, rocks, puddles, trash and deteriorating posters, have become beautiful. "


I couldn't agree more. In fact, even before reading this I took this photo of the sidewalk while walking around downtown SF because it made me think of a painting I want to create.









Gratitude

/
Gratitude...

Gratitude for every time water comes out of the tap, for my health, my husband's health, my daughter's excellent health. Gratitude for my art studio for all the magic moments painting when time slips away and I enter pure blissful state.Gratitude for Byron Katie, Pema Chodron. Gratitude for facebook and finding old wonderful long lost friends. Gratitude for Iceland and the bike trip and all that I learned and experienced. Gratitude for Peter. For Sabrina. For the new website coming and all the help Matt's giving me. Gratitude my parents are still here and well and so dear to RUthie. Gratitude for Waldorf School. For artibizcoach.com and all that I've learned and am now applying. Gratitude for writing, painting, journalling, collaging. Gratitude for all the students who have passed through my studio and felt inspired and energized and painted and made stuff and asked great questions. Gratitude for life, for my arms, heart, legs, fitness, eyes, brain...Gratitude for books, the internet, other artists. Gratitude for freedom of expression. Gratitude for a sense of purpose and inspiration, daily.

More wonderful San Fran artists...Part II

/
This summer my husband and I had the opportunity to travel through San Francisco and Marin County. I came across an open studio brochure at a local art store in Mill Valley and cut out the art work images and names of these artists into my journal. Here we are just back from a hike at Muir Beach near Muir Woods....beautiful area.




Check them out , more great SF artists and be inspired!

Francis Snyder - In the summer brochure I was really drawn to her acrylic painting 'Secret life of plants' .

Suzie Buchholz - Great website homepage, love how one painting becomes another... Her work is a feast of colour. Take a look at the gallery.

Jeanne Scholz - Love her piece entiteld 'the road note taken' in watercolor, acrylic and mixed media.

Joan Hauck - Joan works in encaustic, mixed media, and fiber -- I hope to see her work in person one day. Love her piece called 'The Reds'.

Isabel Wyatt - Especially like her 'silk road' series, they look like they were very liberating to paint.

Georgette L Osserman - Especially love her section called 'oils' which has some wonderful abstract pieces.

Some wonderful San Francisco Arists

/
This summer my husband and I had the opportunity to travel through San Francisco and Marin County. I came across an open studio brochure at a local art store in Mill Valley and cut out the art work images and names of these artists into my journal. What can I say, it's just so fun to collage in little painting images. In doing so I pretty much converted our hotel rooms into art studios!






Check them out , these great SF artists and be inspired!

Louise Forbush - Uses mixed media, collage on wood and gold leaf. Absolutely LOVE the paper collage piece on the front of her website

Elaine Gentile- On her website I really enjoyed the abstracts, My favourite was the
Movement in Green 30x30" oil. Elaine also has a video on utube.

Monika Steiner - Love her 'Blue Shadows' piece!

Jeff Dodson - no website was listed by his collage works, especially "I still just want to be a millionare" are fun to see and reminicent of Sabrina's journal art.


Sandra Schoenberg - Her piece entitled ' Quiet integrity' captured my eye.

Helen Steele - I am really drawn to her work in wax, especially the blue pieces which seem almost electric blue.



Letters to....

/
Many years ago my friend Matthew Martenyi gifted me a copy of the book Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke.

Let me go back a moment here to tell you that Matthew is a great friend and about 10 years ago we sailed togher on his boat, Pooh Bear, from San Francisco to La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico. I was crew and he was the captain. This trip was precursed by a trip of which I sailed from Vancovuer to San Francisco with captain Bob and the story of this was published in Traveler's Tales Books Sand in my Bra, Funny Women Write for the Road. Anyways, Matthew and I have stayed great friends since and he was here a few weeks ago reading my daughter Ruthie (5) book after book and took her out for pancakes to Sambo's...It was very sweet.

So, back to the Letters to a young Poet book. If you follow my blog or know me personally you will know that I am not a great reader. I like pictures! The bar has been set high in my family on thsi arena as my Dad will never be found without a book or a magazine nearby and my husband reads at least a book a day. Hence, if I read a novel every few months, well that be my quota. So, I had not cracked this lovely book Matthew had gifted me until now.

Until i was reading through one of Sabrina Ward Harrison book/journals - now that's my idea of book! It's an utter visual feast of mixed media art, collage, banana peel stickers and whatever else is lying around, wrapped into wonderful thoughtful prose and questions. Something that caught my eye in one of her books was ripped out and collaged in pages - slightly obscured by paint and collage items, making it all the more fun to try and read - the wonderful Letters to a young poet. My intest was re-kindled and I have the book here by my side and thought I would share a piece with you if you'd made it this long through my babbling!

On re-discovering ones own old art works, writings, school projects...

" I know that it is important and full of new experience to come upon a work of one's own again written in a strange hand. Read the lines as though they were someone else's, and you will feel deep wtihin you how much they are your own."



PS Letters to a Young ARtist by Julia Cameron is divine! ( I actually did read this one!!!)

Expanding our beliefs about what's possible

/
A while back, OK, I admit it's been well over a year, Rick Stitch fellow artist, teacher, & mentor of mine here in Santa Barbara, loaned me the book Portraits - Talking with Artist at the MET, The modern, The louvre and elsewhere by Michael Kimmelman. It's been on my shelf for a while and then it moved to my folder entitled " Blogs" so I finally cracked it open and while perusing the book I came to the understanding of why reading about other artists can be so beneficial:

Reading -or talking to, or watching movies -about others can expand our beliefs about what is possible for our own life.

I remember visiting another art mentor and teacher Adolfo Girala several years back when he was still living in west LA. ( Adolfo has since moved to London, England to further persue is art career). and I recall him casually mentioning he had made $250K the last year. That comment alone expanded my concept of what is possible financially for working artist. My beliefs expanded. I just received a group/touch base letter he sent out before leaving for London and he said he was doing even better. Congrats Adolfo! I hope to see you in London.

After Rimi Yang exhibited her large and captivating oil and wax work at Artamo gallery (as I write this, pls note - sadly- she is no longer represented there) I had a conversation with her via email to discover taht she was asked to be an artist in Residence in NewFoundLand Canada. Again, another possibility I'd never thought of - you can actually go to a nice place with artist studios where they will feed and fund you and you get to share and teach your passion with others. How cool is that? You can bet I've found a few residency positions in which I intend to apply to.

YOu may not be an artist in the tradional sense, but truly I belive we are all artists - creating our lives in our way. Therefore my question to you is, how has talking to others in your field, reading books, or seeing movies expanded your horizon of beliefs and possibilies?

Please do let me know here in comments....