Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I thought this image was appropriate for the start of 2009. It is another work that is part of the star theme I have been into for a while. It has a large element of randomness in the process in the way the piece was laid out. For example, I placed random 'dots' on the paper with pen and pencil until I liked the placement and groupings that were created with these points. I then let it 'rest' for a couple of days. I knew there was more that I wanted to do with it because it didn't feel finished and when I got back to my studio a couple of days later I decided that I wanted to fill up the page with markers so I started adding five lines from each point. It reminded me of stars and also of the way fireworks start from the center and work their way outward.

I would also like to mention the use of markers as opposed to paint for this work and many other works i have been making in my series. Don't get me wrong I love paint and what I can make with it but I have been falling in love with the way everyday office materials make marks. The pencil is a regular sight on a desk and is such a versatile tool and has been used for so many different things. The ballpoint ben becomes a little more difficult to manipulate but there is a quality to the way it presses on the paper and the way the ink is released that allows for slight variations even with the same amount of pressure being applied to the mark. I also am infatuated with the way markers are absorbed by the paper. The ink doesn't just sit on the surface but becomes part of the paper and eventually the marker dries up but it still creates a beautiful mark.

Its about stars

My most recent piece after getting back into my studio after a 4 month hiatus turned out better than I was expecting. I had been using the star symbol in my work before the baby was born, but not to the extent that I did in my most recent work. The traditional symbol of a star with multiple points is a quite nice shape and with all the many connotations that accompany a it, a start can mean so many things. Thinking of all the places I see stars including the sky. I can not escape them. There are stars in the entertainment industry, in business, in athletics, in the military. They represent states and countries. And even have their place in religion. With all of these associations, stars are one of the most ambiguous and abstract complex shapes (it has a minimum of 10 sides with 5 points and 5 valleys) I can also forego the entire shape of a star and represent it as just a dot. It then becomes something different while still representing a star. When a star becomes a dot, it becomes a point, and as such becomes even more ambiguous. I think I can play with the concept of stars for a while.